'Don't say that, Stella, please,' said Ted gently. 'It was awfully steep to think I was the cause of all when your life hung on a thread. I used to go to the opera and places; but often I didn't know whether I was standing on my head or my heels.'

'You are not to blame for my illness, Ted. If anyone is to blame, it is Laurette; but I myself most of all. Oh, I don't mean what she concealed about you.'

Ted looked perplexed, but he would ask no questions; and, indeed, he attributed Stella's words to some confusion left by the fever. It may be noted in passing, that Stella did not once suspect him of any complicity in the imposition that had wrecked her life. Only at this period she would have rejected the word 'wrecked' as being too strong. Everything had shrunk so inconceivably. It was as though nothing mattered very much, if only one were left in perfect quiet.

'Dr. Seemann is to come only every second day now, he told me,' said Ted, in a cheerful voice. 'What a stunning old chap he is! The best fever doctor in Berlin, they say; and you can't easily beat that. It was the Professor who saw to his attending you.'

There was silence for a few moments, and then Stella said very slowly:

'Do you know when Dr. Langdale came to Berlin?' She named him without the least tremor.

'No; but I remember the first time I noticed him particularly. It was two weeks after I came back. I was at the opera-house, with Dick Avenell. We went out into the wide passage behind the boxes, and there Dick met a couple of very lively little French ladies. I don't think they were any better than they ought to be, you know—nothing but a couple of roses and a dagger with diamonds in the handle by way of a bodice. Dick swore I had just come from New Caledonia, and had brought a message from some of their friends there. After a little time, he dodged round a pillar all at once, and left me talking to them alone; at least, they were jabbering away, half in French; and I put in a word edgeways, now and then, in English, but I'm blessed if I could tell what any of us were saying. In the middle of it, who should come round but this Dr. Langdale, with his mother! I had seen him once or twice when he came to inquire after you for the Kellwitzes, and he stared hard at me, I can tell you. I didn't know his name till Farningham told me. It seems he's been in Australia for a little time; and he has been a good deal off colour, too, in Berlin. He went to Vienna last week, to see a chum of his who is making a great noise with some operations on eyes, so Farningham told me. It was lucky the Farninghams came here, a few days after I got back from London. I've gone about with him a good deal, and with Dick and his brother Minimus—comical name, isn't it? Comes of three brothers being at a public school together. Now, why do you suppose Dick left me in the lurch like that? He told me plump it was because he saw an old dowager-aunt of a girl he's sweet on, coming our way, and he couldn't afford to be seen with the little Frenchies. A married man, said he, with no end of tin, can stand any racket; but a penniless attaché has to be deuced proper when on parade. Wasn't that a friendly trick to play a fellow? But he and Minimus are awful fun sometimes. Minimus is supposed to be studying Oriental languages for a "diplomatic career" in India. "People teach languages so much better in Germany," he says; and he goes once a month, perhaps, to an old chap, who swears at him because he is an idle young dog, and makes an appointment with him to come next week to learn some alphabet; but Min. doesn't, as a rule, turn up. He says I'd better give him a billet on my run; he thinks it would be much jollier than spoiling his eyes over rubbishy Eastern pot-hooks. I've often been more miserable than a tuckerless dingo; but still I went to theatres and things. I couldn't nurse you, Stella, you see!'

'Of course not. It was much better you should go about.'

'But now I can look after you a bit, Stella; and that little Maisie—by George, she's worth her weight in gold!'

There was a knock at the door; and in response to Ritchie's robust invitation to come in, a fair, youthful-looking man entered, slight, and rather under the middle height.