How much the week had held! what changes it had seen! She sat musing on this the next evening, listening to the church bells, and remembering that a Sunday ago the dead woman had been beside her. Last Sunday there was still a prospect of Westport continuing to be her home for years. Last Sunday it was that, in the churchyard, she had confessed her past. Only a week--how full, how difficult to realise! She was half dozing when she heard the hall-door unlocked, and Kincaid greeted her as she roused herself. "Did I disturb you? were you asleep?" "No; I was thinking, that's all." He sighed, and dropped into the opposite chair. She noted his harassed aspect, and pitied him. The Sunday previous she had not been sensible of any pity at all. She understood his loss of his mother; the loss of his faith had represented much less to her, its being a faith on which she personally had set small store. "There's plenty to think of!" he said wearily. "You haven't seen Ellen, doctor, have you? She has been asking for you." "Has she? what does she want?" "She is anxious to know how long she'll be kept. Her sister is in service somewhere and the family want a parlourmaid on the first of the month. I am sorry to bother you with trifles now, but she asked me to speak to you." "I must talk to her. Of course the house 'll be sold off; there's no one to keep it on for.... How fagged you look! are you taking proper care of yourself again?" "Oh yes; it is just the reaction, nothing but what'll soon pass." "You didn't have the relief you ought to have had; you worked like two women." He paused, and his gaze dwelt on her questioningly. She read the question with such clearness that, when he spoke, the words seemed but an echo of the pause. "How did you know so much?" he asked. "After I lost my father I was a nurse in the Yaughton Hospital for some years." The answer was direct, but it was brief. Half a dozen queries sprang to his lips, and were in turn repressed. Her past was her own; he confined his inquiries to her future. "And what do you mean to do now?" "I'm going to London." "Do you expect to meet with any difficulties in the way of taking up nursing again?" "I think you know that there _were_ difficulties in the way." "I have no wish to force your confidence----" he said, with a note of inquiry in his voice. "I haven't my certificate." "You can refer to the Matron." "I know I can; I will not. I told you two years ago there were persons I could refer to, but I wouldn't do it." "May I ask why you should have any objection to referring to this one?" She was silent. "Won't you tell me?" "I think you might understand," she said in a very low voice. "I went there after my father's death. I am not the woman who left the Yaughton Hospital." His eyes fell, and he stared abstractedly at the grate. When he raised them he saw that hers had closed. He looked at her lingeringly till they opened.