"No need whatever,--all part of that stupid dream." "And ... sometime perhaps ... you would think better of me ... as you used to do. Oh,--Wulfrey! ..." If it had all happened as he had almost persuaded her to believe, he might have fallen into his own pit. For, under the stress of her emotions,--the wild hope of the possibility of relief from the horror that had been weighing her down,--the letting in of this thread of sunshine into the blackness of her despair,--the sudden joy of the thought that it was not she who needed Wulfrey's forgiveness, but he hers;--the shadows and the years fell from her, and she was more like the Elinor Baynard he had once been in love with than he had seen her since the day she married Pasley Carew. "We must not think of any such things," he said quickly, but not unkindly. He was very sorry for her, but he was no longer in love with her. "At present all we've got to think about is getting you quite yourself again. I will send you up some medicine,--if you won't be afraid to take it----" "Oh, Wulfrey! ..." with all the reproach she could put into it, and anxiously, "You will come again soon?" "If you get on well perhaps. If you don't I shall turn you over to Dr Newman," and he left her. "She ain't agoing to die, Doctor?" asked Mollie, as she waylaid him. "No, Mollie. She's going to get better." "Ah, I knew it'd do her good if you came to see her," said the astute handmaid with an approving look. "Get her to eat and feed her up. She's been letting herself run down." "Ah, she'll eat now maybe, if so be 's you've given her a bit of an appetite," said Mollie hopefully; and Dr Wulfrey went away home. XI But even two patients hardly make a practice, and though from the stolid commoner folk calls still came for 'th' Doctor's' services, upon the better classes a sudden blessing of unusual health appeared to have fallen, or else---- Dr Newman bought a horse about this time, and, though he did not as yet cut much of a figure on horseback, it enabled him to get about as he had never had occasion to do since he settled in the village, and it seemed as though, in his case as in others, practice would in time make him passable. Wulfrey watched the course of events quietly and with a certain equanimity. His mind was quite made up to go abroad, but he would not go till he was satisfied that that was the only course left to him. Everybody he met was as friendly as ever, the men especially, but sickness was a rare thing with them at any time, and their women-folk seemed to be getting along very well, for the time being without medical assistance, so far at all events as Dr Wulfrey Dale was concerned.