He had gone round the bed to the side facing the door, in order to get nearer to his patient, who lay nearer this side than the other. He sat by the pillow, and gave his directions to Mrs. Grabbit without looking up from the little girl, whose hot hand lay gently held in his, while his grave eyes were bent upon the small fever-flushed face. Geoffrey had entered softly during the last few moments, and stood at the foot of the bed. When Lucius had finished his instructions as to treatment, he looked up. The door opposite the bed was open, and a woman stood upon the threshold—a tall slim figure dressed in black, a pale anxious face, beautiful even in its sadness. At sight of that silent figure, the surgeon started from his seat with a smothered cry of surprise. The sad eyes met his steadily with an imploring look, a look that for him spoke plainly enough. Geoffrey looked at him wonderingly, perplexed by that startled movement. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘Nothing. But I saw a lady looking in at that door. The mother perhaps.’ Geoffrey darted into the sitting-room. Yes she was there, standing by the window in the wan light of a week-old moon, with tears streaming down her face. ‘My dear Mrs. Bertram, pray, pray do not distress yourself!’ cried Geoffrey, to whom the office of consoler was new and strange. ‘All is going on well; nothing could be more satisfactory—Lucius says so. She will be herself again in a few days.’ ‘Thank God, and thank your friend for me,’ she said, in a voice choked with sobs. ‘I could not rest down-stairs; I wanted to hear what he said. Tell him I thank him with all my heart.’ ‘Thank him with your own lips,’ pleaded Geoffrey; ‘he will value your words far above mine. And you don’t know what a good fellow he is.’ ‘Let Mrs. Bertram feel assured that I am only too happy to have been of use,’ said the voice of Lucius from the threshold. Mrs. Bertram hurried to the door, where the surgeon’s figure stood, tall and dark, on the unlighted landing. ‘O, let me speak to him, let me take his hand!’ she cried, with uncontrollable agitation; and the next moment stood face to face with Lucius Davoren, with her hand clasped in his. They could hardly see each other’s faces, but that was a lingering handclasp. Geoffrey stood a little way apart, watching them with some slight wonder, and thinking that quite so much gratitude could hardly be necessary even for a doctor who had travelled over a hundred miles to write a prescription for an idolised child. ‘It’s a pity I’m not in the medical line myself,’ he thought, somewhat bitterly; and yet he had been anxious that Mrs. Bertram should acknowledge his friend’s services. He reflected that a doating mother was doubtless a foolish creature. He must not be angry with his divinity if she seemed hysterical, or even in a state bordering on distraction.