Free A Case of Heart Trouble by Susan Barrie Page A

very much alike. Mrs. Martin Loring, however, died nearly four years ago. I do hope you were not indiscreet enough to let the doctor know you imagined his sister-in-law was his wife! ”
    “No, no, of course not.” But Dallas was only aware of one thing . . . Martin Loring was not marrie d, and when he took his recent trip to the Bahamas it was not a honeymoon trip! If she’d gone to tea in Harley Street six weeks ago she would not have found herself confronted by a confident, smiling wife . . . She could have had a cosy chat with Aunt Letty, who must have thought it extremely odd that she was adamant in her refusal to be taken back to Harley Street, and wondered in what way she had offended the sensitive Nurse Drew! Extraordinary over-sensitive, she must have thought, or merely ungrateful and rude!
    There came a light tap on the door, and Dr. Loring himself entered. He glanced, with a slight smile on his face, at Dallas.
    “So I’ve arrived at precisely the right moment,” he observed. “Sister Kenton has just been taking me on the rounds, but I thought I’d look in here before I left, Matron, and find out whether you’d had a word with Nurse Drew. And lo and behold, Nurse Drew is here in person! ”
    Dallas could almost feel the criticism in his look as it roved over her, and she realized he was not entirely impressed by her appearance. She also sensed something else in the way he looked at her ... a kind of enquiry, as if he was by no means sure she had fallen in at once with the proposition put to her by Matron.
    “Well, Nurse?” he said, his head a little on one side, his eyes oddly inscrutable as they met and held hers. “Can I take it that you will not let me down? I’m depending on you, you know!”
    Dallas looked away, concentrating on the bowl of flowers on Matron’s desk.
    “No, Doctor, I won’t let you down,” she replied, a trifle huskily.
    “Good!” he exclaimed quietly, softly. He turned to Matron. “Then Nurse Drew can be released immediately, is that it, Matron? She’ll require a day in which to make her preparations, and I’d like to leave early in the morning. This time,” he said to Dallas, “we shall do the journey in a day. It’s simple when you’re not an invalid.”
    And he most certainly was not an invalid any longer. She had the feeling that he was bursting with vigor, lean, hard, tanned and fit . . . with nothing about him to remind her of the man who had been so dependent on her once.
    For the rest of the day she went about in a daze, hardly believing in her good fortune. Or was it good fortune, when her feelings had not changed for the man who was to employ her for several months? And he had said, casually, that he would probably require her services for several months . . . and there would be no need for her to wear uniform. He made this clear in Matron’s office. It would be better for his daughter if her companion was someone she could look upon as a kind of elder sister, rather than someone connected with the nursing profession. And as Matron agreed without any hesitation Dallas went round putting her uniform dresses and aprons away carefully before attempting to pack her ordinary everyday clothes.
    Once more she came in for envy, but this time some of the looks she received were friendly.
    “It’ll do you good, Dallas,” her particular friend said, when they said goodbye overnight. “You’ve been looking pretty peaked for weeks now, and I’m surprised Matron hasn’t done something about you long before this. We all thought you ought to have had a longer period of sick leave.” “Oh, I’m perfectly fit now,” Dallas declared; but Dr. Loring didn’t think she was perfectly fit, and he told her so the following day.
    She was wearing a warm tweed coat lightly flecked with green, and her golden cap of hair swung lightly on her shoulders. Normally she wore it twisted into a kind of little knot in the nape of her neck when she was wearing her uniform cap, but