"Send me word if you need me, not otherwise. There's typhus down Wyvveloe way, and I'm run off my legs. A dog's life, dame--little thanks and less pay!" And he buttoned up his coat fiercely and strode out to his gig. "I'll send John Braddle out," he called back over his shoulder. "But I doubt if we can wait to hear from Sir Denzil. However----" And he drove away, through the slanting morning sunshine. The white sand-hills smiled happily, the wide flats blazed like a rippled mirror, the sky was brightest blue, and very far away the sea slept quietly behind its banks of yellow sand. CHAPTER V IN THE COIL The days passed and brought no word from Sir Denzil in reply to Dr. Yool's post letter. And, having waited as long as they could, they buried Lady Susan in the little green churchyard at Wyvveloe, where half a dozen Carrons, who happened to have died at Carne, already rested. Dr. Yool and Braddle had had to arrange everything between them, and, as might have been expected under the circumstances, the funeral was as simple as funeral well could be, and as regards attendance--well, the doctor was the only mourner, and he still boiled over when he thought of the useless way in which this poor life had been sacrificed. Braddle was there with his men, of course, but the doctor only just managed it between two visits, and his manner showed that he grudged the time given to the dead which was all too short for the requirements of the living. Yet it went against the grain to think of that poor lady going to her last resting-place unattended, and he made a point of being there. But his gig stood waiting outside the churchyard gate, and he was whirling down the lane while the first spadefuls were drumming on the coffin. He thought momentarily of the child as he drove along. But, since no call for his services had come from Mrs. Lee, he supposed it was going on all right, and he had enough sick people on his hands to leave him little time for any who could get along without him. The days ran into weeks, and still no word from Sir Denzil. It looked as though the little stranger at Carne might remain a stranger for the rest of his days. And yet it was past thinking that those specially interested should make no inquiry concerning the welfare of so important a member of the family. "Summat's happened," was old Mrs. Lee's terse summing-up, with a gloomy shake of the head whenever she and Nance discussed the matter, which was many times a day. Other matters too they discussed, and to more purpose, since the forwarding of them was entirely in their own hands. And when they spoke of these other matters, sitting over the fire in the long evenings, each with a child on her knee, hushing it or feeding it, their talk was broken, interjectional even at times, and so low that the very walls could have made little of it.