"She puts on a sour face, I must say. She's one of those who don't like seeing young people having a good time or anything done for them. Thinks, perhaps, Mrs. Welman is a bit too fond of you, and resents it." She laughed cheerfully.

"I shouldn't worry if I was you, Mary, my dear. Just open that paper bag, will you? There's a couple of doughnuts in it."

35

36

Chapter 3

Your Aunt had second stroke last night. No cause immediate anxiety but suggest you should come down if possible. Dr. Lord. Immediately on receipt of the telegram Elinor had rung up Roddy, and now they were in the train together bound for Hunterbury. Elinor had not seen much of Roddy in the week that had elapsed since their visit. On the two brief occasions when they had met, there had been an odd kind of constraint between them. Roddy had sent her flowers - a great sheaf of long-stemmed roses. It was unusual on his part. At a dinner they had had together he had seemed more attentive than usual, consulting her preferences in food and drink, being unusually assiduous in helping her on and off with her coat. A little, Elinor thought, as though he were playing a part in a play - the part of the devoted fiance. Then she had said to herself, Don't be an idiot. Nothing's wrong. You imagine things! It's that beastly, brooding, possessive mind of yours. Her manner to him had been perhaps a shade more detached, more aloof than usual. Now, in this sudden emergency, the constraint passed, they talked together naturally enough.

Roddy said, "Poor old dear, and she was so well when we saw her the other day."

Elinor said, "I do mind so terribly for her. I know how she hated being ill, anyway, and now I suppose she'll be more helpless still, and she'll simply loathe that! One does feel, Roddy, that people ought to be set free - if they themselves really want it."

Roddy said, "I agree. It's the only civilized thing to do. You put animals out of their pain. I suppose you don't do it with human beings simply because, human nature being what it is, people would get shoved off for 37

their money by their fond relations - perhaps when they weren't really bad at all."

Elinor said thoughtfully, "It would be in the doctors' hands, of course."

"A doctor might be a crook."

"You could trust a man like Dr. Lord."

Roddy said carelessly, "Yes, he seems straightforward enough. Nice fellow."

II

Dr. Lord was leaning over the bed. Nurse O'Brien hovered behind him. He was trying, his forehead puckered, to understand the slurred sounds coming from his patient's mouth.

He said, "Yes, yes.... Now, don't get excited. Take plenty of time. Just raise this right hand a little when you mean yes. There's something you're worried about?"

He received the affirmatory sign.

"Something urgent? Yes. Something you want done? Someone sent for?