“But it cannot be,” she cried, “it cannot be; it is out of the question. Oh, you are a man of resource; you must find out some way to baffle this old curmudgeon. There must, there must,” she exclaimed, “be some way out of it, if you care to try.” “Trying will not invent thousands of pounds, alas! nor can the man who has the greatest fund of resource but no money do it anyhow,” said Dr. Burnet sententiously. “There may be a dodge----” “That is what I meant. There must be a dodge to--to get you out of it,” she cried. “It is possible that the man whose existence you divine might not care to get a wife--if she would have him to begin with--by a dodge, Lady Jane.” “Oh, rubbish!” cried the great lady, “we are not so high-minded as all that. I am of opinion that in that way anything, everything can be done. Charlie Somers is a fool and Stella another; but to a sensible pair with an understanding between them and plenty of time to work--and an old sick man,” Lady Jane laid an involuntary emphasis on the word sick--then stopped and reddened visibly, though her countenance was rather weather-beaten and did not easily show. “A sick man--to be taken advantage of? No, I think that would scarcely do,” he said. “A sensible pair with an understanding, indeed--but then the understanding--there’s the difficulty.” “No,” cried Lady Jane, anxiously cordial to wipe away the stain of her unfortunate suggestion. “Not at all--the most natural thing in the world--where there is real feeling, Dr. Burnet, on one side, and a lonely, sensitive girl on the other----” “A lonely, sensitive girl,” he repeated. And then he looked up in Lady Jane’s face with a short laugh--but made no further remark. Notwithstanding the safeguard of her complexion, Lady Jane this time grew very red indeed; but having nothing to say for herself, she was wise and made no attempt to say it. And he got up, having nothing further to add by any possibility to his prescription, and put it into her hand. “I must make haste home,” he said, “the snow is very blinding, and the roads by this time will be scarcely distinguishable.” “I am sorry to have kept you so long--with my ridiculous cold, which is really nothing. But Dr. Burnet,” she said, putting her hand on his sleeve, “you will think of what I have said. Let justice be done to those poor Somers. Their poverty is something tragic. They had so little expectation of anything of the kind.” “It is most unlikely that I can be of any use to them, Lady Jane,” he said a little stiffly, as he accepted her outstretched hand. Perhaps Lady Jane had more respect for him than ever before. She held his prescription in her hand and looked at it for a moment. “I think I’ll take it,” she said to herself as if making a heroic resolution. She had really a little cold.