For a moment he did not speak, then he cleared his throat and swallowed. "He tells me, Mary, that it's my one chance of life, always providing that the specialist man consents to my being moved." She was silent, finding nothing to say. He had died so many times already in all but the final act, that now, if Death had moved one step nearer, she scarcely perceived that it was so. Her mind was busy with a thousand pressing problems, the money difficulty, how to manage about her girls, who to leave in charge of the house if she went to London, and where she herself would stay; it would all cost a very great deal. She thought aloud. "It will cost a lot----" she murmured. He turned towards her. "They say it's my only chance," he repeated, and there was something pathetic in his eyes. She pulled herself up. "Of course, my dear, we must go, no matter what it costs. And as it's certain to cure you the money will be well spent." He looked at her doubtfully. "Not certain; there's just a chance, Thomas said. And after all, Mary, I suppose a man has a right to take his last chance? I'm not so very old, you know." He seemed to expect her to say something; she felt his need but could not fill it. "Not so very old," he repeated, "and I come of a good sound stock; my father lived to be eighty-five. Not that I aspire to that, my dear, but still, a few years more, just to look after you and the children? What?" His lips were shaking. "Mary!" he broke out suddenly; "damn it all, Mary, I've got to go if my time has come, but do for God's sake show a little feeling, say something; it's positively unnatural the way you take it!" CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 1 JOAN took two letters from her jacket pocket; one was from Elizabeth, the other from her mother. Aunt Ann had come to the rescue in the end, and Joan and Milly had been sent to the palace during Mrs. Ogden's absence in London; they had been there now for three weeks. There was peace up here in the large, airy bedroom; peace from her dominating, patronizing aunt, peace from the kind, but talkative bishop. She looked at the letters, undecided as to which to open first. Her fingers itched to open Elizabeth's, but she put it resolutely aside. Mrs. Ogden wrote from the family hotel in South Kensington where she had taken up her abode.