Peter Ramsay put down the letter with a low whistle and stood staring at his half-packed portmanteau. Then he took up the letter again and re-read it.

There was no doubt about it! The governing body of St. Helena's Hospital for Children offered him the appointment of resident physician at a salary of £600 a year.

But where the deuce was the hospital?

Egworth. That was one of the suburbs of Blackborough; the most desirable suburb, for it stood on a hill, and so above the smoke-pall of the factory city. But he remembered no hospital there. Once upon a time some speculator had built a huge framework of a place that was to have been a hotel, or a hydropathic, or something of the sort, on the site of the old manor house at the very top of the rise. He remembered Phipp's Folly, as it was called, with its cold deserted look-out of roughly-glazed windows; but of hospitals--nothing.

It must be some small place. Yet still £600 a year was liberal.

"If you would prefer to see the hospital before making a decision the authorities will be happy to show you over, and I may mention that the governing body will be in committee on the 18th of this month, and could give you an interview."

Thus wrote the secretary.

The 18th? That was to-day. The letter had been delayed, partly because he had changed his lodgings, partly because he had run out of town from Saturday to Monday to see a friend before leaving for Vienna. Of course he could put off his journey for a day or two and still arrive easily before the date he had originally fixed.

On the other hand, as it was but a two hours' run to Blackborough, why should he not go down by the 12 o'clock luncheon train, and be back in time to start, if need be, by the Oriental express in the evening? No reason at all. He would do this, and he might find time, even if St. Helena's proved to be a fraud, to look in at St. Peter's into the bargain.

"St. Helena's Hospital," said the cabman at the station confidentially, "that'll be the no'o one as the Syndicate 'as bin makin' out o' Phipp's Folly."

Out of Phipp's Folly! So that was it; quaint certainly. "I suppose so," he replied; "they must have been pretty nippy about it."

Cabby's face fell. "Nippy," he echoed, "Nippy ain't in it. They've 'ad workmen over from the States and fitters from Germany, an' a regular cordon round the place to prevent union men havin' a look in. One thing is, it must have cost 'em a pot of money--but--but they done it! And they do say as it is fust class, and the old gardens a sight. So pop in, sir. I'll have you there in twenty minutes, if you'll give me three shillin'."

The three shillings were promised and Peter Ramsay spent those twenty minutes in pleasurable excitement. This was something out of the common. If it had been well done Phipp's Folly might be an ideal hospital, and there was something stimulating, something which stirred the imagination in this sudden development. Of course money could do everything, but how seldom money was spent in this way; for money in esse always had that postulate of more money in posse behind it. There was only one man he knew----

A quick wonder was checked by the swift turn of the cab through the wide open iron gates, while the new gravel of a broad semicircular sweep crisped under the wheels. But there was nothing to tell of recent work in the green lawns with their old spreading cedars, which lay between the two gates. And the faÇade itself! What an enormous improvement those wide balconies were, and how useful they might be. The whole place had an air of having been in use for years, and as the cab stopped a hall porter in livery came alertly down the porch steps, followed by a hall boy. That was a trifle too much for a good thing! No! there was another cab driving in by the other gate which explained the boy.

Peter Ramsay paused to give a general look round. Certainly so far as the outside went, nothing could be more perfect. What a splendid playground for the children the garden would be sloping away in varying degrees of wildness to a real dingle at the further foot of the hill. And that glass palace attached to the left must be a winter garden. On this warm day the doors were open and Dr. Ramsay could see swings, see-saws, rocking-horses, tall flowering shrubs, and--yes! birds, actually birds feeding on the floor or flying about, apparently content.

Close to the porch against the half-basement story, he could see through the glazed doors rows of perambulators, invalid carriages, and advancing to meet him with welcoming wave of the tail was a magnificent Newfoundland dog, evidently intended to be an important factor in the establishment.

There was imagination everywhere.

"Dr. Ramsay!" came an astonished voice at his elbow. He turned to see Mrs. Tresillian pausing in the very act of giving two shillings to her cabman.

"Mrs. Tresillian," he echoed, "how--how very----"

She stepped forward and looked at him--he stepped forward and looked at her. Then with one voice they both said:

"Ned! I felt it was Ned!"

Helen Tresillian gave a sigh of relief. "I have been wondering, ever since I got this," she held out a letter, and Dr. Ramsay mechanically held out his also, "who it could be who was offering me this place of matron, and now--dear me! How silly of me not to think of Ned before. But you see I have been away in Scotland--I only came back to-day--and I had not heard any Blackborough news since I was here before Christmas--so I could hardly guess, could I?" She cast a glance around her. "But this is Ned, of course. It is like a fairy tale. Let us go in and see it. I expect it is--perfect."

They went up the steps, solemnly followed by the Newfoundland, the hall porter, and the hall boy; but on the threshold Helen paused.

"Isn't it like a fairy tale?" she repeated. "'And in an instant there appeared a most beautiful hospital all fitted with cots and medicine bottles and nurses'--Ah! here comes one of them. How quaint--but oh! how sensible!"

It was rather a buxom little person who came out from a side-door. Something both in her fair smiling face and her dress recalled an old Dutch picture. Her neat white stockings and black rubber-soled, heelless shoes were well seen below a dark-blue cotton dress, full in the skirt, loose in the body, just fastened round the throat without any attempt at a collar, and ending short above the elbow. On her head, almost completely covering her smooth fair hair, she wore a white linen cap gathered in to tightness with a narrow tape tied at the back.

Dr. Ramsay gave a big sigh. "By George!" he murmured, "that's workmanlike if you like."

"I was to give you these," said the newcomer holding out two notes, one addressed to "Peter Ramsay, Esq., M.D., F.R.C.S., Medical Officer (designate)," the other to "Mrs. Tresillian, Matron (designate), St. Helena's Hospital, Egworth."

"It is from Ned," said Helen softly, handing him hers when she had read it. "I expect he has written you the same--I think he is certain to have written just the same."

They were in fact the same, word for word, short, and very much to the point.

"Dear Ramsay (or Helen),--I have built this hospital for you and No. 36 in the Queen's Ward. You will find him waiting for you in No. 7 overlooking the garden. He is at present sole occupant of the hospital. I hope you will accept the responsibility of killing or curing him. If you don't I must find someone else as St. Helena's Hospital--which by the way has a permanent endowment of £200,000--cannot possibly remain without a doctor or a matron. So don't say 'No,' unless you really dislike the place. Yours,

"Blackborough."

The tears for some reason or other came into Helen's eyes, and even Peter Ramsay winked. It was a fairy tale indeed.

"These are your rooms sir," said the little Dutch nurse, "The Governing body desire me to say they would be pleased to alter them in any reasonable way you might desire."

Peter Ramsay looked round the wide rooms whose walls were almost all cupboards, which was heated by a self-feeding stove, where the doors and drawers shut automatically, and the very wash-hand basin tilted itself empty, with a distinctly annoyed smile. "I don't believe even I could be untidy in it," he said grudgingly, "But if you will excuse me, nurse--who are the Governing Body?"

"Oh! there are several gentlemen, I believe; but I only know the one name--Lord Blackborough. I have not seen him. He is to be here to-day, however--it is their first Committee meeting, you know."

"It--it was built by a Syndicate, wasn't it?" asked Helen.

"Yes; by a Syndicate. I don't think Lord Blackborough had anything to do with it. These are your--that is, the matron's rooms."

Helen gave a little cry. They were the replica of her rooms at the Keep, even to the row of flower-pots on the window-sills and the little niche for her prie-dieu chair. What a memory he had--and what an imagination!

"They must have spent any amount of money over it," continued the buxom little nurse, "for everything is quite perfect--on a small scale of course--I mean in comparison with the London hospitals; but none of them, so far as I know, is half so well equipped for children. It will be a pleasure to work here."

She threw open the door of a ward and introduced Nurse Mary, an elderly woman also in the quaintly Dutch dress.

"There are only four cots in each ward," said Sister Ann, "and they have all a wide balcony on to which the cots can be wheeled, and every ward in thus part of the house is practically self-supporting." She threw open another side door in the landing. "The bath-room and the nurses' room are over there and this is the pantry. There is a lift from the kitchen."

Everything in truth was perfect, and Peter Ramsay gave a great sigh of content over the marble operating-room with its glass casing, its endless silver-plated taps, and tubes, and sprays, and levers.

"I believe," he said suddenly, excitedly, "It is a replica of Pagenheim's--yes! I am certain that is his new adjustor--" He was deep in the mechanism in a moment.

"There were German or Austrian workmen at it, I know," said Sister Ann beaming over with content, "But it is absolutely complete, isn't it?"

Truly it was complete in every detail. A very gem amongst hospitals, a very pearl of places where disease and death could be faced at close quarters. Yes! even to the little marble mortuary where carven biers stood waiting under the shadow of a great white cross.

"We must see number 36," said Helen to Dr. Ramsay, "It was built for him remember, as well as for us."

The plural pronoun gave Dr. Ramsay a little thrill which he shook off impatiently.

"That is the worst part of it," he said, "I am by no means sure about No. 36."

But the first sight of the boy who was playing draughts with his nurse in a great wide play-room with a lift from it to the winter-garden below, set him wondering if in very truth he could not set those crooked things straight.

"The Secretary's compliments, please," said the hall porter when they found themselves back in the vestibule, "and the Governing Body will be glad to see you, when you are disengaged."

They looked at one another. They had lingered over their inspection; it was already close on four o'clock, and if the Oriental mail had to be caught Peter Ramsay must leave at the half hour.

If?...

It did not take him long to decide. He thought of the appeal in those words "Don't say 'No,' unless you dislike the place." He would not at any rate go to Vienna that night.

"I am disengaged now," he said, looking at Helen Tresillian, "if you are."

So they followed their guide down a passage to the right wing of the house where he knocked at a door labelled Secretary's Office. A small man sadly humpbacked, but with a quick, intelligent face and a most determined chin, rose as they entered and bowed.

"If you would kindly step within," he said, opening an inner door, "Dr. Ramsay and Mrs. Tresillian, sir."

The door closed behind them and--and----

Ned Blackborough jumped up from a comfortable chair by the fire and came forward with outstretched hands.

"By George! I was nearly asleep. What a time you've been! I thought you must have gone away disgusted."

"My dear Ned!" gasped Mrs. Tresillian, "you don't surely mean that you--you only--are the Governing Body?"

"If you will sit down and pour us out some tea," he said coolly, pointing to a little table laid out by the fire, "I will tell you what I am--or rather what I am not--for I have been most things this last month. I had no idea it would have been such a business."

He might have said he had had no idea it would cost so much money, but he did not, for to him the only use of money was to spend it. So as they drank their tea, he told them how the idea had come to him before Christmas, when Helen had first told him of No. 36 and the discussion concerning the pot of beer had begun. How he had rushed everybody, bribing everybody to unheard-of haste. Just a month, he said, from start to finish; but he had had to get bricklayers, plasterers, painters over, by wire, from the States, and buy all the fittings in Germany. It was very unpatriotic, of course, but what could one do when the Trades' Unions would only allow a man to lay one-half the number of bricks in a day that the Americans laid, and when English firms talked of Christmas Day, Boxing Day and the general holiday dislocation of trade? He never could have done it but for Woods, the little dumpity who had introduced them. The man was an old watchmaker who had lost employment through the Swiss competition, and who had had the pluck to spend his last pound or two in going over to Geneva to see how it was that the foreigner could work cheaper. He, Ned, had come across him in the park one night and had lent him--only lent him, of course, with no hope of ever seeing him or it again--a sovereign! But the fellow had come back and had repaid the sovereign! He had written a pamphlet on his views and sold it in the streets. So?--so they had joined hands, being of the same way of thinking.

"I was awfully afraid when we were down at Plas Afon, Helen," he said, "that the thing would get blown upon; what with all the telegrams and the people who came to see me."

"But you told me," she replied reproachfully, "that it was mostly about that strike at the works."

"So it was--partly," he answered with a smile. Then he looked grave. "I'll tell you what, I've been busy this last fortnight, and no mistake."

"With the strike," she asked quickly.

"Yes! with the strike," he answered after a pause. "I went into the whole thing from the beginning, and I found that those particular factories had been working at a loss for the last three years. I showed the accounts to the men, and pointed out that under the circumstances no master could be expected to accede to a demand for a rise in wages. They wouldn't listen--I suppose, really, they couldn't listen, so I closed the works, gave them each a month's pay in their pockets, and told them I hoped they'd find a better master. I couldn't do anything else in common fairness. It comes to that in the end."

He walked to the window moodily and looked out, then turned to them with one of his sudden brilliant smiles.

"And you, good people? What have you decided; but perhaps I had better give you a short outline of what St. Helena's Hospital is to be."

"In the first place, Woods is to be the Secretary and Treasurer, and all that sort of thing, with a staff under him. There is to be no governing body, but the money will be vested in a trust, and the whole staff of the hospital shall form a general committee. This will ensure the appointment of really reliable persons all through. Sister Ann--you saw her--she has every diploma under the sun, and is as hard as nuts--is, for the present, head under you, Ramsay, of the nursing department. You are head, for the present, of the medical and surgical, with help as required, and Helen here is to boss the whole lot of you in housekeeping--it is really what you are cut out for, you know, Helen, though you did fuss over the chauffeur dinners."

"But I don't quite see why," began Peter Ramsay argumentatively, "all this has to be done. If it was to provide me----"

Ned Blackborough interrupted him. "It was to supply you--and the world," he said almost sarcastically--"with a place in which there were no vested interests. It was to provide you--and a few other working men and women--with a place here they could work without let or hindrance, where they were responsible for the whole show--yes! even for those who were to come after them. Don't bring in any one, Ramsay, because he is a brilliant operator; pay him, if you like, to come in and operate, but keep your staff good men and true, who will try to secure an apostolic succession of good men and true. Then--then no one will quarrel over a pint of beer! Do you accept?"

"I accepted from the very beginning, Ned," said Helen quickly; "the moment I saw the Newfoundland dog, I----"

Ned laughed. "I thought of bringing your father's retriever; but he wasn't warranted with children--so I got that bumbler."

Peter Ramsay was taking his turn at the window, looking out with eyes that had a blur in them. Suddenly he wheeled----

"Yes! I accept, Lord Blackborough, and--and may Heaven do so and to me and more also if----"

He wrung Ned's hand instead of finishing his sentence.

Lord Blackborough threw himself into the armchair and stretched out his legs in relief.

"Nunc dimittis," he said, "and now for a few details. You won't be able to start, of course, for some time. The place is fairly dry, having been roofed over, you remember, but some of the partition work is a bit damp, though we've had it all dried as well as we could, and your rooms are dog dry. So is Number Seven ward. But for a while you will have to go slow. Sister Ann, Woods, and the housekeeper--I hope you will like her, Helen; if you don't give her the sack, for she will have her vote in the housekeeping committee, though of course the under servants won't--or, at any rate, only on certain points. You will find Woods has it all worked out, however, he has a head like an American roll-top desk. Well! those three can manage, so if you want any special fit-up Oh! by the way, I've left the instruments to you, Ramsay, except the ordinary ones. Woods has enough in hand to pay----"

"And what is to become of you, Ned," asked Helen anxiously, noting a certain jumpiness of insouciance in her cousin's manner, a certain, almost uncanny, clearness in his eyes. "Are you going back to New Park?"

"Ye gods and little fishes! No!" he ejaculated. "Do I look, Helen, like a churchwarden, or any one else who would find comfort in Turkey carpets? I, my dear child, am going to find rest unto my soul in my own way. I--I am going to the Grecian Archipelago!"

"My dear Ned!" she laughed, "don't be so ridiculous! What are you going to do? You look tired!"

"Tired!" he echoed, with a quaint hint of a break in his voice; "I should think I was tired! So would you be if you had to consort with--how is it Walt Whitman puts it?--'tinsmiths, locksmiths, and they who work with the hammer, cabmen and mothers of large families.' I know now how my uncle must have felt. Excuse me, Helen, but I am a little bit harassed. You don't know what I've had to do and haven't had to do over this business; but I've got through it without any one guessing I was the syndicate. However, since I've started you, I really am off to Athens to-night. Afraid I shan't have your company on the Oriental express--ah, Ramsay? Now, as I have to see Ted Cruttenden--who is just back, I hear, from Paris--before I start, I'll say good-bye."

"But will you catch the express?" asked Dr. Ramsay incredulously.

"I expect so. I have a special," replied Lord Blackborough carelessly.

They looked at each other after he had left the room.

"I hope he will take a rest," said Helen, still more anxiously. "I've never seen him look so--so curious--as if he were seeing visions----"

"He is a little fine-drawn," said the doctor shortly; "quiet will set him all right, I expect."

Meanwhile Ned in his motor was running close up to time-limit on his way to Ted's office. Even if he missed the express he was not going away without telling the latter that he had spoken to Aura, that she had refused him, but that--well! he had some reason for hoping she might change her mind. He would have written this had he been able to get Ted's address in Paris, but no one knew it at the office, or at any rate they professed not to know it. Ted, however, had returned that morning, and Ned had telephoned down to him warning him to expect a visit.

So there he was in his private room, looking just a little disturbed, just a little combative; yet the Paris visit had been successful beyond his hopes. So successful indeed, that there was a really magnificent diamond ring in his breast-pocket awaiting leisure for him to take it down to Cwmfaernog.

"I'm off for six weeks--to be exact, for thirty-nine days--to Athens," said Ned, "and I wanted to see you for a moment first, because I have something to tell you--that, I think, you ought to know. I asked Aura Graham to marry me--on New Year's Day it was----"

Ted's heart gave a great thump. It made him conscious of the engagement ring, in its fine blue morocco case, in his breast-pocket.

"Yes----" he said chillily--"and--and----" He could not get his tongue to say "she accepted you," although, the instant he heard Ned's confession, he made up his mind that it must not force his hand in any way. The engagement was not yet made public; they had a perfect right to keep it secret if they chose.

"She refused me--but----" Here Ned found some little difficulty in going on, "but I am not so sure if--if she would refuse me again. That really is all I've come to say."

He looked frankly at his companion.

Ted stooped down and stirred the fire.

"Thanks. Of course that is your opinion--I--I don't agree with it; but anyhow a man can but take his chance. You take yours and I'll take mine."

"Done!" said Ned with a laugh, and they parted.