Esther carried the tea-tray into the kitchen and stood for a moment beside the open window letting the sweet air from the garden cool the colour in her cheeks. Through the doorway into the hall she could see into the living room where Jane sat at the table in a little yellow pool of lamplight, busy with her school home work. Farther back, near the dusk of one of the veranda windows, Mrs. Coombe reclined in an easy chair. Her eyes were closed; in the half light she looked very pretty, very fragile; her relaxed pose suggested helplessness. Unconsciously Esther's innate strength answered to the call; her hard gaze softened. To apply the terms liar and thief to that dainty figure in the chair seemed little short of brutality. Mary was weak, that was all—just weak!

At the sound of the girl's step in the doorway Mrs. Coombe opened her eyes. They were very filmy to-night, blank, contented. Her nervousness seemed to have left her. Perhaps she was half asleep, for she yawned, an open, ugly yawn, which she did not trouble to raise her hand to hide.

"I have decided to take Jane with me, Esther."

"I don't want to go," said Jane.

"Well, you are going—that's enough."

"If you have really decided to go," began Esther slowly, "I think you are wise to take Jane. We cannot tell yet just how Aunt Amy may be."

The child returned to her book with a discontented sigh. Esther came nearer and spoke in a lower tone. "But before you go," she said, "please don't forget to replace Aunt Amy's ring. If she were to find it gone it would be no joke but a serious shock, as I suppose you know."

Mrs. Coombe laughed. And Esther realised that a laugh was the last thing she had expected. For anger, evasion, denial, she had been prepared. Mary would probably storm and bluster in her ineffective way—and return the ring. Instead—

"How did you know I had it?" she asked good humouredly.

"I saw that it was gone."

"And the deduction was obvious? Well, this time you are right. I did take it. I expect I have a right to borrow my own Aunt's things if she is too mean to lend them. It's a shame of her to want to keep the only decent jewel we have shut up. Amy gets more selfish every day."

"But you will put it back before she misses it?"

Mrs. Coombe could see her step-daughter's face quite plainly and its expression made her wince, but she was reckless to-night. After all, why pretend? If Esther intended to eternally interfere with her affairs the sooner an open break came, the better.

"Perhaps, perhaps not. Certainly not until I return from my visit."

Esther fought down her rising dismay.

"Mother, don't you understand what you are doing? The ring is Aunt Amy's
You have no right to take it!"

"I've a right if I choose to make one."

"If Auntie finds out it is not in its box, we cannot tell what the effect may be!"

"She needn't find out. What she doesn't know won't hurt her!"

"But—it is stealing!"

Mrs. Coombe laughed. "What a baby you are, Esther, for all your solemn eyes and grown-up airs. Stealing—the idea! Anyway you need not worry since you are not the thief." She yawned again, rose, and declared that she felt quite tired enough to go to bed.

When she had gone, Jane left her lessons and came to her sister's side.

"Esther, do I really have to go away with Mother?"

"It looks like it, Janie. But you'll like it. Mrs. Bremner has a little girl."

"I don't like little girls."

"Then you ought to! The change will probably do you good."

Jane looked dubious. "Things that I don't want never do me any good.
Will you help me with my 'rithmetic?"

"I will when I come back."

"Where're you going?"

"Out. I'll not be long. Answer Aunt Amy's bell if it rings, like a dear child."

Esther's decision had been made, as many important decisions are, suddenly, and without conscious thought. All the puzzling over what was right and wrong seemed no longer necessary. Without knowing why, she knew that it had become imperative to get some good advice and get it at once. If she had been disturbed and uneasy before, she was frightened now. Something must be done, if not for Mary's sake at least for the sake of the honoured name she bore, and for Jane's sake!

"Mother doesn't seem to know when a thing is wrong any more!" was the burden of the girl's thought as she hurried upstairs.

She knew where the prescription was kept—in a little drawer of her father's old desk, a drawer supposed to be secret. To-morrow Mary would take it away with her. Esther opened the drawer without allowing herself a moment for thought or regret. The paper was there, folded, in its usual place.

With a sigh of relief she seized it, hurried to her own room for her hat and then out into the summer night. A brisk five minute walk brought her to Mrs. Sykes' gate, and there, for the first time, she hesitated.

"Evening, Esther!" called Mrs. Sykes cheerfully from the veranda. "Come right along in. Mrs. Coombe told Ann you might be over to borrow the telescope valise if she decided to take Jane. Rather sudden, her going away, isn't it? Hadn't heard a word about it until the Ladies' Aid—come up and sit on the veranda and I'll get it."

"I didn't come for the telescope," said Esther. "I came to see Dr.
Callandar."

"Oh," with renewed interest. "Well, he's in. At least he's in unless he went out while I was upstairs putting Ann to bed. That's his consulting room where the light is. It's got a door of its own so folks won't be tramping up the hall—but of course you know. You were here this afternoon. Funny, Mrs. Coombe going away with your poor Auntie sick and all! I suppose it is your Auntie, since it can't be Jane or Mrs. Coombe?"

"Yes, it is Aunt Amy. She has not been very well."

"The heat, likely. Heat is hard on folks with weak heads. Not that your Auntie's head ever seems weaker than lots of other folks. Won't you come up and sit awhile?—Well, ring the bell."

Mrs. Sykes voice trailed off indistinctly as Esther rounded the veranda corner and stood by the rose bush before the doctor's door. She pushed the new electric bell timidly.

"You'll have to push harder than that!" called Mrs. Sykes. "It sticks some!"

But the door had opened at once, letting out a flood of yellow light.

"Miss Coombe—you?"

"It's Esther Coombe come about her Aunt Amy," called the voice from the veranda.

Hastily the doctor drew her in and closed the door with an emphatic bang. Then for the second time that day they looked into each other's eyes and laughed.

"Do you think my patients will stand that?" he asked her ruefully.

"Oh, we are used to Mrs. Sykes, we don't mind."

"That's good! Ah, I see you have the mysterious prescription. It wasn't so hard after all, was it? Probably your mother was quite as anxious as you."

"No, she refused to let me show it you. I took it. To-night was the only chance, for she is going away to-morrow and will take it with her."

"And how about your Presbyterian conscience?" Still with a twinkle.

"Silenced, for the present. But look at it quickly for the silence may not last. It seemed that I simply had to help mother, in spite of herself. And there was no other way. All the same I shall despise myself when I get time to think."

The doctor took the paper with a smile. "When that time comes I shall argue with you, though argument rarely affects feeling. To my mind you are doing an eminently sensible thing."

He opened the paper and peered at it under the lamp; looked quickly up at the girl's eager face and then from her to the paper again.

"What is it?" she asked anxiously.

"Why—I don't know. Where did you get this?"

"In the secret drawer of father's desk."

"Was the prescription always kept there?"

"Yes."

The doctor folded the paper again and handed it to her. "Does this look like the prescription?"

"Yes, of course. It is the prescription."

"I'm afraid not. Come and look."

Esther seized the paper eagerly and saw—a neatly written recipe for salad dressing!

Hot and cold with mortification, she stared at it blankly. "I have been nicely fooled," she said in a low voice.

"Am I permitted to smile, or would it hurt your feelings?"

"It is not at all funny! Of course the real prescription has been removed. She must have suspected. You see, I asked her to let me have it. Oh!" with sudden shame and anger. "She guessed that I might take it, don't you see?"

"I am afraid you are right. But now at least I should think that you have done your whole duty. It would look as if Mrs. Coombe was herself aware of the inadvisability of continuing this prescription. Why else should she be so careful to prevent you showing it to me? At the same time she is determined to go on using it. We cannot prevent her."

"Can we do nothing?"

"When I see her I shall be better able to judge."

"But she is going away."

"Then we must wait. If it is, as I suspect, a case of disordered nerves aggravated by improper treatment, the instinct is strongly for concealment. Do you find, for instance, that Mrs. Coombe is not as frank in other matters as she used to be?"

A shamed blush crimsoned the girl's cheek, but the doctor's tone was compelling and she answered in a low voice: "Yes, I think so."

"Don't look like that. It is only a symptom of something rotten in the nervous system."

"Isn't there such a thing as character?" bluntly.

"As distinct from the nervous system? Some say not. But we do not need to venture such a devastating belief to know, well, that a dyspeptic is usually disagreeable. In potential character he may be equal to the cheeriest man who ever ate a hearty dinner. Think of Carlyle."

"I don't like Carlyle."

"But don't you admire him?"

"No. Do you remember the story of the beggar who picked up his hat one day and instead of giving him sixpence, Carlyle said, 'Mon, ye may say ye hae picked up the hat of Thomas Carlyle.'"

The doctor laughed. "Oh he had a guid conceit o' himself—must you go?"
For Esther had risen.

"Yes, thank you. Oh, please do not come with me. It is only a step. I'd much rather not. Mrs. Sykes would conclude that the whole family were in danger of immediate extinction."

She was so evidently perturbed that the doctor laid down his hat, but for the first time it occurred to him that Mrs. Sykes was not an unmixed blessing.

Esther was holding out her hand.

"Then you think we can safely leave it until mother returns?"

"I think we shall have to, and if things have been going on as long as you think, a week more or less will make no very material difference. In any case we cannot examine a lady by force or prevent her from getting a prescription until one knows it to be dangerous."

"No, of course not. Good-night, and—thank you, Doctor!"

"And I am not to be allowed to walk home with you?"

"Truly, I would rather not."

"Then good-night, and don't worry."

He watched her flit down the dusky path, heard the click of the gate latch, and turned back into the office to wonder why it seemed suddenly bare and empty!