"Now come, Mrs. Byron, can’t have you saying things like that. The person who is really interested in your getting better is your husband. You don’t know what he was like when you were in hospital." "I think," said she, with a little twitch of the lips, "as I can make a guess. But thank ’ee all the same, doctor." Picking up his gun, Byron followed the doctor out of the house. The farmer might prefer to strike a path for himself but Dr. Derek had a feline dislike of dirt and wet. His patent-leather boots, small and pointed, twinkled in the sunshine as he stepped along the blue flagstones, and through his bright round glasses, his steel-blue eye shot an inquiring gleam at the man, padding heavily at his side. Against that neat personality, Leadville’s big frame showed rough and heavy. He was the hulking unshaven countryman, powerful as a bear and with a bear’s light but ungainly walk. He did not attempt to accommodate his stride to the other’s city gait but lounged along somewhere in his neighbourhood. "The missis ’aven’t been ’erself lately," Byron volunteered as they came up to the gate, "an’ I wish you could make her do as you say. P’raps, next time you come, you’ll try and persuade ’er?" With his plans not yet matured, one way out of his difficulties was as good as another. If Sabina could be persuaded to return to the hospital for a time, he would only have to deal with Mrs. Tom. The doctor climbed into the gig. "’Tis no good, Byron. When she says ’No’ there’s no moving her." The farmer’s vague gaze was fixed on the glittering harness but his heart sank. "I should like to have everything done that can be done," he growled in his deep voice. "I know, my good fellow," comforted the other. "Well, don’t let her do more than you can help and keep her diet as light as possible. Not too much pork, you know, and no heavy suppers." "She won’t be said by me," returned Byron. "Well, well, one does the best one can and there’s no more to be said. Wonderful case! Never thought she’d turn that first corner; yet, there she is, doing a day’s work. It’s a pity she’s growing so stout. When I think of what she was!" With his small well-kept hands, the polished nails of which scattered tiny reflections of the light, he made a gesture of pity and regret. "The strength of a man, and now——" Byron stepped back from the gig. "And now," he said grimly as the cob began to move, "now, she’s a proper wreck." *CHAPTER XI* An hour later Byron came into the kitchen carrying a small dead seal. Climbing down by a little treacherous path, he had seen it lying at the mouth of a cave and for some minutes had stood to watch it. By means of an inner membrane it was clearing first one nostril of sea-water and then the other; and he had shot it while it was still unaware of him. "What’s become o’ the furnace?" he asked. "I told George to leav’n by the hedge-gripe."