“No. No. I’m not! Last night, when everything was quiet, she came down out of the picture--right down--and she came and sat on the bed and took me in her arms--and I closed my eyes and leant up against her--and--and I know it was Miss Rags. No one else feels like her--no other woman--not mother, nor nurse, nor Aunt Alice; they’re all kind and nice--but they aren’t half so soft to lean against as Miss Rags. They aren’t really.” Then this strange and unaccountable man got up, for he was acknowledged throughout the whole of Lucifram to be eccentric, and he went and stood with his back to them, looking at the picture a long time. And Marigold watched his face, and understood the meaning of it--and from it, part of the reason of his unfailing coldness to her--yet not the whole of it. And suddenly she went up quietly and stood beside him, looking also at the picture; and she said almost in a whisper: “Timothy gets strange ideas now and then, like most sick people do. I know I am not like the lady there, for she is good, acknowledged good, and I am only struggling to be.” And the haunting eyes, half-tender, half-laughing, looked down on them. And again, still very softly, she continued: “Did you love her?” And he answered sternly, turning to look down at her: “I still love her. What is that to you?” But Marigold’s face was very white and beautiful as she looked back at him, and she said: “I asked, because she is so very beautiful.” And, forgetful of her own beauty, went back to the bed. “It’s like, isn’t it, Dr Quack?” piped Timothy’s feeble voice from the bed. “I don’t think so even yet.” And he turned very deliberately and went out of the room, even without saying “Good-morning” to them. The look of pain on Timothy’s face was to Marigold well-nigh unendurable. “Where--where’s he gone?” he cried, raising his head from the pillow. “It’s all right, Patches, dear. He’s busy.” “No. No. Miss Rags, he’s angry. I feel he’s angry. Because--because I said you were like my best queen.” “You shouldn’t have said it, Timothy, dear. I’m not like her. She is in Heaven, very, very good--and I’m not good, though I try to be.” “But I love you even if you’re bad--it doesn’t make any difference that.” And then he relapsed into silence. But all that day he fretted, and twice Marigold found him with big tears in his eyes. And she sang for him every song she could think of, repeating often those which were his favourites. And just about four o’clock he called her to him, and he whispered: “Miss Rags, will you send for Dr Quack?” “I don’t know where he lives.” “But I do--it’s at the back of that picture.” So Marigold went and found, as he had said, “Marble House, Greensward Avenue,” and she remembered noticing the building many times. “What shall I say to him?” “Ask him to come back. Say I’m very tired, and it’s making me tireder.” But the message never went, because the doctor came before it got away.