"That's right," he said. "Now you'll get back without collapsing. Best thing you can do is to go to bed and get rested. No particular use in falling ill again."
He stood drawing on his gloves, and Mildred remarked, "I think I must have come across a friend of yours to-day in the churchyard. A nice-looking man, rather old, with grey hair. Is he one of your patients?"
"What makes you suppose him to be so?"
"Somebody said that he was."
"Well, I shouldn't wonder if he is—one of my inmates, at all events. 'Patient' is an ambiguous term. Willoughby arrived two days ago, and it sounds like Willoughby. If he isn't old and benevolent, he manages to appear like both."
"What is the matter with him? Not a mental case surely?"
"Not what you mean by a mental case. Been working too hard, and come down for a week's rest. That's about all. I heard of him through a friend, and had a spare room to offer."
"Then he will soon be off again. I liked him."
"So do I, thus far. Now, Miss Pattison, I must be off, and you have to go straight home."
Mildred did not protest. The doctor turned to Miss Sophy with one or two parting directions for the management of her sister, and Miss Sophy listened with an air of hopeless incapacity.