"Not always have her own way," she repeated. "If I could have had my own way, do you think I would--" "Florence!" he said again; "and I did not even recognise her. Strange!" Another of the ladies, the colonel's wife, was standing beside him. "You know her, doctor?" "I knew her a long time ago--some years ago--before she married." "Married? Florence is not married. You must be thinking of some one else." "No. This is Florence Vernon, is it not? Yes. Then she was formerly engaged to marry a certain Sir William Duport." "Oh, I believe there was some talk about an old man who wanted to marry her. But she wouldn't have him. It was just before her mother died. Did you know her mother?" "I knew her mother a little when they were living at Eastbourne. So she refused the old man, did she? and has remained unmarried. Curious! I had almost forgotten her. The sight of her brings back the old days. Well, after she has pulled so gallantly through the cholera, we cannot have her beaten by a little fever. Refused the old man, did she?" In the dead of night he sat watching by the bedside, the colonel's wife with him. "I had almost forgotten," whispered the lady, "that story of the old baronet. She told me about it once. Her mother was ill, and anxious about her daughter because she had next to nothing except an annuity. The old man offered; he was an unpleasant old man, but there was a fine house and everything. It was all arranged. The girl was quite a child, and understood nothing. She was to be sold, in fact, to this old person, who ought to have been thinking of his latter end instead of a pretty girl. Then the mother died suddenly, and the girl broke it off. She was a clever girl, and she has been teaching. For the last three years she has been in India; now she is going home under my charge. She is a brave girl, doctor, and a good girl. She has received half a dozen offers, but she has refused them all; so I think there must be somebody at home." "Claude," murmured the girl, wandering, "I never thought you would care so much. If I had thought so, I would not have encouraged you. Indeed, indeed, I would not. I thought we were only amusing ourselves." "Claude is a pretty name. What is your own Christian name, doctor?" asked the colonel's wife, curiously. "It is--in fact--it is Claude," he replied, blushing; but there was not enough light to see his blushes. "Dear me!" said the colonel's wife. A few days later the patient, able to sit for a while in the shade of the veranda, was lying in a long cane chair. Beside her sat the colonel's wife who had nursed her through the attack. She was reading aloud to her. Suddenly she stopped. "Here comes the doctor," she said; "and, Florence, my dear, his name, you know, is Claude. I think you have got something to talk about with Claude besides the symptoms." With these words she laughed, nodded her head, and ran into the salon.