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 CHAPTER XIV

FALSE OR TRUE?

NE bright crisp afternoon in mid-December, Roseye, wrapped warmly in her furs, sat beside me in the car as we sped through Leatherhead on our way out to Burford Bridge, where we had decided to have tea.

In the grey wintry light the landscape had become gloomy and depressing. Yet my love chatted merrily as we sped along.

Since that well-remembered evening at my rooms when she had made her sudden reappearance on my threshold from nowhere, the days had been very dark and terribly anxious ones.

After her refusal to tell me anything, I had taken her home, where her sudden arrival had been as a thunderbolt to her parents. But alas! her overstrained brain had then given way, and for three weeks she had remained in bed under the care of Sir Charles Needham, one of the greatest mental specialists in Harley Street.

Thanks to his skill, she had slowly recovered—very slowly it seemed to me.

A dozen times I had chatted with Sir Charles, and 144