and some line engravings in black frames--one a
view of Oxford with the Thames wandering by,
another a portrait of the Duke of Wellington, and
still another of Nell Gwynn. Scattered about the
room were easy-chairs and small tables piled high
with books, a copy of Tacitus and an early edition
of Milton being among them, while under the wide,
low window stood a narrow bench crowded with flowering
plants in earthen pots, the remnants of the
winter's bloom. There were also souvenirs of his
earlier student life--a life which few of his friends
in Warehold, except Jane Cobden, knew or cared
anything about--including a pair of crossed foils
and two boxing-gloves; these last hung over a portrait
of Macaulay.

What the place lacked was the touch of a woman's
hand in vase, flower, or ornament--a touch that his
mother, for reasons of her own, never gave and which
no other woman had yet dared suggest.

For an instant the doctor sat with his elbows on
the desk in deep thought, the light illuminating his
calm, finely chiselled features and hands--those thin,
sure hands which could guide a knife within a hair's
breadth of instant death--and leaning forward, with
an indrawn sigh examined some letters lying under
his eye. Then, as if suddenly remembering, he
glanced at the office slate, his face lighting up as he
found it bare of any entry except the date.