"Aye," Mr. Rawdon answered briefly. "How do you sleep at night?"
"Not well. I have a return of uncomfortable heart sensations—such as I had two years ago. Nothing of importance—merely the result of the shock."
"I'll look into that to-morrow. You must keep up your strength. Yes, the shock was likely to tell upon you, one way or another."
"So I supposed. I do not at present see in myself any marked symptoms which might prelude that," Mr. Wilmot said calmly, as if speaking about somebody else. "The wound seems to be healing healthily. I am not particularly troubled with moroseness, or unreasonable depression, or anxiety to be much away from home. These are some of the tokens, are they not, sometimes? You see, I have looked into the matter. I wish to know in time, if it comes—for Annie's sake."
"And you have been wrong," said Mr. Rawdon decisively. "This is not quite your usual good sense, Wilmot. The thing you have to do now is as much as possible to put the whole question aside, not to sit watching your own symptoms, and speculating on what may come next. Mind, my dear friend, it is your positive duty—for Annie's sake as much as for your own. If this goes on, you will soon be thoroughly overstrained, and unfit for work. I shall have to order you abroad."
Mr. Wilmot shook his head.
"One thing or the other will have to be." The doctor spoke with a touch of sternness. "Either you must give up this morbid self-watching, or you must go away."
A pause followed before Mr. Wilmot said—"I have had to fight the battle."
"What battle?"
"To be able to say from my heart, Thy will—not mine.'"