“No; I am sorry to say I have not; but of course I can get it if you wish me to do so.”
“Confound the man! What’s the use of saying if I wish? Haven’t I already told you what I wished?”
“Very good, sir. The next time I come will do, I suppose?”
“It must do.”
It was very evident that Bourne, for some cause or another, was in a bad temper.
At this juncture the boy entered the room, and said that Mrs. Moncroft wished to see his master.
“Oh! Mrs. Moncroft. Eh?” exclaimed the doctor. “Dear me. I will see the lady.”
“Shall I leave, sir?” inquired the gipsy.
“No; don’t go. I wish to have a little conversation with you, but—ah, you had better go into the consulting room and wait till I am disengaged. Walter, show this gentleman upstairs into the back room; he will wait.”
“Yes, sir,” said the lad, who conducted Rawton into a dingy apartment above what was called the surgery. In a minute or two after this a fashionably dressed comely-looking woman was shown into the apartment in which Dr. Bourne was seated.