"It was well for the fainting girl that she did," interrupted Dudley calmly. "When I was going to the vestry some one rushed frantically against me, and told me a woman had fainted. I arrived on the scene a moment after Miss Maclean, but fortunately she did not see me. By Jingo, Stuart, that girl can rise to an occasion! If ever your chapel is crowded, and takes fire, you may pray that Miss Maclean may be one of the congregation." It gave him a curious pleasure to talk like this, but he would not have trusted himself to say so much, had it not been for the friendly darkness, and the noise of the gravel beneath their feet. Mr Stuart suspected nothing. Dr Dudley and Rachel Simpson's cousin! People would have been very slow to link their names. "Yes, she is very intelligent," he repeated. "I must try to find time to have some more talks with her." "I wish you joy of them!" thought Dudley. "I should like to know how you tackle a case like that, Stuart," he said. "Tell me what you said to her, and what she said to you." CHAPTER XXXII. CHUMS. Action and reaction are equal and opposite. Dudley was back in his den in London. For the first day after his return, he had thought of nothing but Mona; her face had come between him and everything he did. Now it was bending, grave and motherly, over the fainting girl, now it was sparkling with mischief at the quotation from _Faust_, now it vibrated to the words of _Stradivarius_, and now--oftenest of all--it looked up at him in the dim lamplight, with that enquiring, inexplicable smile, half friendly, half defiant. And the evening and the morning were the first day. But now the second day had come, and Dudley was thinking--of Rachel Simpson. He pushed aside his books, and tramped up and down the room. How came she there, his exquisite fern, in that hideous dungeon? And was she indeed so fair? Removed from those surroundings, would she begin for the first time to show the taint she had acquired? In the drawing-room, at the dinner-table, in a _solitude à deux_, what if one should see in her a suggestion of--Rachel Simpson? And then Mona's face came back once more, pure, high-souled, virgin; without desire or thought for love and marriage. There was not the faintest ruby streak on the bud, and yet, and yet--what if he were the man to call it forth? Why had she refused his arm? It would have been pleasant to feel the touch of that strong, self-reliant little hand. It would be pleasant to feel it now---- There was a knock at the door, and a fair-haired, merry-eyed young man came in. "Holloa, Melville!" said Dudley. "Off duty?" "Ay; Johnston and I have swopped nights this week." "Anything special on at the hospital?" "No, nothing since I saw you. That Viking is not going to pull through, after all." "You don't mean it!" "Fact. I believe that bed is unlucky. This is the third case that has died in it. All pneumonia, too."