I don’t know how she did it, I don’t know how she accomplished half of the magical wonderful things she did for my comfort all that sad time. But I was not even surprised, a few days later, when I really was better and sitting up in bed; propped up by pillows, I admit, but still actually sitting up; that Dr. Kennedy, tall and unaltered, with the same light in his eye, even the same dreadful country suit, lounged in and sat on the chair by my side. Ella went away when he came in, she always had an idea that patients like to see their doctors alone. She flirts with hers, I think. She is incurably flirtatious in her leisure hours. “You’ve had a bad time,” he said abruptly. “You didn’t try to make it any better,” I answered weakly. “Oh! I! I was dismissed. Your sister turned me out. She said I hadn’t recognised how ill you were. I told her she was quite right. I didn’t tell her how often you had refused to see me.” “Did you know how ill I was?” “I’m not sure.” He smiled, and so did I. “Were you so ill?” “I know now what Margaret Capel felt about Dr. Lansdowne.” “He is a very able fellow. And you’ve had Felton, Shorter, Lawson.” “Don’t remind me.” “Anyway you are getting better now.” “Am I? I am so hideously weak.” “Not beginning to write again yet! You see, I know all about you now. I’ve taken a course of your novels.” “Thinking all the time how much better Margaret Capel wrote?” “You haven’t forgotten Margaret, then?” “Have _you_?” He became quite grave and pale. “I! I shall never forget Margaret Capel.” Up till then he had been light and airy in manner, as if this visit and circumstance and poor me, who had been so near the Gates, were of little consequence. “Did you think how much worse I wrote than she did, that I was no stylist?” “Why do you say that?” I was glad to see him and wished to keep him by my side. I thought what I was going to tell him would secure my object. “She told me so herself” I shot at him, and watched to see how he would take it. “The last time I saw you, the night the pleurisy started, she sat over there by the fireside. We talked together confidentially, she said she knew I would write her story, and was sorry because I had no style.” There was a flush on his forehead, he looked to where I said she sat. “What else did she say?” He did not seem to doubt me or to be surprised. “You believe I saw her, that it was not a dream?” “There is an unexplored borderland between dreams and reality. Fever often bridges it. Your temperature was probably high. And I, and you, were so full of her. Go on. Tell me what she wore.” “She was dressed in grey, a white fichu over her shoulders.” “And a pink rose.” “Her hair....” “Was snooded with a blue ribbon.” He finished my sentences excitedly. “No. It was hanging in plaits.”