When she returned to Belgrave Square--haggard, distraught, and ghastly in colour--she found that Mr. West had kept his room the whole day; that the house had returned to its normal condition, the palms and awnings were gone, and “dinner was laid in the library.” Thus she was blandly informed by the butler as she passed upstairs, the butler being far too gentlemanly a person to even hint his amazement at her appearance by look or tone. But Miss West did not dine in the library. She went to bed, which she never left for six long weeks. Diphtheria developed itself. The drains of 365, Belgrave Square, were unjustly blamed. Miss West had got a chill the night of the dance, and it was known in society that for many, many days the charming hostess lay between life and death. Josephine, a romantic and imaginative Gaul, had long believed that her mistress had a secret love affair. She drew her own inferences; she sympathized, and she commanded the household to keep silence respecting Miss West’s mysterious errand. The morning after the ball, when diphtheria developed, the house was rapidly emptied. Even Josephine fled, and left her lady in the hands of trained nurses. Mr. West and a few domestics stuck to their posts, the infected quarter being rigorously isolated by means of sheets dipped in disinfectant fluid. Few of the gay guests ventured to leave cards at the house. Diphtheria is an awful scourge, and this is the age of microbes. In old times ignorance was bliss. Many kind inquiries and anxious messages came by letter, and not a few men questioned Mr. West at his club. His daughter was such a lovely creature, so full of vitality, she enjoyed every moment of her life. Oh, it would be a thousand pities if she were to die! Strange as it seemed, there was no more regular inquirer than Mr. Wynne. On the day when Madeline was at her worst, when three grave doctors consulted together in her boudoir, Mr. Wynne actually came to the house; and later he appeared to be continually in the club--which was more or less empty. The season was past. People were on the wing for the seaside or the moors; but Mr. Wynne still lingered on in town. Mr. West was constantly knocking up against him in the club hall or reading-room, and the more he saw of him the better he liked him. He was always so sympathetic somehow about Madeline, although he had scarcely known her, and took a sincere interest in hearing what the doctors said, and how they could not understand how or where she had caught the infection. There was not a single case of diphtheria in their neighbourhood.