"I want to speak to Mr. Cavendish, Mr. Ronald Cavendish. Is that Mr. Cavendish?" Kate's voice sounded stupid, excitable, over the wire. "No, it's Mrs. Cavendish. Is that Kate?" "Yes, Mrs. Ronnie." "Mr. Cavendish will be down in a minute. What's the matter?" "Mrs. Cavendish has been taken ill. She's very bad indeed. She told us to telephone for Mr. Ronnie." "You telephoned for a doctor?" "Oh yes, Mrs. Ronnie. We did that first thing. But Sir Heron's out of town." "Then you should have telephoned to another doctor." "We never thought of that." Obviously the maid had lost her head. "We thought we'd better telephone Mr. Ronnie first. That's what she said we was to do." "Wait." Aliette thought swiftly. "Isn't there a doctor in Bruton Street?" "Oh yes, Mrs. Ronnie. Dr. Redbank." "You'd better send for him immediately. Don't waste time telephoning. Go yourself. . . . And, Kate, you can tell Mrs. Cavendish that Mr. Ronald and myself will be round in less than half an hour. Can you give me any idea what's the matter with Mrs. Cavendish?" "I don't know, Mrs. Ronnie, but Smithers says she's very bad indeed. Smithers says she woke up with her mouth full of blood. Smithers says she doesn't know how she managed to ring her bell----" The parlor-maid would have gone on talking, but Aliette cut her short with a curt: "You're to go and fetch the doctor, Kate. You're to go and fetch him at once. Do you understand?" "Yes, Mrs. Ronnie." Aliette hung up the receiver; turned to find Ronnie, apparently full dressed, at her side; explained things to him in three terse sentences; saw his face blanch; ran for the lift; swung-to the lift-gate; pressed the automatic button; reached her own floor, her own flat; twitched a fur coat from its peg; remembered something Mollie had once told her about hemorrhages; darted into the kitchen; snatched what she wanted from the refrigerator; wrapped a dish-cloth about it; darted back to the lift. Downstairs, Ronnie waited impatiently. "The taxi's here," he said. They leaped into the taxi. 2 The shock of unexpected ill-news held both lovers rigid, speechless, as their vehicle, an old one, rattled and bumped over Putney Bridge; and when at last Aliette spoke it was of those trivial things with which human beings console themselves against the threat of disaster. "How on earth did you manage to get dressed so quickly?" "The old school trick." Ronnie masked his anxiety with the semblance of a laugh. "Trousers and an overcoat." But sheer anxiety forced the next words to his lips. "What do you think can have happened?" "From what Kate said, it sounded as though your mother had had a hemorrhage." "A hemorrhage," repeated Ronnie. And then, under his breath, as though trying to convince himself, "But she can't have had a hemorrhage." The taxi rattled on down a gray and empty King's Road, bringing back to Aliette's mind the memory of that other drive she had taken in vision-land.