LITMIR.BIZ

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I'll come at once. Good-bye."

      "Good-bye."

      Char replaced the receiver, feeling dazed.

      Involuntarily her first sensation was one of injury that any one should be more ill than she was herself, and able to excite so much stir.

      The next moment she regained possession of herself.

      "Miss Jones, ring up the garage and tell them to send my car round immediately. Sir Piers Vivian has been taken ill, and I am going out to Plessing at once. Tell them to hurry."

      Grace obeyed, and Char began feverishly to make order amongst the pile of papers on her table.

      "I'm leaving a lot undone," she muttered, "but I suppose I shall be here tomorrow morning. I must be."

      Ten minutes later the car was at the door.

      "Miss Jones, see that all these go tonight," Char rapidly instructed her secretary. "The letters I haven't been able to sign must be held over till tomorrow. By the way, didn't the—er—your Hostel Superintendent say that she wanted an appointment with me this evening?"

      "Mrs. Bullivant? Yes. She was coming at eight."

      "Then, please tell her what's happened, and say that I will arrange to see her some time tomorrow. That's all, I think."

      "I hope Sir Piers Vivian will be better by the time you get back."

      "I hope so. Thank you. Good-night, Miss Jones."

      Char hurried downstairs, hoping that the tone of her voice had put Miss Jones into her proper place again. She did not encourage personal amenities between herself and her staff.

      It was nearly nine o'clock before she got to Plessing. It had taken a long while to find Dr. Prince, and the chauffeur drove with maddening precautions through a thick wet mist along the sodden, slippery roads.

      "A broken leg or two would delay us worse," said the doctor philosophically.

      He was a bearded, hard-working man, with a reputation that extended beyond the Midlands.

      After finding out from Char that she knew little or nothing of her father's state of health, he asked her with a quick look: "And yourself, Miss Charmian? You look rather washed out."

      Char gave a short, hoarse cough, semi-involuntary, at this unflattering description.

      "I'm afraid I'm in the midst of an influenza attack. My staff have all been down with it, more or less. However, I can't afford to give way to that sort of thing now; there's far too much work to be done."

      "You ought to take six months' holiday," said the doctor decidedly, and relapsed into silence.

      Char wondered if he were meditating an appeal to her. It must outrage his professional instincts to see any one looking as she did still upon her feet. The doctor, however, who had been up since two o'clock that morning, was merely trying to snatch some sleep.

      He had known Char Vivian all her life, and had no thought whatever of wasting appeals upon her.

      At Plessing, Trevellyan met them in the hall.

      "Good-evening, Char," he greeted her. "Sir Piers is much the same. Not conscious. Will you go up, doctor? They'll have some dinner ready by the time you come down. I'm afraid you've had a cold drive."

      "Freezing," answered Char, with a violent shiver.

      "Better go to bed," said the doctor, without looking at her, as he went upstairs.

      Char, still in her fur coat, hung over the fire.

      "Tell me what's happened, Johnnie."

      "Cousin Joanna says that he was very restless and low-spirited last night—talked about the war, you know, and this last air-raid. And when he came down this morning he suddenly turned giddy and fell across the hall sofa. Luckily it wasn't on the floor. Cousin Joanna was with him, and they got him flat on the sofa, and sent for Clark. I got here about the same time as he did, by pure chance—came over for a day's shooting, you know—and between us we carried him upstairs. By Jove! he's no light weight for a man of his years, either."

      "What does Dr. Clark think?"

      "That he'll probably recover consciousness in a day or two. But even then—don't be frightened, Char; it's only what generally happens in these cases—his—his words probably won't come quite right, you know. He may speak, but not quite normally."

      Char smiled a little at her cousin's look of anxious solicitude for the effect of his surmises upon her.

      "I'm not without hospital experience, you know," she said gently. "It's the left side of the brain, then? Is his right side paralyzed?"

      "I'm afraid so—arm and hand, you know. We shall see what Prince says."

      There was a pause, and Char said hoarsely: "I wonder if I ought to go up?"

      "Is that you, Miss Vivian?" came the voice of Miss Bruce from the stairs.

      Char turned and went slowly up to her.

      Trevellyan did not see her again that evening, and Miss Bruce told him later, with rather a reproachful look, that poor Miss Vivian was not fit to be up.

      "It was a shock to her, I'm afraid."

      "Yes—oh yes; but she really was dreadfully ill when she went out this morning. She ought never, never to have been allowed to leave the house."

      "You don't mean to say she's going to be ill too?" exclaimed Trevellyan in tones of dismay.

      He was thinking that Joanna had enough anxiety as it was; but Miss Bruce attributed his tones entirely to concern on behalf of her adored Miss Vivian, and looked at him more amiably.

      "I'm afraid it's influenza, but a couple of days in bed will make all the difference, and now that, of course, there's no question of her leaving the house, she'll be able to take care of herself for once."

      "There she is," said Captain Trevellyan, and strode across the hall to meet his Cousin Joanna and the doctor.

      Miss Bruce waited to hear Dr. Prince's verdict, and then went quietly up to Char's room, with offers of service that aroused the unconcealed wrath of Char's devoted maid.

      "I don't want anything," Miss Vivian declared wearily. "As soon as I know whether I may see father, I can go to bed—or go up to him, as the case may be. But I suppose my mother means to come down to me some time?"

      There was more than a hint of resentment in her wearied voice.

      "Shall I tell her ladyship you're here, miss?" asked the maid gently.

      "She knows it," said Char shortly. "I brought Dr. Prince."

      The zealous Miss Bruce slipped silently from the room and down into the hall again.

      Lady Vivian, oblivious of her daughter's claims, was discussing Dr. Prince's verdict in lowered tones with Captain Trevellyan.

      Miss Bruce felt a sort of melancholy triumph in beholding this justification for Char's obvious sense of injury.

      "Miss Vivian is in her room, and waiting for you most anxiously," she said reproachfully. "She thought you were still with Sir Piers. She won't go to bed until she knows whether she may see him."

      "Poor child, it wouldn't do her any good to see him," said Joanna. "There's no sign of returning consciousness yet, though Dr. Prince thinks he may come to himself almost any time, and then everything depends upon his being kept absolutely quiet. But I'll go up to Char."

      She went upstairs, but came down again much sooner than Miss Bruce approved.

      "I've told her to go to bed," she placidly informed the secretary. "She can't do anything, and she looks very tired."

      "She is far from well, I'm afraid," stiffly remarked Miss Bruce.

      "Well, I leave her to you, Miss Bruce. I know you'll take the most devoted care of her. Let her sleep

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