He even recalled some unusual features of her illness which had puzzled and worried him greatly.

He dismissed the recollection of certain of her symptoms with an effort.

There is no truer saying--at any rate from a doctor's point of view--than "Let the dead bury their dead." He had done his very best for Mrs.Varick, lavished on her everything that skill and kindness could do, and she had been extraordinarily blessed, not only in her devoted husband, but in that sudden, unexpected friendship with another woman--and with such a good, conscientious, sweet-tempered young woman as was Helen Brabazon....
Half-past one struck on the landing outside his room, and Dr.Panton got up from the comfortable easy chair; time to be going to bed, yet he still felt quite wide awake.
He walked over to the window nearest to the fire-place, and drew back the heavy, silk-brocaded curtain.

It was a wonderful night, with a promise, he thought, of fine weather--though one of the men who had stood outside with him had predicted snow.

What a curious, eerie place this old Suffolk house was! Probably the landscape had scarcely changed at all in the last five hundred years.