The former had left her comparatively better, ere starting for a long day in London. Little did he guess that the invalid had followed him by the next train, had given Josephine a holiday, had travelled into Hampshire, and gone through more mental and bodily stress than would exhaust a woman in robust health, had returned but an hour before him in a prostrate condition--and had subsequently kept her room for days. “I cannot account for it,” the doctor said. “Great physical debility. But, besides this, there is some _mental_ trouble.” “Impossible!” rejoined Mr. West, emphatically. “At any rate she must be roused, or I cannot answer for the consequences. She has no wish to get well. She won’t take the trouble to live. I think, if you could manage to get her on board ship, a sea voyage might have a good effect.” Yes, that would be the very thing, and fall in with Mr. West’s plans. A trip to Australia. “How about a trip out to Sydney?” “Yes; and the sooner you can get her off the better. Her illness is more mental than physical. She will perhaps recover amid totally strange surroundings, and where there is nothing to recall whatever is preying on her mind.” “Preying on--stuff and nonsense--preying on a goose’s mind!” cried Mr. West, irascibly. “I dare say whatever preyed upon a goose’s mind would have a scanty meal,” said the physician rather stiffly. “But she has never had a care in her life!” “Umph!” rejoined the other doubtfully. “_No_ love affairs?” “Not one.” “Well, I won’t conceal from you that she is in a most critical state. Take her abroad at once; you have given up your town house, you tell me; you have no anchor, no ties. You should start immediately, and be sure you humour her, and coax her into the trip, for it is only right to tell you that it’s just touch and go!” This was terrible news to Mr. West. His daughter had lost her looks, her spirits, her health; was he to lose her altogether? He broke the news of a sea voyage to her rather timidly that same evening. She listened to his eager schemes, his glowing word-paintings, his prophecy of a jolly good time, with a dull vacant eye, and totally indifferent air. “Yes, if he wished--whatever he pleased,” she assented languidly. It was all the same, she reflected, _where_ she died, on land or sea. But to one item she dissented--she objected to the proffered company of Mrs. Leach.