Jean knew what this meant; knew in a moment, as with a flash. She recalled at once her father's last interview with Barclay. The man had been especially insolent, threatening physical force, and Mr. Trevelyan had said at parting, "I shall not call again at present. I cannot force you to listen. But remember one thing—if you are in need, send, and I will come!"
He had told this to Jean on his return; and she understood, only too well, how he would regard his own promise, as well as Barclay's necessity.
"Who has brought the message?"
"It's a man who lives near there—Smithson, the name is."
Elizabeth was a stranger to the neighbourhood.
"Call him into the study, please."
Jean was there, waiting, when Smithson entered—a large and broad-shouldered yet stooping man, with a pale face, well known to Jean as a member of the choir. He was one of Jean's greatest devotees, and would have done anything in the world for Mr. Trevelyan. His home was in a little row of cottages beyond the V-point; and, as he at once began to tell Jean, business had taken him that day past Barclay's solitary cottage. He had not entered it before during Barclay's tenancy, since the latter's determined seclusion prevented all intercourse with his neighbours; but a sound of loud groans induced Smithson to open the door. He found Barclay struck down by apparently mortal illness, though still ready to protest that he wanted no help.
Smithson, then on his way to Dutton by a shorter cut than down the gorge, had lingered only to summon his wife to the aid of the unhappy man; after which, he sped as quickly as possible in quest of Mr. Evans, the Parish doctor. No needless time was lost thenceforward; but the time already lost had settled the matter.
When Smithson once more passed the cottage, on his way from Dutton, late in the afternoon, he found his wife still present, and Barclay in worse agony than before. The doctor had pronounced it a hopeless case. Too late to do anything, he said. He would look in again next morning, and he promised some medicine meantime; but he did not expect Barclay to outlive the night.
Barclay knew all this, and his one cry, in the face of approaching death, was for the man he had persistently repelled.