Bernard shook her hand off, declaring he was all right; but he walked unsteadily into the little sitting-room, where he had expected to find Doris. "Sit down, sir; I’ll get you a glass of water or a cup of tea in a moment----" "Nonsense! I mean, I’m much obliged to you. But all I wish to know is this, where is Miss Anderson? Where--is--Miss--Anderson? "Oh, I’ll tell you, sir, in a moment," answered Mrs. Austin, bustling about and getting him some water. "Take a drink, sir," and she held the glass to his lips. He drank slowly. The room, which had been turning round and sinking into the ground, became once more stationary, whilst the clouds of darkness disappeared, and it was light again. "There, you’ll do now," said Mrs. Austin. "Miss Anderson told me that you had been ill." "Never mind me. Where is she?" Bernard asked the question impatiently. Would the woman never answer him? "There have been changes, sir, since you were here," said Mrs. Austin, rather nervously, standing before him, twisting her apron round her fingers, with her eyes fixed upon it. "It all came of the artist gentleman. I wish to goodness he had never set his foot inside of my door!" "Do you mean Miss Sinclair’s brother?" interrupted Bernard, taking alarm at Norman Sinclair’s influencing Doris’s movements. He remembered warning her against him in this very room, and telling her that if she grew to care for him she would not love her Bernard any more. "Yes, Mr. Sinclair. I begged her not to listen to him. But she did. And he came again and again, until he had persuaded her to stop making those pictures and give up her business, which was paying her so grandly." "Give up her business! Did you say he persuaded her to give up her business? Did she do that?" "Yes, sir, yes. Didn’t she tell you? For, now I come to think of it, she had done that before you were ill, when she went to see you at Richmond." "Had she taken such a step then? She never told me so. She never said a word about it to me." "Didn’t she, sir? Then perhaps she thought you were too ill to be bothered. She told me when she returned from Richmond that she had seen you off by train for the north, hoping that your native air and your mother’s nursing would restore you. Not that it has done much for you, sir, as far as I can see----" "Never mind that. Tell me what Miss Anderson did next?" Bernard asked anxiously.