The two gentlemen kept the ball going between them most of the time, for Doris never talked much except in a _solitude à deux_. And yet how intensely she made her presence felt, as she sat at the head of the table,--sweet, gracious, almost childlike, her fair young face scarcely giving a hint of the strength and enthusiasm that lay behind it! "I can hardly believe that I am to have you for a whole week," she said, following Mona into her bedroom, and rousing the fire; "it is too good to be true. And I am so glad you are going back to your work!" "So am I, dear," said Mona simply. "Of course! I knew you would come back to the point you started from." Mona smiled. "You are determined not to make it a spiral, I see. Ah, well! taking it as a circle, it is a bigger one than I imagined." Her words would not have struck Doris but for the tone in which they were unconsciously spoken. "What has biggened it?" she said, looking up from the fire. Mona's hands were clasped beneath her head on the low back of her arm-chair, and her eyes were fixed on the ceiling. "I don't know," she said. "Many things. How is Maggie getting on?" "Famously. Laurie says she will make a first-rate cook. You should have seen the child's face when I told her you were coming! I am so grateful to you, Mona, for giving me a chance to help her. There is so little that one can do!--that I can do at least! She is a sweet little thing, and so pretty. When I think of that man----" her face crimsoned, and she stopped short. "Don't think of him, dear," said Mona. "It us no use; and, you know, you must not spoil Maggie." Doris bent low over the fire, and the tears glistened on her long eyelashes. She tried to wink them away, but it was no use; and, after all, there was only Mona there to see, and Mona was almost a second self. She pressed her handkerchief hard against her eyes for a moment, and then turned to her friend with a smile. "What a time you must have had of it that night at the Wood! I _was_ proud of you!" "I wish you had more cause, dear. My duties were simple in the extreme." "And the country doctor--what did he say when he found how you had risen to the occasion?" Mona's eyes were fixed on the ceiling again. "I don't think he said anything that is likely to live in history. I believe he ventured to suggest that Maggie might have some beef-tea." This, as Dudley could have testified, was a pure fabrication. "I don't suppose he would be man enough to admit it, but he must have seen that you were in your proper place there--not he." Mona opened her lips to reply, and then closed them again. "Maggie has not been my only patient by any means," she said finally. "I have had no end of practice. I assure you I might have set up my carriage, if I had been paid for it all. Oh, Doris, it is sad work sometimes!" and she told the story of the last patient she had had.