He turned to Mary and said, "Miss King, I have been concerned to see how pale and ill you have been looking of late. I am afraid the hard work is upsetting you. You should take a holiday. Why don't you run down to the sea-side for a week?" Mary coloured slightly, and said, coldly: "Indeed, I feel very well, thank you, Dr. Duncan. I generally am rather pale, but I think I am as strong as anyone can be." Susan felt rather annoyed at the manner with which her remarks had been received. She wanted to monopolize the doctor's conversation. She had been setting her cap at him for some time, for what purpose it is difficult to say, unless it were out of mere malice and vanity; for in her heart she disliked this cold man who would not fall into a violent infatuation about her, as most others would have done after a quarter of the love-making she had thrown away on him. And now she remembered her time was up. She must return to the hospital, and perhaps the doctor would walk part of the way home with Mary. It was most provoking; for she felt that Mary's charms were as great as her own, greater perhaps, she suspected, when a wise man was concerned, though that silly child did not know how to employ them. "Oh, dear!" she exclaimed, "I wish I could stay a little longer in this pretty place, and have a pleasant chat with you two, but it is time for me to go home." "I am going home now, Susan," said Mary, "and I will walk as far as the hospital with you. It is on my way." "And on mine too," said the doctor. "If you allow me I will accompany you." Mary made no reply. "Oh! how nice," gushed Susan. "It is so lonely to walk down all those dingy streets by oneself. It is a treat to have somebody with one, especially--" and the cunning beauty checked herself, and pretended to be embarrassed. They talked on indifferent matters till they reached the gates of the hospital, through which Susan passed after affectionately kissing the younger woman, and a parting, "Good-bye, Mary, I'll see you to-morrow morning; good-bye, doctor." "I am going to Praed Street," said the doctor. "That is in your direction I think. I am going to walk. It will do you good to walk too, Miss King, if you are not tired. Shall we go together? It will be a very great pleasure for me." "Thank you, Dr. Duncan, I shall be very glad. I don't feel inclined to go in a stuffy omnibus on such a fine afternoon." So they went together through the now gaslit streets, that were filled with that haze of the still November afternoon, which the true Londoner loves for the soft melancholy of it. It is all very well for us to abuse our London fogs; but there are fogs and fogs, and who would exchange that dreamy poetic indistinctness of effect, which Turner so well knew how to express on canvas, for all the hard clear outline of your Southern cities.