"Don't trouble about it, General—I will arrange everything," said his wife caressingly. "Go over to the window again and leave me to speak to Doctor Middlemass for a moment;" and, as the General retired, still growling, she half smiled, and raised her eyes to the doctor's face as if she invited sympathy.
But Doctor Middlemass looked as unresponsive as a block of wood.
"I must go to my patient," he said, "It was to see him, I presume, that I was summoned?"
"Not entirely," said Flossy very sweetly. "We wanted to know whether it was absolutely necessary that Miss West should stay with my brother."
"Absolutely necessary, madam!"
"Then of course we should not think of objecting to her presence, which, I must tell you, is painful to us, because——"
"Excuse me, madam," said the doctor, who was certainly a very uncivil person, "if I say that these family-matters are of no interest to me, save as they affect my patient."
"But they do affect your patient, doctor. I think it was the worry of the affair that brought on this illness. We have found out that this Miss West's name is really 'Westwood,' and that she is the daughter of the dreadful man who shot my husband's brother Beechfield some years ago. Perhaps you remember the case?"
"Oh, yes—I remember it!" said the doctor shortly. "That's the daughter? Poor girl!"
"It is naturally unpleasant to think that my brother—a cousin also of the General's—should be contemplating a marriage with her," said Mrs. Vane.