“Oh no, later than that,” said Rose. “Mayn’t I wait till three?” We compromised upon half-past one, and Hannah’s opinion of me sank still lower. “Calls himself a doctor!” I fancy I heard her muttering. Meanwhile, in his devotion, old Wellicum was scouring the neighbourhood in one direction, and Briggs in another, and the stable-boy in a third. They straggled back at about midnight, and at half-past one I moved the closure and we all went to bed, fearing the worst. It was just three when I was awakened by a furious knocking at the door and a joyous voice crying, “Dombeen, Dombeen, he’s come back!” And so he had, the rascal, after what we discovered later to have been simply a distant amatory expedition. Rose, it seems, although she had consented to go to bed, had got up again and had been sitting by the window until she had seen love’s pilgrim creep in. Downstairs we went, in our dressing-gowns, and fed him and petted him as though he were a hero instead of a mere voluptuary. What kind of a welcome Rex had expected, and what he thought of the surprising turn that things had taken and our manifestations of delight, I can only guess, but being a Clumber he probably laughed long when at last he regained his kennel. * * * * * It was when Rose was ten or eleven that the Hall, the big house of the place, with a park around it, was bought by Sir Edmund Fergusson, and local society was enriched by the addition of his family, which consisted of Lady Fergusson and their only child, Ronald, or Ronnie, who was about Rose’s own age. The Fergussons naturally became my patients. Sir Edmund’s trouble was gout, which, like most gouty people, he did nothing consistently to check. Sporadically he was careful in his diet, but then would arrive a temptation that he could not resist. A large part of all doctors’ lives is taken up in scolding gouty patients for their imprudences and patching them up into a condition to commit more. Ronnie Fergusson had a tutor at that time, and Rose a governess; and neither instructor was inclined to extend the working hours unreasonably. During the playing hours the two children were much together. They had a crow’s nest in one of the Fergussons’ trees, and an empty furnace-pit under a disused greenhouse of mine served them as a robbers’ cave. Ronnie’s parents having married late, he was more like their grandson than son, and therefore a little lonely, and Rose’s companionship was exactly what his nature needed. * * * * * Until Rose was thirteen I knew nothing but serenity in my foster-fatherhood. But then she gave me a shock. It turned out to be a false alarm in that it set up no precedent, but for a while I was nervous.