Mendizabal flinging out his piece of paper--gastric ulcer--there he is. There was a drawing of a sort of crab with huge claws.--My beautiful gastric ulcer--Have you been to the 'ospital to-day Mr. Mendizzable asked Mrs. Bailey through the general laughter. I have been madame and I come away. They say they welcome me inside again soon. Je m'en fiche. The faces of both doctors were turned enquiringly. Dr. Hurd's look of quizzical sympathy passed on towards Miriam and became a mask of suppressed hysterical laughter. Perhaps he and Dr. Heber would scream and yell together afterwards and make a great story of a man in a London pension. Dr. Hurd would call him a _cure_. My word isn't that chap a _cure_? Brave little man. Caring for nothing. How could he possibly have a gastric ulcer and look so hard and happy and strong. _What_ was Dr. von Heber silently thinking? The doctors disappeared as soon as dinner was over, Dr. von Heber gravely rounding the door with some quiet formal phrases of politeness, and the group about the table broke up. He's a bit pompous Mr. Gunner was saying presently to someone from the hearthrug. Was he daring to speak of Dr. von Heber? Presently there were only the women left in the room. Miriam felt unable to depart and hung about until the table was cleared and sat down under the gas protected by her note-book. The room was very quiet. Sissie and Mrs. Bailey were mending near a lamp at the far end of the table. Miriam's thoughts left her suddenly. The tide of life had swept away leaving an undisturbed stillness, a space swept clear. She was empty and nothing. In all the clamour that had passed she had no part. In all the noise that lay ahead, no part. Strong people came and went and never ceased, coming and going and acting ceaselessly, coming and going, and here, at her centre, was nothing, lifeless thoughtless nothingness. The four men studied apart in the little room, away from the empty lifeless nothingness ... the door opened quietly. Mrs. Bailey and Sissie looked expectantly up and were silent. Something had come into the room. Something real, clearing away the tumult and compelling peaceful silence. She exerted all her force to remain still and apparently engrossed, as Dr. von Heber placed an open note-book and a large volume on the table exactly opposite to where she sat and sat down. He did not see that she was astonished at his coming nor her still deeper astonishment in the discovery of her unconscious certainty that he would come. A haunting familiar sense of unreality possessed her. Once more she was part of a novel; it was right, true like a book, for Dr. Heber to come in in defiance of everyone, bringing his studies into the public room in order to sit down quietly opposite this fair young English girl. He saw her apparently gravely studious and felt he could 'pursue his own studies' all the better for her presence. She began writing at random, assuming as far as possible the characteristics he