From the beginning of the change in Hugh, when he first began his professional life in London, it was his custom to spend Saturday and Sunday at the Pinewood. The trio—the tall, now gaunt and careworn-looking, man; the thin, effeminate boy, and the mastiff Nero, who always dogged their heels (an immediate descendant of Hugh’s first acquaintance at the Pinewood)—were familiar figures to the country folk, who were attached to Dr. Paull with an attachment born of his unvarying justice and kindliness.
Following the advice given by the authority, Ralph’s instruction in matters of faith and dogma was strictly ordinary and orthodox; and remembering the result of Lilia’s peculiar up-bringing, Hugh was careful to throw his son into the company of others of his own age as much as possible. He failed to see what others saw—that the boy could not endure the companionship of his fellows, and only suffered it because it was his father’s will.
Meanwhile, Ralph showed great aptitude for science, and at nineteen was, to his great delight, appointed secretary to the famous geologist W——, who had been one of his grandfather Sir Roderick’s intimate friends. At the time of the second storm that shook Dr. Paull’s life to its foundations, Ralph was away on a walking tour with the great scientist. Hugh Paull was alone in his town house.
He was sitting at the large dining-table in the big, silent room. The thin, dark-eyed man, whose prematurely white hair added a dignity to the pensive beauty of his face, would have been a suggestive figure to an imaginative painter. As he slowly ate his frugal dinner, his eyes fixed as he continued some important train of thought, now and then leaning back in his chair, and absently crumbling his bread, while the old butler Jones hovered noiselessly about in the background, this picture of well-appointed solitude might have been named “Successful, but alone.” Perhaps never, until Ralph went on this tour, had Hugh so realised his desolation.
It was the height of the London season, and that very day he had had three important consultations beside hospital and other work. But the silence of the huge, quiet house oppressed him. He found it tiresome to eat. He was planning to tire himself further by preparing a paper on a recent case for the Lancet when a carriage drove up to the door, and there was a somewhat violent peal of the hall bell.
Jones, who had been butler to Dr. Hildyard till his death, and then accepted service with Hugh in preference to any other, knew his rules thoroughly. He was a spare little man, well fitted for his vocation; for he had a respectful, almost soothing manner, which softened the denials he had so often to give to nerve-patients wild to obtain the immediate attendance of the great authority, Dr. Paull.
He went silently out, and gently opened the street door. The smart single brougham and pair drawn up before the house was as unfamiliar to him as were the two gentlemen standing on the doorstep, one of whom was tall and fair, the other being short and dark, with piercing black eyes and a thick black moustache. Both were dressed in the height of fashion; in fact, were evidently petits-maîtres.
It was the tall, fair man who, slightly lifting his hat, said in good English, but with a foreign accent:
“Can we see Dr. Hugh Paull at once?”
The bold demand—for Hugh was now a “consulting physician,” to be approached through the patient’s ordinary medical attendant—nearly deprived poor Jones of breath. He gave but one gasp only though, and remembering these were foreigners and ignoramuses in medical etiquette, recovered himself, and said politely, but in a somewhat shocked tone of voice: