"You're very kind, Dr. Spink. I—I'm sorry James is so——"
"Oh, that's a symptom. If he gets right, he won't be like that. Your jacket's too thin for such a night. Let me send you home in the brougham."
Ethel refused the offer, and started on her return, leaving Dr. Spink shaking a thoughtful head in the surgery doorway.
"It really looks," he said, "as if he was a bit queer. But what can I do? Poor little woman!"
And, not being able to do anything, he went back and finished his glass of port. Then, for his dinner had been postponed till late by business, and it was half-past ten, he went to bed.
Ethel beat her way down the High Street against the wind and snow, shutting her eyes in face of the blinding shower, and pushing on with all her speed to rejoin her baby, whom she had left alone. When, wet and weary, she reached her door, to her surprise she saw a man waiting there. For a moment she joyously thought it was her husband, but as the man came forward to meet her, she recognized Philip Hume.
"Out on such a night, Mrs. Roberts!"
She murmured an excuse, and he went on:
"Is the Doctor in? I came to look him up."