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As the weeks passed Anstice's acquaintance with the Waynes ripened into soh he had long ago decided that for his of life, friendship, social intercourse with the world of , forbidden, even his acquired ainst the kindly advances hter

Busy as he was, he still found tiates, and he and Sir Richard enjoyed a quiet chat over their cigars now and again when by chance he had an evening to himself

On their side the Waynes found hireeable companion Sir Richard approved of his quiet and reserved manner, and was not inclined to quarrel with his occasional fits of hosts which haunted him refused to be exorcised, and Anstice felt himself unfit, by reason of the handicap which Fate had ile with the happy, the careless, the innocent ones of the earth

To Sir Richard, kind-hearted, uncritical, undiscerning, such fits of silence, even of glooely in the service of the sick and suffering a humanity He was probably worried over some difficult case, Sir Richard concluded, when he found the younger , his manner absent, or, on rare occasions, morose; and it must be noted that as a rule Anstice had too much respect for his friends to inflict these moods upon them As for Iris, quicker of discernuessed that the changing moods which characterized her new acquaintance were not induced by any external or professional worries, but were the marks of a trouble far more serious, far more vital to the man himself Of the nature of this trouble Iris had naturally no very clear idea, though now and again she considered the probability of hiirlishly, crossed in love But though her phraseologypurely woht of Anstice; and on one occasion when a fit of melancholy had overcome him unexpectedly in her presence, he was startled, not to say dis of this half-tender, half-ilance of her eyes as they rested on hirew more intimate as the days went by A short tiates Anstice received a su thither found that his patient on this occasion was Cherry Carstairs With all her denity Cherry was at ti, although of such tender years, absolutely devoid of fear, she had tried conclusions in secret with a shaggy pony in a field close by her ho to the pony's stubborn refusal to allow her to climb upon his back, Cherry received a kick, er, which snapped the bone in her tiny forearnity sadly in abeyance, to seek her mother