"If you don't accept a fee," Mona said, in an injured tone, "you bind me over to take your advice."
"Ah! if that's the case, I wish I could afford to refuse fees from all my patients. Good-bye. Send me a line from Bournemouth to tell me how you get on. I wish I could be of more use to you!" And for the first time a look of very genuine sympathy shot from the honest brown eyes.
"Well?" said Sir Douglas, when he saw Mona next day.
"Dr Bateson says I am to go to Bournemouth with Aunt Maud."
"Nonsense! Did she really?"
Warmly as Sir Douglas approved of women-doctors, it was a source of great surprise to him that they should recommend anything sensible.
And so it came to pass that Mona began by degrees to pick up fresh health and strength in spite of everything. She could not shake off her worry; but day by day, to her own surprise, it weighed on her more bearably.
One morning near the end of April she took up a copy of the Times, and her eye fell on the following notice—"On the 23d inst., at Carlton Lodge, Borrowness, Eleanor Jane, relict of the late George Hamilton, Esq., J.P. and D.L. of the County, in her 79th year."
"So she came home to die," Mona thought; "and now—now I suppose he will come up to London and go on with his work. I wonder if he will present himself at Burlington House for his medal next month? For, if he does, I shall see him."
And it was well that Presentation Day was so near, or Dr Bateson might have been disappointed, after all, in the results of her prescription.