surge of life was vibrating all about him in the dusk. The night was closing down on an air sweetened with the violets and jonquils and primroses that carpeted the shaded recesses of his garden. It was all very lovely. And he felt unaccountably happy and unaccountably sad.
Then Lee called him and he went in.
IV
Valerie had been deeply concerned when after a week’s absence Bob walked into the office looking gray and ill. He threw a packet of notes and manuscript on her desk and said he must get to bed. It was eight o’clock, and she begged him to get the doctor as soon as he got to the hotel. But when she got home at eleven, after going over his papers, she found he had not done anything for himself. Alarmed by his appearance she had Michael hunt up Doc Steele, who had left the house an hour before. The doctor stayed by Bob most of the night, and the first thing in the morning ordered his removal to the hospital. He was wrapped out of sight in rugs and run down in one of Mac’s launches. While it was still dark Valerie went to the house of the postmaster and woke him. If she could get on the line with Auckland at once Mrs. Lorrimer might be able to get that day’s boat. The official managed it for her, and she got the Bishop’s family out of bed.
She tried to eat a breakfast that might be adequate for the day she knew was ahead of her. She got sandwiches from Lizzie to take to the office, foreseeing that a lunch time might be merely a matter of imagination. It proved, indeed, to be one of those days when capricious circumstances collaborate to drive mortals mad. For some reason the minds that decided the allotment of cables and telegrams to little papers almost doubled her usual allow-
