The Doctor set down his after-dinner coffee untasted on the library table, and rose with a half sigh from his easy chair before the blazing wood-fire. His heavy eyebrows were drawn together into a straight line over the bridge of his nose, and that, his wife knew full well, was an ominous sign.
"Must you go to-night? It's such a fearful storm; just hear it!"
"Yes, I must; just to get it off my mind. I sha'n't be gone long, and I 'll tell you all about it when I get home." The Doctor stooped and kissed the detaining hand that his wife had laid lovingly on his arm; then, turning to the telephone, he bespoke a cab.
As the vehicle made its way up Fifth Avenue in the teeth of a February, northeast gale that drove the sleet rattling against the windows, Doctor Heath settled back farther into his corner, growling to himself, "I wish some people would let me manage their affairs for them; it would show their common sense to let me show them some of mine."
A few blocks north of the park entrance, the cab turned east into a side street, and stopped at Number 4.
"Mr. Clyde in, Wilkins?" asked the Doctor of the colored butler, who opened the door.
"Yes, sah; jes' up from dinner, sah, to see Miss Hazel."
"Tell him I want to see him in the library."
"Yes, sah." He took the Doctor's cloak and hat, hesitating a moment before leaving, then turning, said: "'Scuse me, sah, but Miss Hazel ain't more discomposed?"
"No, no, Wilkins; Miss Hazel is doing fairly well."