“Will you speak plainly, Mrs Berens?”

“Yes, dear; but you frighten me—you are so severe. There! I will speak out! Leo is engaged to Dr North, is she not?”

“No,” said Mary, after a pause; “there is no engagement.”

“Ah, then that makes it not quite so bad.”

“Mrs Berens!”

“Oh, don’t be so severe, Mary. I was poorly yesterday—a little hysterical—the weather; and I sent for Dr North.”

“Yes.”

“He came, dear, and no medical man could have been nicer than he was at first; but all at once he seemed to change—to become as if he were two people!”

“Mrs Berens!”

“Yes, dear. I did not know what to make of him. He was like one possessed, my dear!”