"You have no cough, my dear, have you?" more than one amiable grand lady asked her. "No, thank you--none at all," Robin answered and she was nearly always patted on the shoulder as her questioner left her. Kathryn sitting by her desk one morning, watching her as she wrote a note, suddenly put her hand out and stopped her. "Let me look at your wrist, Robin," she said and she took it between her fingers. "Oh! What a little wrist!" she exclaimed. "I--I am sure Grandmamma has not seen it. Grandmamma--" aloud to the Duchess, "_Have_ you seen Robin's wrist? It looks as if it would snap in two." There were only three or four people in the room and they were all intimates and looked interested. "It is only that I am a little thin," said Robin. "Everybody is thinner than usual. It is nothing." The Duchess' kind look somehow took in those about her in her answer. "You are too thin, my dear," she said. "I must tell you frankly, Kathryn, that you will be called upon to take her place. I am going to send her away into the wilds. The War only ceases for people who are sent into wild places. Dr. Redcliff is quite fixed in that opinion. People who need taking care of must be literally hidden away in corners where war vibrations cannot reach them. He has sent Emily Clare away and even her friends do not know where she is." Later in the day Lady Lothwell came and in the course of a few minutes drew near to her mother and sat by her chair rather closely. She spoke in a lowered voice. "I am so glad, mamma darling, that you are going to send poor little Miss Lawless into retreat for a rest cure," she began. "It's so tactless to continually chivy people about their health, but I own that I can scarcely resist saying to the child every time I see her, 'Are you any better today?' or, 'Have you any cough?' or, 'How is your appetite?' I have not wanted to trouble you about her but the truth is we all find ourselves talking her over. The point of her chin is growing actually sharp. What is Mrs. Gareth-Lawless doing?" curtly. "Giving dinners and bridge parties to officers on leave. Robin never sees her." "Of course the woman does not want her about. She is too lovely for officers' bridge parties," rather sharply again. "Mrs. Gareth-Lawless is not the person one would naturally turn to for sympathy in trouble. Illness would present itself to her mind as a sort of outrage." The Duchess herself spoke in a low tone and her eyes wandered for a moment or so to the corner where Robin sat among her papers. "She is a sensitive child," she said, "and I have not wanted to alarm her by telling her she must give up the work her heart is in. I have seen for some time that she must have an entire holiday and that she must leave London behind her utterly for a while. Dr. Redcliff knows of the right remote sort of place for her. It is really quite settled. She will do as I advise her. She is very obedient."