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"If you please, sir, a telephone message has come for you from Cherry Orchard just now."

Anstice put down the paper he had been idly studying and looked at the maid.

"Cherry Orchard? That's the big house on the Littlefield Road, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir. It has just been reopened, cook tells me."

"Oh. And I am wanted there?"

"Yes, sir. At once, the message was."

"Very good. Tell Andrews to bring round the car immediately. And put dinner back a bit, Alice, please."

"Yes, sir." The trim maid hurried away, and Anstice rose to obey the summons, congratulating himself on the fact that the night was fine, and the Littlefield Road good going.

Ten minutes later he was on his way; and in due course arrived at his destination, a pretty old gabled house standing in a large and old-fashioned garden, from whose famous cherry trees the place derived its quaint name.

Six months earlier Anstice had bought a practice in the Midlands, on the death of its former owner; but this was the first time he had visited Cherry Orchard; and as he waited for his ring to be answered he remembered the maid's remark as to the recent reopening of the house with a slight feeling of curiosity as to its tenant.

He was not kept waiting long. An elderly manservant speedily appeared; and his face, which wore a worried expression, lightened as he saw Anstice standing on the steps.

"Thank God you've come, sir." The gratitude was so obviously sincere that Anstice felt glad he had not delayed his coming. "If you'll kindly go upstairs, sir—the housekeeper is waiting for you, I believe."

He relieved Anstice of his hat and coat with hands which shook; and at the same moment a swarthy, foreign-looking woman hurried forward with unmistakable eagerness.

"You are the doctor, sir? Then will you come up at once? My mistress is upstairs, and the sooner you see her the better."

Without wasting time in questioning her, Anstice motioned to the speaker to lead the way; which she did accordingly, hurrying up the black oak staircase at a surprising pace; and giving Anstice no time to do more than glance at the artistic treasures which were in evidence on every side.

She led him a few steps down a broad gallery, lighted by large and finely-designed windows; and paused outside a door, turning to him with an expression of appeal—he could call it nothing else—in her small but intensely bright eyes.

"You'll be very gentle with the poor lady, sir? You won't—won't fluster her?" She broke off suddenly, appeared as though about to say something more, then closed her lips as though she had thought better of the impulse, and opening the door invited Anstice to enter.

Somehow her last words had given Anstice a queer, but possibly justifiable, suspicion that he was about to encounter a malade imaginaire; and just for a second he felt a spasm of irritation at the stress which had been laid on the urgent need for haste.

All such thoughts fled, however, as his eyes fell on the face of the patient he had come to see; for here was no neurotic invalid, no hysterical sufferer who craved sympathy for quite imaginary woes.

On the bed drawn up in front of one of the big casement windows lay a young woman with closed eyes; and as he approached her side Anstice saw that it was not sleep but unconsciousness which claimed her at that moment.

"How long has she been like this?" He spoke sharply, one hand on the slender wrist.

"It's two hours since she was seized, sir." The woman's voice shook. "No sooner was my mistress in the house—she came home only to-day—than she fainted clean away. We brought her round, the maids and me, and she was better for a bit … then up she would get to look after Miss Cherry, and off she went again. It's nearly half an hour ago … and we got so anxious that Hagyard telephoned for you … we thought it was the right thing to do."

"Quite the right thing." He was too intent on his patient to pay much attention to the woman's speech; but she was quite content to stand silent as he tried one means of restoration after another; and when, finally, his efforts were successful, both Anstice and the housekeeper breathed more freely.

"Your mistress … her name, by the way. … "

"Mrs. Carstairs, sir." She spoke with a tinge of reluctance, and even in the stress of the moment Anstice wondered why.

"Oh. Well, Mrs. Carstairs is coming round now, she will be herself in a moment or two. By the way, just go and fill a hot-water bottle, will you? It is chilly to-night, and Mrs. Carstairs will probably feel cold."

With a last look at her mistress the woman turned to obey; and Anstice moved back to the bed to find his patient's eyes open and fixed upon him with something of perplexity in their depths.

"Don't try to move just yet," he counselled her quickly. "You've had a bad faint, and must lie still for a little while. Do you feel better?"

"Much better, thank you." Her voice, though it sounded weak, was oddly deep in tone. "I suppose I fainted. Did they send for you?"

"Yes. Your servants were getting alarmed." He smiled. "But there is no need for alarm now. What you want is a long rest. You have been overtiring yourself, perhaps?"

A peculiar smile, which was mocking and yet sad, curved her lips for a moment. Then she said quietly:

"Perhaps I have overtired myself a little lately. But it was quite unavoidable."

"I see." Something about this speech puzzled Anstice, and for a moment he was rather at a loss to know what to say in reply.

She did not wait for him, however.

"Do you think I shall faint again? These faints are so unpleasant—really I don't think"—she paused, and when she resumed her voice sounded still deeper, with a true contralto note—"I don't think even death itself can be much more horrible. The sensation of falling, of sinking through the earth——"

She broke off, and he hastened to reply.

"I don't think you need anticipate any further trouble to-night. I suppose you have had your heart sounded?"

Again she smiled; and once more he could have sworn there was mockery in her smile.

"Yes. But I don't think my heart is wrong. It—it is due to other causes——"

She stopped abruptly as the door opened, and the woman came in, carrying the hot-water bottle for which she had been sent.

"That you, Tochatti?" She seemed to welcome the interruption. "Thank you so much." She let the servant fuss over her for a moment, then turned to Anstice. "You see," she said, "I am well looked after."

"I am glad you are," he rejoined promptly. "You know you are really in need of a little care at present. If you will allow me, I should like to sound your heart myself."

She acquiesced rather wearily; and having satisfied himself that the state in which he found her was due rather to weakness than to any specific disease, he turned to the strangely named woman, whom he now guessed to be a foreigner, and gave her a few directions for the night.

"I'll see to it, sir," she said quietly; and Anstice knew his orders would be faithfully carried out.

"Well, I can't do you any good by staying," he said, bending over the bed and holding out his hand. "But send for me if you want me, won't you? And I'll look in to-morrow to see how you are."

"One moment." Her hand in his felt strangely alive in spite of her recent unconsciousness. "Put on a little more light, please, Tochatti. I should like to see"—she spoke without any embarrassment—"to what sort of person I am indebted this evening."

When, the next instant, the room was flooded with light, Anstice had no scruples in looking at his patient with an interest which, though less openly expressed, was quite as strong as that with which she evidently intended to scrutinize him.

The first thing he noticed was that Mrs. Carstairs was young—probably not more than twenty-five. The next, that she looked as though she had recently gone through some nerve-racking experience; and the last, which came upon him with a shock of unjustifiable surprise, that she was more than commonly good-looking.

Her features, as he saw for the first time, were classical in outline, and the silky black hair which lay in heavy waves on her forehead shaded a brow which in contour was almost purely Greek. Her skin was of so thin and transparent a whiteness that her black eyebrows traced two inky lines across her face; and the almond shape of her sapphire blue eyes gave them a somewhat Oriental look, in spite of their eminently Western colouring.

When, in response to his stare, she vouchsafed a faint smile, he saw that the mouth which was sad in repose was fascinating when she smiled; and the white teeth which the smile displayed were perfect in shape and colour.

"Well?" Her deep voice took him so much aback that he absolutely started. "You've seen me—haggard wreck that I am—and I've seen you. So now we may consider our acquaintance inaugurated and say good-night."

"Certainly." He looked at her closely; and noted her extreme pallor. "I hope you will sleep—you look shockingly tired."

"I told you I was a wreck," she said, still with that inscrutable smile. "But if you will take me in hand I have no doubt I shall soon recover my ordinary rude health."

"I hope so." His tone was absent—he was wondering whether he had ever seen this woman before; and coming, finally, to the conclusion that he had not. "Well, I will leave you now, and hope to find you a great deal better in the morning."

"Thanks." She spoke wearily. "I'm sorry to have troubled you. Good-night."

In the hall the manservant waited, and Anstice, pitying his evident anxiety, spoke reassuringly to him as he took his coat. "Your mistress is much better now—with a little care she will soon be all right, I hope."

"Thank you, sir." The man's voice quivered with feeling. "We—we are all very anxious when our lady is not well."

"Of course." Anstice took the hat the servant held and moved to the door. "Is that nine striking? I didn't know it was so late."

Yet in spite of the lateness of the hour Anstice did not drive home at a particularly rapid pace. Something in the episode just closed had intrigued him, piqued his curiosity as well as stimulated his interest; and he was wondering, as he drove, what there was about his patient which suggested a mystery—something, at least, unusual unexpected, in her character or surroundings.

"She's uncommonly handsome—but so are heaps of women. Nice house, plenty of money, I should say, and of course she herself is well bred. Yet there is something odd about her—about her manner, rather. Looks at one queerly—almost quizzically—and yet when she smiled she looked extraordinarily sad." He turned a corner rather carelessly and a surprised motor-cyclist sounded his horn reproachfully. "I wonder—is she a widow? There was no sign of a husband, though I believe the servant said something about a child. Anyhow"—he had reached his own house now and slowed down before the gate—"I will see her to-morrow and perhaps learn a little more about her—if there is anything to learn. If not—well, women love to appear mysterious. There never was a woman yet who didn't long to rival the Sphinx and appear an enigma in the eyes of wondering men!"