up the whole repose of my nature. However, that turmoil subsided: next day I was again Lucy Snowe.
On revisiting my drawers, I found them all securely locked; the closest subsequent examination could not discover change or apparent disturbance in the position of one object. My few dresses were folded as I had left them; a certain little bunch of white violets that had once been silently presented to me by a stranger (a stranger to me, for we had never exchanged words), and which I had dried and kept for its sweet perfume between the folds of my best dress, lay there unstirred; my black silk scarf, my lace chemisette and collars were unrumpled. Had she creased one solitary article, I own I should have felt much greater difficulty in forgiving her; but finding all straight and orderly, I said, "Let bygones be bygones. I am unharmed: why should I bear malice?"
A thing there was which puzzled myself, and I sought in my brain a key to that riddle almost as sedulously as madame had sought a guide to useful knowledge in my toilet drawers. How was it that Dr. John, if he had not been accessory to the dropping of that casket into the garden, should have known that it was dropped, and appeared so promptly on the spot to seek it? So strong was the wish to clear up this point that I began to entertain this daring suggestion:
"Why may I not, in case I should ever have the opportunity, ask Dr. John himself to explain this coincidence?"
And so long as Dr. Jon was absent, I really believed I had courage to test him with such a question.
Little Georgette was now convalescent; and her physician accordingly made his visits very rare: indeed, he would have ceased them altogether, had not madame insisted on his giving an occasional call till the child should be quite well.
She came into the nursery one evening just after I had listened to Georgette’s lisped and broken prayer, and had put her to bed. Taking the little one’s hand, she said:
"Cette enfant a toujours un peu de fièvre". And presently afterwards, looking at me with a quicker glance than was habitual to her quiet eye, "Le Docteur John l’a-t-il vue dernièrement? Non, n’est-ce pas?"
