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me why you don't go off and have kids of your own."
    Lesley held her breath, but Angela Bishop did not seem to be perturbed. Instead, she prevented Lesley from following them into the room.
    "There's no need for you to stay, Doctor. It's been a trying day for you and it's not over yet. If I were you I'd take the chance to rest in your room until dinner. There's no saying when you'll get to bed tonight."
    "If you're sure it's all right, Sister?" Lesley glanced uncertainly towards the duty room door.
    "Leave this to me. I'll know where to find you if you're needed." She was about to enter the room herself and then she hesitated. "Doctor Leigh," she spoke less briskly now, "I should go carefully, if I were you." She seemed about to enlarge on her warning, then shrugged her shoulders. "Put it this way." The grin she gave Lesley was a trifle lop-sided. "With some folk their bite can be even worse than their bark."
     

CHAPTER EIGHT
    When Lesley woke some hours later the room was in shadow The deceptive calm of late evening pervaded the building. No one had called her. She listened, but there were no sounds at all. The travelling clock on her bedside table showed that die dinner hour was past. Sleep had obviously been more important for her than food. She stretched deliriously. The muscles of her neck, arms and legs ached with that tired feeling of work well done. She turned over and pulled up the covers for another few moments of reflective peace.
    Snippets of the day's conversations began the inevitable play-back in her head.
    ("I'm dashed sure I wouldn't let him make a doormat of me.") Sandy Williams' nonchalance had been a snare and a delusion. She saw that now. How could she ever have imagined that she could challenge Harry Dayborough's treatment of her? In the drifting half-awake state her own defiant words came back to mock her. ("It he's trying to break my spirit, he's still got a long way to go.") Surely she had never been as confident as her words implied. Whistling in the dark - that was all the empty bravado had been. Now in the quiet shadowed room all her earlier doubts returned to plague her. She had no more chance of getting the better of him than she had of winning one of the senior house posts. She sat bolt upright in bed. Where had that unbidden thought come from? The intuitive core of her being which knew in this cold shaft of saneness that she was right? She propped herself up on one elbow. How could she hope to achieve her ambition with Harry Dayborough's face set against her like this? Everything she did only served to exacerbate an already impossible situation. Calling his bluff was what the boys had recommended. Whatever had made them suppose it was bluff?
    She tried to glimpse the possible outcome of her response to Harry Dayborough's derision this afternoon but her mind steered resolutely away from it. Try as she would she could get no further than the echo of his last threat. ("You'll live to regret ... regret ... regret ... ") It became inextricably intermingled with the words of Sister Bishop's warning. ("With some folk the bite can be worse than the bark.")
    She was fully awake by now. There was nothing to do but get through the rest of this interminable day. The pleasantly drowsy feelings had passed, and she found herself longing again for the oblivion of sleep.
    She rose and decided to run a bath. Now that she was actively engaged in doing something the misgivings and doubts receded. Such thoughts were foolish. Of course she would win. What could he do to prevent it? It was Sir Charles Hope- Moncrieff she had to satisfy. How could Harry Dayborough harm her if her work was good?
    No sooner had she stepped into the tub of steaming water than the interlude was over. A hammering on the door recalled her to duty.
    A general practitioner on an emergency call was speaking from Snykes village two miles away.
    "Is that the duty physician?" the unknown voice at the other end of the line was asking. "Look,