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It was a full minute before the significance of this struck her. It had come so suddenly, without warning. No lead-up. No discussion. But this was not what it felt like when dreams came true. Not this dull sharp thrust of disappointment.

She sat staring numbly at the white flurry of snowflakes against the windscreen. She'd dreamed of it, schemed for it, and now when she'd thought it already out of reach, here it was apparently being handed to her on a plate. But with the realisation had come the other implications. He'd said there were two appointments, and Jim was to have the other. This meant only one thing - she would have to go away. The words of their last conversation were indelibly fixed in her mind. "Don't worry, Duchess. I'll get out of your hair. I won't hang around you any more." She knew him well enough by now to have no doubt that he meant it.

There was only one course open to her and she mustn't muff it. Neither of them must suspect the truth. It wasn't every day you were presented with the opportunity, partially at least, to make amends for one of your wrongs. It didn't occur to her not to dissemble. Jim after all would get his big chance.

"Dr. Graham will be delighted, especially as he had almost given up hope. As for me -" she paused - "I'm afraid it hadn't occurred to me. I mean, you sounded so final that day we spoke." (All she had to do was to keep going on. She could do anything if only she cared enough.) "I'm afraid it's not possible for me to accept."

"I see." His voice was gruff. "Graham. One way or another it always comes back to him." He was already leaning forward to engage his gear. "Still, there's no need to give me your answer yet." He said it as though she already had.

Lesley didn't trust herself to reply. Her silence, she saw, served to make it final. Anything more might give her away. The anaesthetic she knew would wear off. Pain would strike later. If only she could hold off the moment of awareness. Somehow she must get through this afternoon.

When they reached the school he went quickly to his own consulting room. She didn't see him again.

She worked steadily through the group of women waiting for their blood tests. At four o'clock the W.R.V.S. woman brought her a cup of tea.

"Good turn-out today, Doctor, in spite of the weather, though most of them I notice are from the village. The outlying ones haven't managed to make it. They'll be disappointed to have missed their afternoon off. It's something they look forward to for the rest of the week."

"Yes," Lesley replied dully. "I notice those that are taken early go back into the waiting hall to get on with their knitting and wait for the tea."

"It's like a social club. They meet all their friends."

"A lot of them are lonely." Today she felt at one with all lonely people. "They don't ever want you to sign them off. Even when you tell them they don't need to come back, next week they'll find some reason why they have to see you again."

"It's rather sad, isn't it, Doctor - and a waste of your time?"

"I don't know. It's quite a useful service for the N.H.S. to perform, don't you think?"

"I suppose it does worse." The woman sighed. "I'll get back to the washing up. I'D fetch your cup later on." She closed the door quietly behind her.

When the last patient had gone Lesley washed her hands in the tiny basin and straightened her back slowly. The dull pain which had been there since morning had grown more persistent since noon. She rubbed it wearily and then drew on her rubbers.

In the central hall Sister Meryl was waiting to lock up. "What a night!" she exclaimed. "Would you listen to that wind? The forecast's terrible and the telephone wires are already down from the village. By the way, Sir Charles had to leave early. He said Dr. Dayborough would give you a lift back. He was here a minute ago, but I don't see him now." Already she had her key in the lock.

There was no sign of either man, only the patches in the playground where their cars had been. The Health Visitor looked doubtfully at Lesley. "Do you suppose he could have gone to see Miss Twill? She didn't manage to make it today. He seemed a bit worried about her - not being stabilised yet with her insulin since she got home from hospital."

"That'll be it, Sister. From the look of the ground his car hasn't been gone long." She pointed to the patch where his car had been. "Don't bother to wait." She was aware of the other woman's natural impatience to get home.

"Are you sure, Doctor? I don't like leaving you on your own like this. It's not as if we can even phone Miller to bring his taxi for you."

"That's all right. I don't suppose Dr. Dayborough will be long. I'll just start walking in that direction."

"Well, if you're sure. Mind you, if he doesn't turn up you come straight back. I'm staying the night with Jenny Wilson, the schoolmistress. I'm sure she'd manage to put you up for the night, too, if you're stuck."

"I think it'll be all right, Sister - but thanks anyway." She started out, more to make the Health Visitor feel free to go home than anything else. She would have preferred to stay in the shelter of the old building, but realised that Sister Meryl would feel obliged to wait with her if she did.

It was cold out on the exposed moor road. Once clear of the school, Lesley found there had been much more snow than she'd thought. Although the snowplough had earlier cleared the road, the northerly gale was now causing drifts. She made heavy weather in her Wellington boots.

Before she had gone more than a hundred yards the ache in her neck had reached her eyes. Every part of her body seemed to burn with cold.

There was still no sign of the car. Now that the preoccupations of the afternoon were over, memories of the earlier part could no longer be held at bay. She stumbled in the snowdrift. For a moment she had to stop to get her breath back. She didn't look to either side of her, though she knew that over there was the hill and the wood. Neither would be visible through this blizzard. She thought of that other day almost five months ago when he'd found her there - the day she'd at last begun to suspect the truth.

Perhaps it was all for the best that she was going away, since she could never be anything to him but a member of his staff. She'd been embarrassed to know that he thought it was Jim. But even that was better than the humiliation of having him suspect that she was really carrying a torch for him.

She didn't notice the deep drift till she had stumbled into it. Tears of tiredness and frustration welled up in her eyes. Suddenly it was all too much, and she screwed them up and cried like a little girl. After a time the storm within passed and she grew quiet again. She was left drained of all emotion. She became aware of the cold seeping into her very bones. "You're getting too old, my girl, to cry with impunity. It's a luxury you can no longer afford." But she found she couldn't pin down the thought. It became hazy. She couldn't quite remember what it was. Something dark loomed at her out of the white blanket of snow and a great pain shot through her head. She stumbled again, and this time she couldn't get up.

It was some time later that the snowplough men found her. She was lying across the snowdrift, just free of the ruts. It didn't occur to them to wonder whether or not she'd been knocked down by a car - it was so obvious.

When she woke up she was in hospital. It took a full minute for this to sink in. The face bending over her shocked her into final recognition. She was in the sideroom of her own ward, and she must have been out for quite some time. In the background she saw Staff Nurse Bell. Close above her were the beetling eyebrows of Dayborough.

Lesley felt a prick in her arm. There was nothing she could do about it. She tried to rise, but firm hands pressed her down. She felt vaguely menaced - alone in a world without friends.

The drug began to take hold, and she struggled against it. There was something important she had to remember. She fought against waves of engulfing sleep.

When she could fight it no more she felt herself sink into a nightmare world. She kept seeing his face bending over her. Now they were taking her stethoscope away. "There are some indignities to which you should never accede." It was her own voice speaking, but it sounded so far away. Now her clothes were being dumped on the bed. Sister Staines was standing over her. "If she insists on leaving she must sign an irregular dismissal slip." The voice in the nightmare seemed authentic enough.

She was struggling through a thick bog. "Sometimes you have to
know...
you have to
know...
you have to
know..."
What was it Jim said you had to know?

When she woke up it was dark. She knew she was still afraid. The screens round the bed were open at the foot. She'd been in the side room before. The single shaded light showed her she was now in the ward. A Sister's dark cloak lay across the bedside chair, and a dark-haired nurse, the one who had helped her on the night of Miss Twill's admission, was filling in charts at the central table. It must be later than she'd thought. Lesley's eye fell on something bright on a trolley by her side. Instantly every sense was awake. She put out a tentative hand to touch it. A forceps was dislodged and fell to the floor. Almost before it reached it, the nurse was with her.

"You're awake, Doctor?" she whispered.

"What is it - the trolley?" She didn't need to ask. It was laid with textbook efficiency.

"You've been in coma. Dr. Dayborough's going to do a lumbar puncture."

Lesley's eyes dilated with fear. Through her muddled thoughts something clamoured for attention. What had happened? She must concentrate. She remembered the injection. Surely that didn't tie in with coma, she thought.

"When?" she strove to keep her voice calm.

"Twenty minutes. He's gone to get Staff back."

Lesley put a hand on the girl's arm. "The Chief - has he been here?"

"Not that I know of."

"Dr. Graham?"

"He's still in Glasgow."

"Sister isn't on duty?"

"It's half-past nine," the child replied.

Mrs. Brent called over from the opposite bed. Nurse Duncan tucked in Lesley's sheet and padded silently across the ward.

She must think fast. The last thing she remembered was lying in the snow - and the headache. What had suddenly made it worse?

Surely there hadn't been an accident? She sat upright. The mists cleared. Now she remembered. Out there in the snow - something dark bearing down on her.

She could almost feel the needle now: the hands closing in on the jugulars. Light pressure on the neck veins. And suddenly there had been silence. Coning of the mid-brain - and Miss Hamilton was dead. She was trapped. There was no court of appeal. If necessary they would hold her down. She saw that there was just enough doubt about the diagnosis for him to rationalise to others his decision to carry out the test. Her reluctance to co-operate would be laid at the door of her trauma. If anything went wrong no court in the country would convict him. If anything went wrong - and it would. She looked round wildly. At all costs she must get out of here.

All her faculties were sharpened now. Far up the ward she could hear the nurse's step. She was glad now for every night she had spent in this place. She knew the routine. Night Nurse would be going to arrange the flowers. Soon she would return to meet Dayborough. Any minute now he might walk in through that door. And Sister Staines - she was somewhere in this block. If she wasn't mistaken this was her cloak. Only she still wore the old one lined with the scarlet cloth. She had no hope of getting out of the main door.

Behind her the casement windows opened on to grounds at the back of the hospital. There was roughly a two-foot drop. Only the lawn and the trees lay between her and the back road.

But that wouldn't do. Even if she got clear of the window and across the open space, a woman in pyjamas near a hospital wouldn't get far. She would be caught and brought back. No one would believe she was rational on a night like this. "Temporarily unbalanced" would be the phrase. And the road lying that way was a small country lane - a good half-mile from the main road. It wouldn't be cleared of snow.

No, if she got out, she must also get away. That meant the main road and a car - Jim's car. She fumbled for the locker catch. If things had run true to form her personal effects should be here. Her hands closed on the small leather handbag she'd been carrying in the afternoon. She let out a deep sigh. The keys were there. The ward clock said a quarter to ten. There wasn't much time.

Lesley put a foot out of bed. The floor creaked. She willed herself to stop swaying. She mustn't faint now. At the back of the locker she found the customary slippers.

Quietly, so quietly, she edged the screens nearer to the window. She must stay concealed from the rest of the ward. A patient might see her and raise the alarm. The window gave easily. How glad she was now of Sister's passion for fresh air! She held her breath. Footsteps were coming this way. They halted, but it was at Mrs. Brent's bed. She eased herself up on to the ledge. In the last second she put out a hand and grabbed the dark cloak lying on the chair.

As she straightened, some instinct made her look round. Mrs. Brent was staring her full in the face. For one ghastly moment she thought the game was up. Jane Duncan had her back to her. The patient's eyes held hers for a moment. "Nurse," she heard the voice say distinctly, "I wonder if you'd get me my toilet bag. I can't quite reach it myself tonight." Jane Duncan stooped to look in the locker. Over the nurse's back the woman gave Lesley a sober wink. Ever so slightly she jerked her head. In a flash Lesley was over the ledge, glad for once to be landing on soft, silent snow.

She had to cross the clearing in full view of the kitchen wing. She fumbled with the key. Careful, careful. She mustn't stall the engine. It must start with the first touch. "Dear God, keep my hands steady. Just long enough to reach him, then I'll be safe."

She didn't see Mrs. Frazer at her sitting-room window.

The housekeeper watched till the car had cleared the west gates. It was when she saw the second car that she telephoned the Super.