The doctor had made himself a very important feature in Katherine’s life during those dull winter days. After the great snowstorm, which was a thing by which events were dated for long after, in the island, and which was almost coincident with the catastrophe of the Rector; he had become more frequent in his visits to Mr. Tredgold and consequently to the tea-table of Mr. Tredgold’s lonely daughter. While the snow lasted, and all the atmospheric influences were at their worst, it stood to reason that an asthmatical, rheumatical, gouty old man wanted more looking after than usual; and it was equally clear that a girl a little out of temper and out of patience with life, who was disposed to shut herself up and retire from the usual amusements of her kind, would also be much the better for the invasion into her closed-up world of life and fresh air in the shape of a vigorous and personable young man, who, if not perhaps so secure in self-confidence and belief in his own fascinations as the handsome (if a little elderly) Rector, had not generally been discouraged by the impression he knew himself to have made. And Katherine had liked those visits, that was undeniable; the expectation of making a cup of tea for the doctor had been pleasant to her. The thought of his white strong teeth and the bread and butter which she never got out of her mind, was now amusing, not painful; she had seen him so often making short work of the little thin slices provided for her own entertainment. And he told her all that was going on, and gave her pieces of advice which his profession warranted. He got to know more of her tastes, and she more of his in this way, than perhaps was the case with any two young people in the entire island, and this in the most simple, the most natural way. If there began to get a whisper into the air of Dr. Burnet’s devotion to his patient on the Cliff and its possible consequences, that was chiefly because the doctor’s inclinations had been suspected before by an observant public. And indeed the episode of the Rector had afforded it too much entertainment to leave the mind of Sliplin free for further remark in respect to Katherine and her proceedings. And Mr. Tredgold’s asthma accounted for everything in those more frequent visits to the Cliff. All the same, it was impossible that there should not be a degree of pleasant intimacy and much self-revelation on both sides during these half hours, when, wrapped in warmth and comfort and sweet society, Dr. Burnet saw his dog-cart promenading outside in the snow or during the deeper miseries of the thaw, with the contrast which enhances present pleasure. He became himself more and more interested in Katherine, his feelings towards her being quite genuine, though perhaps enlivened by her prospects as an heiress. And if there had not been that vague preoccupation in Katherine’s mind concerning James Stanford, the recollection not so much of him as of the many, many times she had