This was rash; but, after acting the part of the one who knows, Mr Cookson was unwilling to own his ignorance; and, his idea of medical women being vague and alarming in the extreme, it never crossed his mind that an attractive, well-to-do young lady like Miss Maclean could possibly belong to their ranks. Ralph turned to Matilda. "Do you know where Miss Maclean is now?" he said. "In London?" "I had a letter from her yesterday," Matilda answered proudly, drawing an oft-perused document from her pocket. "She is just starting with a party of friends to travel in Switzerland." "What a magnificent araucaria that is!" Dudley said suddenly. "It would need be," replied Mr Cookson. "It cost me a pretty penny, I can tell you." Then Dudley rose to go. His manner was playful, but his heart was welling over with bitterness. He did not realise the position in which he had placed the woman he loved; it did not occur to him to think how much worse it would have been if she had run after him, instead of appearing to run away. He could not believe that she was false, and yet--how she had deceived him! What madness it was ever to trust to the honesty of a woman's eyes! "Well, old boy!" he said to himself cynically, as he walked back to Carlton Lodge, "are we going to write our 'Sorrows of Werther' _once again_?" CHAPTER LI. ANOTHER CHAT BY THE FIRE. The last sodden leaves had fallen from the London trees, and autumn was fast merging into winter. Mona sat alone in her study, deep in a copy of _Balfour On the Heart_, which she had picked up second-hand, on her way from hospital, and had carried home in triumph. It was the height of her ambition at this time to be "strong on the heart and lungs"; and as she read she mechanically percussed the arm of her big chair, with a lightness of touch which many doctors might have envied. There was a knock at the door, and Miss Lascelles entered the room. "That's right," said Mona, holding out her hand, "sit down." "Thanks," was the reply, in Miss Lascelles's cultured, musical drawl. "I am not going to stay. I came to ask if you would lend me your notes of that leucocythæmia case. I am working up the spleen just now." "I will, with pleasure. But don't be in such a hurry, now that you have come so far. I never get a chance to speak to you in hospital. Sit down and tell me what the scientist thinks of it all." Miss Lascelles pulled off her hat unceremoniously, and passed her hand through her dark hair. "Oh, reform it altogether!" she cried. "There is a deal of humbug in the profession, and I don't know that the women have lessened it." Mona laughed. "What a born reformer you are!" she said admiringly. "I suppose I am. In other words, I shall never be a successful doctor. _Kismet!_ I don't see how any honest man can live in this world and not be a reformer." "Don't you? Oh, I do." Miss Lascelles glanced round the pretty room.