He made some excuse about not being a general practitioner. I was sorry I had spoken in that self-possessed way. I saw I had given him no idea of the urgency of our need. I had to explain that all we asked of him was to give some help at once. And only for once. Our regular doctor would be with us very soon. He seemed slow-witted, for he stood there several seconds, with one free hand pulling at his rough moustache of reddish-brown. "We mustn't lose time," I said. As I led the way, I heard the door open behind me, and the sound of golf clubs thrown down in a stone passage. He caught up with me at the gate, and we walked rapidly across Big Klaus's fields. While we were going by the pond, in the lower meadow, a moorhen scuttled to her nest in the tangle on the bank. Her creaking cry had always sounded so cheerful since my mother pointed out that the mechanic "click! click!" was like a Christmas toy. To-day I knew it for a warning. The man had caught up a stick. He struck sharply with it, as he passed, at the tall nettles growing in the ditch. What was happening at home all this time? I began to walk faster, with a great misery at my heart. What was the good of this man who wasn't a general practitioner? He was too like all the other broad-shouldered young golfers in Norfolk jackets--far too like them, to help in so dire a need as ours. I tried to hearten myself by recalling what Lord Helmstone had said of him. That "the bigwigs in the world of science spoke of Annan with enthusiasm." "An original mind." "A demon for work" (that was, perhaps, why he hadn't wanted to come with me). Odds and ends came back. "Annan would go far." He had gone too far in the direction of overwork. He had been urged to come down here and play golf. Still, he worked long hours.... And while I recalled these things, in the back of my head, I kept repeating: "Mother, mother! I am bringing help." We did not talk, except for my turning suddenly to warn him that my younger sister was not to know if my mother---- "Yes, yes!" he said. I felt he understood. I walked faster--almost at a run. He did not seem to notice. His long strides kept him near me without an effort. Mother, mother!---- Oh, how wildly the birds were singing! She had said that only we ever noticed the special quality in the vesper song. Something the morning never heard. The air was filled with a passion of that belated singing. "Good-night," I heard her say, "is better than good-morning." Oh, mother! if that is so for you, think of your children. Did the stranger object to jumping ditches and climbing stiles? "I am taking you the short cut," I said. "Of course." We were coming to the copse on the edge of the heath. The hawthorn foamed along the outer fringe. This was where we met Colonel Dover all those years ago. Every inch of the way I saw pictures of my mother. All that gentleness and beauty---- What a richness had been lavished on our lives!