He drove away then, and I stood looking after him.  He was a doctor of the old school, of the class of family practitioner that is fast dying out; a loyal and honorable gentleman who was at once physician and confidential adviser to his patients.  When I was a girl we called in the doctor alike when we had measles, or when mother’s sister died in the far West.  He cut out redundant tonsils and brought the babies with the same air of inspiring self-confidence.  Nowadays it requires a different specialist for each of these occurrences.  When the babies cried, old Doctor Wainwright gave them peppermint and dropped warm sweet oil in their ears with sublime faith that if it was not colic it was earache.  When, at the end of a year, father met him driving in his high side-bar buggy with the white mare ambling along, and asked for a bill, the doctor used to go home, estimate what his services were worth for that period, divide it in half—­I don’t think he kept any books—­and send father a statement, in a cramped hand, on a sheet of ruled white paper.  He was an honored guest at all the weddings, christenings, and funerals—­yes, funerals—­for every one knew he had done his best, and there was no gainsaying the ways of Providence.

Ah, well, Doctor Wainwright is gone, and I am an elderly woman with an increasing tendency to live in the past.  The contrast between my old doctor at home and the Casanova doctor, Frank Walker, always rouses me to wrath and digression.

Some time about noon of that day, Wednesday, Mrs. Ogden Fitzhugh telephoned me.  I have the barest acquaintance with her—­she managed to be put on the governing board of the Old Ladies’ Home and ruins their digestions by sending them ice-cream and cake on every holiday.  Beyond that, and her reputation at bridge, which is insufferably bad—­she is the worst player at the bridge club—­ I know little of her.  It was she who had taken charge of Arnold Armstrong’s funeral, however, and I went at once to the telephone.

“Yes,” I said, “this is Miss Innes.”

“Miss Innes,” she said volubly, “I have just received a very strange telegram from my cousin, Mrs. Armstrong.  Her husband died yesterday, in California and—­wait, I will read you the message.”

I knew what was coming, and I made up my mind at once.  If Louise Armstrong had a good and sufficient reason for leaving her people and coming home, a reason, moreover, that kept her from going at once to Mrs. Ogden Fitzhugh, and that brought her to the lodge at Sunnyside instead, it was not my intention to betray her.  Louise herself must notify her people.  I do not justify myself now, but remember, I was in a peculiar position toward the Armstrong family.  I was connected most unpleasantly with a cold-blooded crime, and my niece and nephew were practically beggared, either directly or indirectly, through the head of the family.

Mrs. Fitzhugh had found the message.