Once in the Club a young fellow to whom Chetwynd was personally
unknown stretched himself behind a newspaper and muttered, "Bella
Blackall Wasn't that the name of Dr. Somebody's wife who ran away
with another fellow?"

"Yes, Bella Blackall was my wife," John Chetwynd answered with
unruffled equanimity, picking up the paper which the other had thrown
down. "She used to be rather a clever dancer, too."

And he calmly perused the line which included her name among some
well known American stars touring in the provinces.

"And he never turned a grizzled hair! I give you my word I felt more
over the thing than he did," remarked Captain Hetherington
afterwards; "without exception the most cold-blooded individual ever
met."

But John Chetwynd was far from being this. He had felt his wife's
desertion far too deeply to show his scars, nor was he a man to wear
his heart upon his sleeve; but as time went by and the utter
callousness of Bella's conduct came home to him, he realised to the
full that she was unworthy of a single pang, and he became reconciled
to the inevitable. His profession claimed every spare moment, and for
a man ill at ease there is no specific like hard work. By-and-by as
the years rolled on, another distraction presented itself. He became
interested in one of his patients, the only daughter of the Duke of
Huddersfield, Lady Ethel Claremont, and this interest blossomed into
something stronger and warmer--something that at last he dignified by
the name of love, though he was by no means without misgivings as to
whether it could ever really lay claim to the title.