Be jubilant my feet--"


Why had Drusilla chosen that of all songs? Oh, why had she sung at all?

A maid came in to say that Mr. Drake was wanted at the telephone. The
message was from Dr. McKenzie. The General was much worse. It might
be well for Derry to come home.

So Derry, with a great sense of relief, got away from the frigid
Captain, and from the flaming Drusilla, and from Peggy with her flushed
air of apology, and went out into the stormy night. He had preferred
to walk, although his shoes were thin. "It isn't far," he had said
when Margaret expostulated, "and I'll send my car for Drusilla and
Captain Hewes."

The sleet drove against his face. His feet were wet before he reached
the first corner, the wind buffeted him. But he felt none of it. He
was conscious only of his depression and of his great dread of again
entering the big house where a sick man lay in a lacquered bed and
where a painted lady smiled on the stairs. Where there was nothing
alive, nothing young, nothing with lips to welcome him, or with hands
to hold out to him.

He found when at last he arrived that the Doctor had sent for Hilda
Merritt.

She came presently, in her long blue cloak and small blue bonnet.
Hilda made no mistakes in the matter of clothes. She realized the
glamour which her nurse's uniform cast over her. In evening dress she