"There he is now," she said. Usually after this announcement she would hang up the receiver and go about her work. Today a friendly interest in this pleasant voice kept it in her hand a moment. Mary would not have admitted idle curiosity, and perhaps she had as little of it as falls to the lot of women, but sometimes she lingered a moment for the message, to know if the doctor was to be called away, so that she might make her plans for dinner accordingly. The pleasant voice spoke again, "This is Dr. Blank, is it?" "Yes." "We want you to come out to Henry Ogden's." "That's about five miles out, isn't it. Who's sick out there?" "Mrs. Ogden." "What's the matter?" No reply. "How long has she been sick?" "She began complaining last night." "All right--I'll be out some time today." "Come right away, please, if you can." This is an old, old plea. The doctor is thoroughly inured to it. He would have to be twenty men instead of one to respond to it at all times. He answers cheerfully, "All right," and Mary takes alarm. That tone means sometime in the next few hours. She feels sure he ought to go _now_. Somebody else can wait better than this patient. There was a kind of hesitancy in that voice that Mary had heard before. A woman's intuitions are much safer guides than a man's slow reasoning. She must speak to John. She rings the office. "Hello." "Say, John," she says in a low voice, "I came to the 'phone thinking you were out and heard that message. I think you ought to go out there right _away_." "Well, I'm going after a little." "But I don't think you ought to wait. I'm sure it's--_you_ know." "Well,--maybe I had better go right out." "I wish you would. I know they'll be looking for you every minute." A few minutes later Mary saw him drive past and was glad. Half an hour later the office ring sounded. She did not wait for the second peal. True, John had not said, "Watch the 'phone," today, but that was understood. Occasionally he got an old man who lived next door to the office to come in and stay during his absence. Possibly he might have done so today. But even if he were there the telephone and its ways were a dark mystery to him and besides, his deafness made him of little use in that direction. Mary took down the receiver and put it to her ear. A lady's voice was asking, "Who _is_ this?" Mary knew from her inflection that she had asked something before and was not satisfied with the reply. "_This_ is Dr. Blank's office?" announced the old man in a sort of interrogative. "Well, where is the _doctor_?" "The doctor," said the old man meditatively, as if wondering that anybody should be calling for him--"the doctor--you mean Dr. Blank, I reckon?" "I certainly do." "Good Heavens," thought Mary, "why _don't_ he go on!" "Why, he's out." "Where _is_ he?" "He went to the country." Mary shut her lips tight. "_Well_, when will he be back?" "He 'lowed he'd be back in about an hour or so."