"You are right," I answered. "I believe she means it. Yet I know one man
at least--" for I admired her immensely.

Mrs. Mallet shook her head and smiled. "It is no use, Dr. Cumberledge,"
she answered. "Hilda will never marry. Never, that is to say, till she
has attained some mysterious object she seems to have in view, about
which she never speaks to anyone--not even to me. But I have somehow
guessed it!"

"And it is?"

"Oh, I have not guessed what it IS: I am no Oedipus. I have merely
guessed that it exists. But whatever it may be, Hilda's life is bounded
by it. She became a nurse to carry it out, I feel confident. From
the very beginning, I gather, a part of her scheme was to go to St.
Nathaniel's. She was always bothering us to give her introductions
to Dr. Sebastian; and when she met you at my brother Hugo's, it was a
preconcerted arrangement; she asked to sit next you, and meant to induce
you to use your influence on her behalf with the Professor. She was
dying to get there."

"It is very odd," I mused. "But there!--women are inexplicable!"

"And Hilda is in that matter the very quintessence of woman. Even I, who
have known her for years, don't pretend to understand her."

A few months later, Sebastian began his great researches on his new
anaesthetic. It was a wonderful set of researches. It promised so well.
All Nat's (as we familiarly and affectionately styled St. Nathaniel's)