Elizabeth watched him. She knew very well that he was not thinking of her, although he had remembered the grey dress. And yet—for five years—it was she and not Mary to whom David came with every mood. During those five years, the years between fourteen and nineteen, it was always Elizabeth and David, David and Elizabeth. Then when David was twenty, and in his first year at hospital, Dr. Blake died suddenly, and for four years David came no more to Market Harford. Mrs. Blake went to live with a sister in the north, and David’s vacations were spent with his mother. For a time he wrote often—then less often—finally only at Christmas. And the years passed. Elizabeth’s girlhood passed. Mary grew up. And when David Blake had been nearly three years qualified, and young Dr. Ellerton was drowned out boating, David bought from Mrs. Ellerton a share in the practice that had been his father’s, and brought his mother back to Market Harford. Mrs. Blake lived only for a year, but before she died she had seen David fall headlong in love, not with her dear Elizabeth, but with Mary—pretty little Mary—who was turning the heads of all the young men, sending Jimmy Larkin with a temporarily broken heart to India, Jack Webster with a much more seriously injured one to the West Coast of Africa, and enjoying herself mightily the while. Elizabeth had memories as well as David. They came at least as near sadness as his. She thought she had remembered quite enough for one evening, and she set her foot on the stair above the landing. “Poor Miss Agatha!” she said. “What a worry we were to her, and how she disliked our coming here. I can remember her grumbling to Mr. Mottisfont, and saying, ‘Children make such a work in the house,’ and Mr. Mottisfont——” Elizabeth laughed. “Mr. Mottisfont said, ‘Don’t be such a damn old maid, Agatha. For the Lord’s sake, what’s the good of a woman that can’t mind children?’” David laughed too. He remembered Miss Agatha’s fussy indignation. “Good-night, David,” said Elizabeth, and she passed on up the wide, shallow stair. The light went with her. From below there came only a glimmer, for the lamp in the hall was still turned low. David went slowly on. As he was about to open the front door, Edward Mottisfont came out of the dining-room on the left. “One minute, David,” he said, and took him by the arm. “Look here—I think I ought to know. Is my uncle likely to live on indefinitely? Did you mean what you said upstairs?” It was the second time that David Blake had been asked if he meant those words. He answered a trifle irritably. “Why should I say what I don’t mean? He may live three years or he may die to-morrow. Why on earth should I say it if I didn’t think it?” “Oh, I don’t know,” said Edward. “You might have been saying it just to cheer the old man up.”