I met no one in the hall. I met no one in the street. I jumped into a taxi at the corner and drove off to the station without running the remotest chance of detection. It was so easy that I determined to do it again! Every now and then just for a change--just to remember what it was like to look nice! I arrived at the station and took my ticket. There was no one I knew upon the platform. I walked to the further end, and took a seat in an empty first-class carriage. The collector came round and looked at the tickets; there was a banging all down the length of the train, a sharp call, "Take your seats, please; take your seats!" The door of my compartment opened and shut. Ralph Maplestone seated himself in the corner opposite mine! "How do you do, Miss Wastneys," said he, as cool as a cucumber. "How do you do, Mr Maplestone," said I, as red as a beetroot. Was it chance? Was it coincidence? Was it a deep and laborious plan? Had he heard from Delphine of my coming and rushed to town for the express purpose of returning in my company? It looked very like it. My wire could not have arrived at the Vicarage until after five in the afternoon, and the next train to town left at nine p.m. There was also an early morning one at eight-thirty. My brain seethed with curious questions, but there seemed only a moment's pause before I spoke again:-- "Have you been staying in town?" "Er--" his eyes showed a faint flicker of amusement--"not long. You are going down to see Delphine, I suppose. That's good of you. She needs bucking up. The Vicar's pretty bad, but with rest and change there's no reason why he shouldn't pick up. We are arranging to make things easy for them. It will do him no good if she makes herself miserable." "That's the sort of futile remark that outsiders generally make on these occasions. They make me furious!" I cried, glad of an excuse to work off my self-consciousness in a show of indignation. "Perhaps it won't; but as he belongs to her, and she loves him, she can hardly be expected to be happy! In illness all the sympathy is lavished on the invalid. In reality, the relations are more to be pitied. It's far easier to lie still and bear physical pain than it is to be wracked with anxiety, and fatigue, and responsibility all at the same time." He said, looking at me with an air of the most profound attention:-- "You are thinner than you were. Your face is thinner--" "We were not talking about my face. How long has Mr Merrivale really been ill?" "It's difficult to say. He is the sort of fellow who never thinks about himself, and Delphine is not--not exactly noticing! I fancy she blames herself now; but he never complained, and always went on working at full pressure, till this attack came on, and he went down with a crash." "And now? How does he seem now?" His forehead wrinkled into lines.