"Was there anything the matter with her?" the doctor said; she was beginning to think of the certificate she must make out. "Was she low-spirited?" "She was dreadfully disappointed because she didn't get a letter she was expecting." "Love-letter?" "I don't know," Frederica said. She and Howard had left the office, where the dead woman lay on the doctor's lounge, and were standing in the front hall, side by side, like two children who were being scolded. From above the hat-rack, a mounted stag's head watched them with faintly gleaming eyes. Dr. Holt, a woman with a strong, bad-tempered face, was plainly out of patience with them both. "I've got to get the coroner," she said, frowning; "and it's nearly twelve o'clock." Then she asked a question that was like a little shock of electricity to the two who, in this last terrifying hour, had entirely forgotten themselves. "Did she have any love-affair?" "Yes," Frederica said, in a low voice. ("_He refused me._") "Tell me, please," Dr. Holt persisted. "She was--in love." "I suppose she was all right? I mean, respectable?" "Flora?" Fred said, with a recoil of anger, "of course she was respectable." "That's what I thought. Man desert her? You spoke of a letter--perhaps she was hoping to hear from him?" "No, he didn't exactly desert her. I mean, she thought somebody was in love with her, several times. But none of the men seemed--" Frederica's hands clutched together--"to want her. So she was unhappy." "Oh," said the doctor. "Yes. I understand. Quite frequent in women of her age. She would have been all right if she hadn't been--respectable; or even if she'd got religion, good and hard. Religion," said Dr. Holt, writing rapidly in a memorandum-book, "is a safety-valve for the unmarried woman in the forties, whose work doesn't interest her." "Flora was as good as anybody could be!" Fred said, hotly. "Oh, I didn't mean any reflection on her character," said the doctor, kindly, "I merely meant that any woman who hasn't either work, or religion, or marriage, generally gets out of kilter, mentally. Of course," she meditated, tapping her chin with her fountain-pen, "you two must go to the coroner's with me." In the next hour and a half, of driving about to find the coroner, then the undertaker, then arranging what was to be done with the body, the "two" had no time for the self-consciousness that the doctor's words had rekindled--except for just one moment: they had come back to Dr. Holt's house, and again were standing in the entry, below the deer's head. In the office, the coroner was questioning Dr. Holt. The office door was ajar. "This man, Maitland; do you know anything about him? Is he all right? Of course, you never can tell--" At that, they couldn't help looking at each other, with a flash of what might have been, under other conditions, amusement. "Why, he's Howard Maitland!" they heard Dr. Holt say; "you know? The Maitland Iron Works!"