at Christmas.

Uncle Douglas, you did not ask to see my

If you must break

genealogical tree before you took me to Norway. proud of the fact that my grandfather rose from the ranks; and, even if I were not, I could not consent to draw all my acquaintances from one set. There are four links in the chain-your world, you, me, my world. Your world won't let you go, and I can't let my world go. the chain, you can only do it in one place." "I don't believe you would care a straw if I did." "I should care intensely," said Mona, her eyes filling with tears. "It seems like a fairy tale that a brilliant man of the world like you should be so good to commonplace me; and, besides you know I love you almost as if you were my father. But, indeed, now that I know you and Aunt Maud, you may trust me in future always to think of what is due to you."

She had risen from her chair as she spoke, and he strode across the hearth-rug and kissed her affectionately.

There, there," he said, "she shall dictate her own terms! Thank heaven at least that that old frump is well across the Atlantic!"

He went away, and Mona was left alone, to think over the events of the day. Doris and the Sahib, Monteith and Lucy, -it was the old tale over again,-" The one shall be taken, and the other left." How strange it seemed that life should run smoothly for Doris, with all her grand power of selfsurrender; and that poor little Lucy, with her innocent, childlike expectation of happiness, should be called upon to suffer!

-so horribly," Mona added; but in her heart she was beginning to hope that Lucy had not been so hard hit after all.

And for herself, how did the equation run? As the Sahib is to Doris, so is somebody to me? or, as Monteith is to Lucy, so is somebody to me? No, no, no! That was im possible. Monteith had never treated Lucy as Dr Dudley had treated her.

During all these months what had caused Mona the acutest suffering was an anguish of shame. It never remained with her long, but it recurred whenever she was worn out and depressed. She had long since realised that, from an outsider's point of view, her experience that winter night was in no way so exceptional as she had supposed,—that there were thousands of men who would give such expression to a moment's transient passion. But surely, surely Dr Dudley was not one of these, and surely any man must see that with a woman like her it must be everything or nothing! If he had indeed torn her soul out and given her nothing in return, why then-thenBut she never

could finish the sentence, for the recollection of a hundred words and actions and looks came back, and turned the gall into sweetness. And she always ended with the same old cry-" If only I had told him about my life, if only I had given him no shadow of a reason to think that I had deceived him!"

But to-night it seemed as if the long uncertainty must be coming to an end at last. If she went to Borrowness at Christmas, as she had promised, she could not fail to hear something of her friend, and she might even see him.

CHAPTER LIII.

WAITING.

The weeks passed very slowly till the Christmas holidays came round; but, on the whole, life had become more bearable for Mona. The future was as uncertain as ever, but she had at least one definite event to look forward to. There was a light of some kind before her, though it might be only a Will-o'-the-wisp.

And a Will-o'-the-wisp it was destined to prove.

She arrived at Borrowness late in the evening, and im mediately after breakfast next morning, Matilda begged her to come to Castle Maclean. Mona assented the more readily, as the walk led them past the gates of Carlton Lodge; but at the first glance she saw that the house was shut up.

It was some minutes before she could measure the full force of the blow.

"What has become of Mrs Hamilton?" she said at last, with averted face.

"Oh, didn't you know? She was awfully ill last autumn. Dr Dudley had some great gun down from London to see her, as if Edinburgh doctors were not a great deal better! -and she was ordered abroad for the winter. Dr Dudley took her away at once, to Cairo, or Algiers, or some such place. We don't hear anything about them now. By the way, Miss Maclean, the very last time that I saw Dr Dudley he was asking about you."

Mona could not trust herself to speak.

"He wanted to know if you had gone to America with Miss Simpson, and Pa gave him a glowing account of how he had seen you in London."

"At the theatre ?"

"No, no. Pa saw you once, long before that, one day in Hyde Park, with a lady-and a young gentleman. I thought it would be Lady Munro, but I never said sc to Pa."

It was contrary to all Mona's instincts to ask what any one had said of her, but the opportunity was too precious to be lost. Her dignity must go.

"And what did Dr Dudley say to that?" she asked, as carelessly as she could.

Matilda hesitated; but she felt a pardonable longing to repeat her own brave words.

"I don't know whether I ought to tell you," she said. "You see-Dr Dudley doesn't know you as well as I do.

He said in that horrid sneering way of his, 'And do you know what induced her to come masquerading down here?' I gave him a piece of my mind, I can tell you." And Matilda repeated the retort which she had so often gone over with keen satisfaction in her own mind.

"You loyal little soul!" said Mona; but her face had turned very white.

"Dr Dudley asked such an extraordinary thing," Matilda went on. "He wanted to know whether you were- -a

medical student!”

Ah! so he had noticed her name in the lists. Then why had he not written to her at the School?

"Fancy his imagining such a thing! Pa told him you had no need to do anything for yourself."

Mona was too preoccupied to think of it at the time; but, before she left Borrowness, she broke to the Cooksons the astounding fact that, although she had no need to do anything for herself, she was a medical student.

When she came to think calmly over the incident which Matilda had narrated to her, she did not know whether to draw from it comfort or despair. She was not sorry that Dudley should have been angry,-angry enough to forget himself before little Matilda Cookson; but had he been content to condemn her unheard? Surely he could in some way have got a letter to her. Algiers and Cairo were far off, but they were not on the astral plane.

No, certainly Mona did not despair of her friend. It might have been better for her physically if she had. If she had been sure that he had forgotten her, she would have turned the key with a will on the suite of enchanted rooms; but the suspense, the excitement of uncertainty, was wearing out her strength.

When spring came round she was thoroughly ill. She went about her work as usual, but even her lecturers and fellow-students saw that something was wrong; and Sir Douglas implored her to give up medicine altogether.

"I ought to have trusted my own instincts," he said.

"The very first day I saw your face, I felt sure that you were not the sort to make a doctor. That kind of work wants women of coarser fibre. There is no use trying to chop wood with a razor."

In vain Mona protested that medical work had nothing to do with it; that she could not live without her hospital. She was not prepared to suggest any other explanation, and Sir Douglas stuck to his point.

"Don't fret, dear," she said at last. "If you like, I will go and see Dr Alice Bateson to-morrow."

"Do!" he said emphatically.

to go and see her myself."

"I have a great mind

So next evening Mona found herself in a pleasant, airy consulting-room. Dr Bateson rose as her patient entered, and looked at her steadily, with the penetrating brown eyes.

"I am not ill," Mona said apologetically. "But I can't sleep much, and things get on my nerves; so I thought I would allow myself the luxury of consulting you."

"You do look seedy," was the frank reply, and the brown eyes kept firm hold of the white, sensitive face. "Overworking?"

"No."

"When is your next examination?"

"Not for eighteen months."

"So it isn't that?"

"No, it isn't that."

Dr Bateson put her fingers on the girl's pulse. Her manner could not be called strictly sympathetic-certainly not effusive-but there was something very irresistible in her profound and unassumed interest in her patients.

"Is something particular worrying you?" she said shortly.

Mona smiled drearily.

"There you have me," she said. "Something is worrying me. It lies entirely out of my power, so I cannot control it; and it is still uncertain, so I cannot make up my mind to it."