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56 stifling me! . . . Oh dear, it's more than I can bear!"

He rushed to the open window; and she was afraid that he wanted to throw himself out, so that she caught him round the body with both her arms. The old doctor came in. He shut the window.

"I can do nothing," she murmured to the old man, in despair.

"Yes, you can," said the doctor, calmly. "Yes, you can, mevrouw."

"You are all of you my enemies," said Ernst. "My enemies and theirs."

And he went and sat in his corner, huddled up, with his arms round his knees.

"Go away," he said, addressing both of them.

"I'm going, Ernst," said the old doctor. "But Constance may as well stay."

He sometimes called her by her Christian name, the old doctor who had brought them into the world in India; and to Constance it was touching, to hear that name from under his grey moustache; it called up those old, old days.

"Constance can stay?"

"Very well," said Ernst.

The doctor left them alone: the nurse would be on his guard.

"Ernst," said Constance, "suppose we went together . . . to Nunspeet?"

"Why? Why?" he asked, vehemently. "I'm