Winter ended. Andrew now had the additional interest of his research into coal dust, which he had begun by medically examining every miner on his list. Christine helped by writing notes for him. Her knowledge continued to surprise him.

As the hours of daylight grew longer, Christine, without telling Andrew, began to make a garden, with the help of an old miner. One day, when crossing the broken bridge, Andrew discovered them at work by the stream.

'Hey, what are you doing?' he shouted from the bridge.

'Wait and see!' Christine called back.

She made a neat little garden in a corner of the rough ground; and a few weeks later she proudly led Andrew by the arm and showed him her first flower.

On the last Sunday in March, without warning, Denny paid them a visit. They were delighted to see him.

'Page is dead,' Philip said, as they sat down to lunch. 'Yes, the poor man died a month ago. Miss Page is going to marry your friend Rees, the bank manager!'

There was a pause while they thought of Edward Page.

'And how are you, Philip?' Andrew asked, at last.

'Oh, I don't know! I don't feel very content.' Denny smiled. 'Drineffy seems a lonely place since you people left. I think I shall go abroad for a time - if I can find myself a post!'

Andrew was silent, sad at the thought of this clever doctor wasting his life in this way.

They talked all afternoon, and Philip caught the last train back to Drineffy. When he had gone, Andrew realized how much he missed Philip's friendship. They had shared the same ideas about the medical profession, and had worked with the same aim.

But the other doctors at Aberalaw seemed to have no aims at all. Urquhart, though a kind man, was old and had lost interest in his work. Medley had such a serious hearing problem that, when his patients told him about their illnesses, he never heard a word; and so, rather than risk giving them the wrong treatment, he always gave them a bottle of some harmless medicine. Oxborrow was a bad doctor for whom there was no excuse: he had so little confidence in himself that, before treating the simplest case, he would kneel by the patient's bed and pray - and in the end he usually made him worse and had to send for Llewellyn! There was no friendship between the doctors: they did not like each other at all.

Andrew wanted to improve relations - to start a new system where the doctors would work together in a friendly spirit. He also wanted to stop the unfair arrangement of paying part of their salaries to Llewellyn.