Yes, Olga had seen it; but somehow she did not think it meant that. She
said so rather hesitatingly.

"What else could it mean?" laughed Violet. "But you needn't be afraid,
dear. I'm not going to have him. He's much too anatomical for me, too
business-like and professional altogether. I'd sooner die than have him
attend me."

"Would you?" said Olga. "But why? He's very clever."

"That's just it. He's too clever to have any imagination. He would be
quite unscrupulous, quite merciless, and utterly without sympathy. Can't
you picture him making you endure any amount of torture just to enable
him to say he had cured you? Oh yes, he's diabolically clever, but he is
cruel too. He would take the shortest cut, whatever it meant. He
wouldn't care what agony he inflicted so long as he gained his end and
made you live."

"I don't think he is quite so callous as that," Olga said, but even as
she said it she wondered.

"You will if he ever has to doctor you," rejoined Violet. "I wonder what
Mrs. Briggs thought of him. We'll find out to-day."

Mrs. Briggs was the daughter of the old woman who had died the preceding
week at "The Ship Inn," whither they were bound that morning. She had
nursed Violet in her infancy, and was a privileged acquaintance of both
girls.

They found her busy pastry-making, for the business of the