"So this is an end of your trouble," Mary laughed, when Newcome had departed. "It is quite plain to me that you will very soon have the share of that practice at your disposal, dear. And if the happy expression of your face means anything, it tells me that you are not going to refuse the offer."
Connie hid her blushing face and laughed. She remarked that Dr. Newcome had left his paper behind him. With some show of interest, she turned over the paper. Then she stopped, and a little cry broke from her.
"Oh, Mary, listen to this!" she exclaimed. "'Mysterious outrage in Dashwood Park. Only this morning the body of a well dressed man was found lying in the avenue of Dashwood Park, the residence of Sir Vincent Dashwood. Robbery appears to have been the motive, for the pockets of the unfortunate man had been turned out, and his watch and chain were gone. As the sufferer was in evening dress, and had every appearance of being a gentleman, inquiries were made, with the result that the gentleman has been identified as Ralph Darnley. He is at present lying at the dower house in a precarious condition!'"
With a broken cry Mary rose to her feet. Her face was white as death and her hands were convulsively locked together. In a faint voice she asked for a time table; she wanted to know what time the next train went.
"You are going down to Dashwood?" Connie asked.
"Oh, of course I am," Mary wept. "I could not stay away. I must be near him so that I may know how he is progressing. I must help to nurse him back to life again. I owe him everything--my very existence, my new self, my womanhood that has come as such a precious thing to me. And to think that once I was fool enough to prefer pride to the affection of a man like that, who----"
"Mary, Mary, you love him. You love Ralph Darnley like that!"
Mary's eyes shone with a strange light. She flung her hands above her head despairingly.
"I know it now," she said, "now that it is perhaps too late. Yes, ever since I first met Ralph I have loved him with my whole heart and soul."