Free The Little Doctor by Jean S. Macleod

into the parking lot. The hospital lay still and quiet in the lull before the visiting hour. In the wards, beds had been straightened, lockers tidied, and the whole place seemed to wear an air of waiting. Lights winked here and there, although it was not yet dark.
    After the rain of the past few hours the sky was clear and powdered with newly-washed stars. It would be glorious driving across the wide stretches of moorland toward the sea.
    When they reached the flat Nicholas poured himself a drink while she went to change into a suitable frock, choosing green because he liked it and then wondering if she had given away to a foolish impulse as she saw the smile and the admiration in his eyes.
    They were in his car and speeding toward the coast when he asked, “Were you actually engaged to Kilsyth, Jane?”
    Her heart gave an odd, uneasy jerk.
    “No.” She gazed straight ahead along the bare moorland road lit by the wide beam of the headlights. “There was nothing like that, Nick. It was the usual college affair. We went about in a gang—rarely alone. Max took me to dances and that sort of thing. We were acknowledged partners, but we were never engaged.”
    We were in love, and that was enough, she thought. Or, at least, I was in love, and I thought Max must be, too. We did everything together.
    “You told me,” Nicholas mused, “that Kilsyth married as soon as he graduated—very soon after Sir Francis Lisbon’s death, as a matter of fact.”
    For a moment she wondered what Nicholas was trying to say, and then she knew. It had been common gossip at the time, soon forgotten except in the deep and vulnerable places of her own heart.
    “ I know they said he married the Lisbon money,” she admitted stonily, “but I don’t believe it. Max wasn’t like that. Money never counted very much with him. You see, I knew him when he hadn’t any. What student ever has? He was content to be like the rest of us, jogging along from one allowance cheque to the next, in debt some of the time but always managing to grope his way back to solvency at the beginning of each month!”
    “You know, of course, that any allowance he had must have come from Sir Francis,” Nicholas observed.
    Jane flushed.
    “I know that Max’s widowed mother was Sir Francis ’ private secretary for fifteen years before she died,” she said steadily. “His father was killed flying a Spitfire in the Battle of Britain. Max was nine years old then and his mother went to work to support him. She became secretary to a group of doctors in Edinburgh and then to Sir Francis. He was very generous to her.”
    “And very much in love with her?”
    “I don’t know. She certainly didn’t marry him. Perhaps she felt that she had some sort of allegiance to—to the man she had married in her youth—to Max’s father. As I see it, the great tragedy was that she didn’t live to see Max graduate. I think that was a lifelong ambition with her.” Jane cleared her throat. “Whatever she thought of Sir Francis, she owed Max’s future to him.”
    “And he went on pulling strings afterwards, didn’t he?” Nicholas mused. “No doubt Kilsyth felt that he owed the old man a tremendous debt of gratitude, but the fact still remains that he did very well for himself financially by marrying Sir Francis’ daughter.”
    “Please don’t say any more, Nicholas.” Jane’s throat was suddenly tight. “I don’t believe Max did that, but if he did—talking about it won’t help. I think he was in love with Valerie, at least when he married her. ”
    “And you don’t think he is in love with her now?”
    “I didn’t mean to suggest that!” The color rushed into Jane’s cheeks and she was glad of the darkness so that he could not see the full extent of her confusion. “They’re married. They have everything they could possibly desire. They must be in love.”
    “How quaintly you reason,” he mused. “But we’ll let it go at that. I didn’t really mean to spend