remarked Swot. "Say, dis oin't no police court, see?"

During all these questions, and to a certain extent their cause, Constance had been quite conscious that the doctor was still watching her, and now she once more turned to him, to say, with an inflection of disapproval,—

"When I spoke to you just now, Dr. Armstrong, I did not mean to interrupt you in your duties, and you must not let me detain you from them."

"I had made my morning rounds long before you came, Miss Durant," equably answered the doctor, "and had merely come back for a moment to take a look at one of the patients."

"I feared you were neglecting—were allowing my arrival to interfere with more important matters," replied Miss Durant, frigidly. "I never knew a denser man," she added to herself, again seeking to ignore his presence by giving her attention to Swot. "I should have brought a book with me to-day, to read aloud to you, but I had no idea what kind of a story would interest you. If you know of one, I'll get it and come to-morrow."

"Gee, Ise in it dis time wid bote feet, oin't Ise? Say, will youse git one of de Old Sleuts? Deys de peachiest books dat wuz ever wroten."

"I will, if my bookshop has one, or can get it for me in time."

"There is little chance of your getting it there, Miss Durant," interposed Dr. Armstrong; "but there is a place not far from here where stories of that character are kept; and if it will save you any trouble, I'll gladly get one of them for you."

"I have already overtaxed your kindness," replied Constance, "and so will not trouble you in this."

"It would be no trouble."

"Thank you, but I shall enjoy the search myself."

"Say," broke in the urchin. "Youse ought to let de doc do it. Don't youse see dat he wants to, 'cause he's stuck on youse?"

"Then I'll come to-morrow and read to you, Swot," hastily remarked Miss Durant, pulling her veil over her face. "Good-bye." Without heeding the boy's "Dat's fine," or giving Dr. Armstrong a word of farewell, she went hurrying along the ward, and then downstairs, to her carriage. Yet once within its shelter, the girl leaned back and laughed merrily. "It's perfectly absurd for him to behave so before all the nurses and patients, and he ought to know better. It is to be hoped that was a sufficiently broad hint for his comprehension, and that henceforth he won't do it."

Yet it must be confessed that the boy's remark frequently recurred that day to Miss Durant; and if it had no other result, it caused her to devote an amount of thought to Dr. Armstrong quite out of proportion to the length of the acquaintance.

Whatever the inward effect, Miss Durant could discover no outward evidence that Swot's bombshell had moved Dr. Armstrong a particle more than her less pointed attempts to bring to him a realisation that he was behaving in a manner displeasing to her. When she entered the ward the next morning, the doctor was again there, and this time at the waif's bedside, making avoidance of him out of the question. So with a "this-is-my-busy-day" manner, she gave him the briefest of greetings, and then turned to the boy.

"I've brought you some more goodies, Swot, and I found the story," she announced triumphantly.

"Say, youse a winner, dat's wot youse is; oin't she, doc? Wot's de noime?"

Constance held up to him the red and yellow covered tale. "The Cracksman's Spoil, or Young Sleuth's Double Artifice" she read out proudly.

"Ah, g'way! Dat oin't no good. Say, dey didn't do a t'ing to youse, did dey?"

"What do you mean?"

"Dey sold youse fresh, dat's wot dey did. De Young Sleut books oin't no good. Dey's nuttin' but a fake extry."

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Constance, crestfallenly. "It took me the whole afternoon to find it, but I did think it was what you wanted."

"I was sceptical of your being able to get even an approach to newsboy literature, Miss Durant," said Dr. Armstrong, "and so squandered the large sum of a dime myself. I think this is the genuine article, isn't it?" he asked, as he handed to the boy a pamphlet labelled Old Sleuth on the Trail.

"Dat's de real t'ing," jubilantly acceded Swot. "Say, oin't de women doisies for havin' bases stole off 'em? Didn't Ise give youse de warm tip to let de doc git it?"

"You should thank him for saving you from my stupid blunder," answered the girl, artfully avoiding all possibility of personal obligation. "Would you like me to read it to you now?"

"Wouldn't Ise, just!"

Still ignoring Dr. Armstrong, Constance took the seat at the bedside, and opening the book, launched into the wildest sea of blood-letting and crime. Yet thrillingly as it began, she was not oblivious to the fact that for some minutes the doctor stood watching her, and she was quite conscious of when he finally moved away, noiselessly as he went. Once he was gone, she was more at her ease; yet clearly her conscience troubled her a little, for in her carriage she again gave expression to some thought by remarking aloud, "It was rude, of course, but if he will behave so, it really isn't my fault."

"Constance took the seat at the bedside"

The gory tale, in true serial style, was "continued" the next and succeeding mornings, to the enthralment of the listener and the amusement of the reader, the latter finding in her occupation as well a convenient reason for avoiding or putting a limit to the doctor's undisguised endeavours to share, if not, indeed, to monopolise, her attention. Even serials, however, have an end, and on the morning of the sixth reading the impossibly shrewd detective successfully put out of existence, or safely incarcerated each one of the numerous scoundrels who had hitherto triumphed over the law, and Constance closed the book.

"Hully gee!" sighed Swot, contentedly. "Say, dat Old Sleut, he's up to de limit, oin't he? It don't matter wot dey does, he works it so's de hull push comes his way, don't he?"

"He certainly was very far-seeing," Constance conceded; "but what a pity it is that he—that he wasn't in some finer calling."

"Finer wot?"

"How much nobler it would have been if, instead of taking life, he had been saving it—like Dr. Armstrong, for instance," she added, to bring her idea within the comprehension of the boy.

"Ah, dat's de talk for religious mugs an' goils," contemptuously exclaimed the waif, "but it guv's me de sore ear. It don't go wid me, not one little bit."

"Aren't you grateful to Dr. Armstrong for all he's done for you?"

"Bet youse life," assented Swot; "but Ise oin't goin' to be no doctor, nah! Ise goin' to git on de force, dat's de racket Ise outer. Say, will youse read me anudder of dem stories?7'

"Gladly, if I can find the right kind this time."

The boy raised his head to look about the ward. "Hey, doc," called his cracked treble.

"Hush, don't!" protested the girl.

"W'y not?"

Before she could frame a reason, the doctor was at the bedside. "What is it?" he asked.

"Say, wese got tru wid dis story, an' Miss Constance says she'll read me anudder, but dey'll set de goime up on her, sure, she bein' a goil; so will youse buy de real t'ing?"

"That I will."

"Dat's hunky." Then he appealed to Constance. "Say, will youse pay for it?" he requested.

"And why should she?" inquired Dr. Armstrong.

"'Cause she's got de dough, an Ise heard de nurse loidies talkin' 'bout youse, an' dey said dat youse wuz poor."

It was the doctor's turn to colour, and flush he did.

"Swot and I will both be very grateful, Dr. Armstrong, if you will get us another of the Old Sleuth books," spoke up Miss Durant, hastily.

"Won't youse guv 'im de price?" reiterated the urchin.

"Then we'll expect it to-morrow morning," went on the girl; and for the first time in days she held out her hand to Dr. Armstrong, "And thank you in advance for your kindness. Good-morning."

"Rats!" she heard, as she walked away. "I didn't tink she'd do de grand sneak like dat, doc, jus' 'cause I tried to touch her for de cash."

Constance slowed one step, then resumed her former pace. "He surely— Of course he'll understand why I hurried away," she murmured.

Blind as he might be, Dr. Armstrong was not blind to the geniality of Miss Durant's greeting the next morning, or the warmth of her thanks for the cheap-looking dime novel. She chatted pleasantly with him some moments before beginning on the new tale; and even when she at last opened the book, there was a subtle difference in the way she did it that made it include instead of exclude him from a share in the reading. And this was equally true of the succeeding days.

The new doings of Old Sleuth did not achieve the success that the previous ones had. The invalid suddenly developed both restlessness and inattention, with such a tendency to frequent interruptions as to make reading well-nigh impossible.

"Really, Swot," Constance was driven to threaten one morning, when he had broken in on the narrative for the seventh time with questions which proved that he was giving no heed to the book, "unless you lie quieter, and don't interrupt so often, I shall not go on reading."

"Dat goes," acceded the little fellow; yet before she had so much as finished a page he asked, "Say, did youse ever play craps?"

"No," she answered, with a touch of severity.

"It's a jim dandy goime, Ise tells youse. Like me to learn youse?"

"No," replied the girl, as she closed the book.

"Goils never oin't no good," remarked Swot, discontentedly.

Really irritated, Miss Durant rose and adjusted her boa. "Swot," she said, "you are the most ungrateful boy I ever knew, and I'm not merely not going to read any more to-day, but I have a good mind not to come to-morrow, just to punish you."

"Ah, chase youseself!" was the response. "Youse can't pass dat gold brick on me, well, I guess!"

"What are you talking about?" indignantly asked Constance.

"Tink Ise oin't onter youse curves? Tink Ise don't hear wot de nurse loidies says? Gee! Ise know w'y youse so fond of comin' here."

"Why do I come here?" asked Constance, in a voice full of warning.

The tone was wasted on the boy.

"'Cause youse dead gone on de doc."

"I am sorry you don't know better than to talk like that, Swot," said the girl, quietly, "because I wanted to be good to you, and now you have put an end to my being able to be. You will have to get some one else to read to you after this. Good-bye." She passed her hand kindly over his forehead, and turned to find that Dr. Armstrong was standing close behind her, and must have overheard more or less of what had been said. Without a word, and looking straight before her, Constance walked away.

Once out of the hospital, her conscience was not altogether easy; and though she kept away the next day, she sent her footman with the usual gift of fruits and other edibles; and this she did again on the morning following.

"Of course he didn't mean to be so atrociously impertinent," she sighed, in truth missing what had come to be such an amusing and novel way of using up some of each twenty-four hours. "But I can't, in self-respect, go to him any more."

These explanations were confided to her double in the mirror, as she eyed the effect of a new gown, donned for a dinner; and while she still studied the eminently satisfactory total, she was interrupted by a knock at the door, and her maid brought her a card the footman handed in.

Constance took it, looked astonished, then frowned slightly, and finally glanced again in the mirror. Without a word, she took her gloves and fan from the maid, and descended to the drawing-room.

"Good-evening, Dr. Armstrong," she said, coolly.

"I have come here—I have intruded on you, Miss Durant," awkwardly and hurriedly began the doctor, "because nothing else would satisfy Swot McGarrigle. I trust you will understand that I—He—he is to undergo an operation, and—well, I told him it was impossible, but he still begged me so to ask you, that I hadn't the heart to refuse him."

"An operation!" cried Constance.

"Don't be alarmed. It's really nothing serious. He—Perhaps you may have noticed how restless and miserable he has been lately. It is due, we have decided, to one of the nerves of the leg having been lacerated, and so I am going to remove it, to end the suffering, which is now pretty keen."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," exclaimed the girl, regretfully. "I didn't dream of it, and so was hard on him, and said I wouldn't come any more."

"He has missed your visits very much, Miss Durant, and we found it very hard to comfort him each morning, when only your servant came."

"Has he really? I thought they were nothing to him."

"If you knew that class better, you would appreciate that they are really grateful and warm-hearted, but they fear to show their feelings, and, besides, could not express them, even if they had the words, which they don't. But if you could hear the little chap sing your praises to the nurses and to me, you would not think him heartless. 'My loidy' is his favourite description of you."

"'I have come here—I have intruded on you, Miss Durant,' hurriedly began the doctor"

"He wants to see me?" questioned the girl, eagerly.

"Yes. Like most of the poorer class, Miss Durant," explained the doctor, "he has a great dread of the knife. To make him less frantic, I promised that I would come to you with his wish; and though I would not for a moment have you present at the actual operation, if you could yield so far as to come to him for a few minutes, and assure him that we are going to do it for his own good, I think it will make him more submissive."

"When do you want me?" asked Miss Durant.

"It is—I am to operate as soon as I can get back to the hospital, Miss Durant. It has been regrettably postponed as it is."

The girl stood hesitating for a moment. "But what am I to do about my dinner?"

Dr. Armstrong's eyes travelled over her from head to foot, taking in the charming gown of satin and lace, the strings of pearls about her exquisite throat and wrists, and all the other details which made up such a beautiful picture. "I forgot," he said, quietly, "that society duties now take precedence over all others." Then, with an instant change of manner, he went on: "You do yourself an injustice, I think, Miss Durant, in even questioning what you are going to do. You know you are coming to the boy."

For the briefest instant the girl returned his intent look, trying to fathom what enabled him to speak with such absolute surety; then she said, "Let us lose no time," as she turned back into the hall and hurried out of the front door, not even attending to the doctor's protest about her going without a wrap; and she only said to him at the carriage door, "You will drive with me, of course, Dr. Armstrong?" Then to the footman, "Tell Murdock, the hospital, Maxwell, but you are to go at once to Mrs. Purdy, and say I shall be prevented from coming to her to-night by a call that was not to be disregarded,"

"It was madness of you, Miss Durant, to come out without a cloak, and I insist on your wearing this," said the doctor, the moment the carriage had started, as he removed his own overcoat.

"Oh, I forgot—but I mustn't take it from you, Dr. Armstrong."

"Have no thought of me. I am twice as warmly clad as you, and am better protected than usual."

Despite her protest he placed it