CHAPTER XV
IN WHICH I MAKE A LITTLE PRESENT
ONE afternoon, at the feast in honour of the wedding of Shiela Warren, a patient of mine who lived with her parents in Longridge Road, Earl's Court, I was introduced to Mr. James Farnell.
A stout, red-faced, pompous old gentleman, he greeted me affably, and we had a long chat in the corner of the crowded drawing-room.
Only recently I had pulled the bride through a very severe attack of scarlet-fever, and the thanks of the family, and of the young man who was that day the bridegroom, had been showered upon me. The girl now standing, handsome and radiant, in her bridal gown, had very nearly gone under. Indeed, one night I had left that house, feeling that I should not see her again alive. Yet, with that perversity which Nature so often asserts, she
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