He ought to have called at a cottage in East Lafer, and he did not know that he had passed through the village--yes, he had though; his horse had shied at the geese asleep on the green and he remembered having turned to catch the last glimpse of the lights twinkling at Old Lafer. Why the deuce had he forgotten the poor fellow in pain who was expecting him? As for the lanes with grassy margins where he generally took a gallop, the plantations suggesting pheasant-shooting, the oncoming turnips where partridges would find covert, he had seen none of them. The charm of the blurred landscape, the freshness of the night air, with its whiffs of sweetness from the honeysuckle thrown here and there in foamy sheets over the maple and holly of the hedges, had for once been unnoticed. He had indeed forgotten everything in thinking of Anna, as he realised when he got into his own house. A sleepy maid met him in the hall with the announcement that a boy from the Mires had been waiting an hour for medicine. He found him in the surgery, sitting on a chair behind the door with his legs dangling, and his cap held between his knees. He had forgotten all about old Hartas Kendrew's needs, and that he had ordered a messenger to come, so could not excuse himself by having overlooked the knack these dalesboys had of covering three or four miles in a whipstitch. He whistled softly as he sought out the necessary drugs and compounded them in a mortar. It was certain a doctor had no business to be in love. He did not care much for old Kendrew, but had it not been ten to one that the man at East Lafer would be asleep, he would have galloped back to see him. Old Kendrew was a miserable sinner whose death certificate it would give him pleasure to sign any day. He was not only a drunken scoundrel and cherished a blackguardly hatred of straight dealing but knew one or two discreditable facts connected with the family whom for Anna Hugo's sake Borlase wished to hold in special honour. Borlase knew well that there were elements of disastrous wrong-doing in Mrs. Severn's character and suspected that Kendrew knew this too. She had at various times left Old Lafer for some weeks and stayed at Kendrew's pit cottage at the Mires. There she had degraded herself by intemperance. This rendered it all but an impossibility that Kendrew should not have the knowledge and power to spread a scandal whenever he chose. Knowing the man as he did, it was inexplicable that he had not already done so. Some time had passed since her last visit to the Mires; and Borlase knew that at present she was little talked about except with admiration of her appearance and musical gifts. Her old freaks, if hinted at, were considered amusing, as one of the irresponsibilities of genius. The sin involved was, he was convinced, unsuspected where it was not, as in his case, definitely known. Dinah Constantine had told him. It had, joined to his professional knowledge