We lost the Fergussons too, although not by death. They had not long remained at the Hall after the burial of the hatchet, even though my invaluable attendance was theirs once more. They had become restless and discontented. The Hall estate had been bought for Ronnie to succeed to; and of what use was it now? Sir Edmund had nothing to do—his interest in tree-planting and general improvements disappeared, and he gradually took a dislike to the place. The result was that they left for one of the Continental health resorts—Aix-les-Bains, I think it was. When they went I decided to take no new patients, and gradually allowed my practice to pass to others, and when Mrs. O’Gorman died I retired altogether. * * * * * I said something a little while back about Rose and her ignorance of her mother’s flight—or, at any rate, silence regarding it. That was when she was a child. But later, when she had reached the teens, references to her mother gradually came naturally into her conversation, and she would even ask me about her. “Tell me about mother, Dombeen,” she would say. “Was she like me? Mrs. O’Gorman says that our voices are just the same.” “Did you like her better than me?” She wanted to know this very badly. I have no doubt that she had collected other views as well as mine and had a fairly sound idea of the situation. “Of course it was naughty to run away from father,” she began once, after one of Eustace’s visits, “but—” Here she broke off with a suspicion of a chuckle. I was careful not to ask her to finish the sentence. Sometimes she propounded terrible posers, which were not made any simpler by being dropped from clear skies in the midst of talk on the most innocent of themes. I remember one evening I was pointing out the constellations. I had just said, “That’s Orion’s Belt,” when she inquired, “Do you think, Dombeen, that husbands and wives, when they love other people, ought to go on living together?” “But that has nothing to do with astronomy,” was my feeble reply. Another time, after another of Eustace’s visits: “What do men look like when their hearts are broken?” “If I found I had married the wrong man I should leave him,” was another announcement. (This was when she was sixteen.) “As a maffact, Dombeen, I expect I shall make a mistake like that. I don’t see how one can help it. I’ve always got tired of everything up to now, so why should it be different with a husband?” This was the War virus working with a vengeance! We all had to adjust ourselves to that, we old people.