CHAPTER VIII.
The Recluse.
Enforced idleness is, to an active mind, the greatest misery conceivable. Harold Inglis had in him a vast capacity for work, and therefore found it doubly bitter to have to spend his days lounging about, waiting for the patients who never came. He was afraid to go out lest he should miss a summons, and unable to sit down to read or write, so continually did he find himself listening for a ring at the bell and Ann's voice announcing a patient. He could not even tranquillise himself with tobacco, for he had given up smoking on account of the expense.
He returned from an errand one afternoon to find an elderly manservant waiting with the intimation that Sir Edward Vane, of The Towers, was ill, and would like to see him. He knew Sir Edward by name as a wealthy and eccentric recluse, who lived alone in a big house just outside the town, and was liberal in doctors' fees. Not a little flattered, he promised to come immediately, and was about to turn in at the lodge gate at The Towers, when he encountered Dr. Selwyn, another local medical man, with whom he was acquainted.
"Been sent for by Sir Edward, eh?" asked Selwyn, with a broad grin.
"Yes."
"Wish you joy. You may not know it, but he's already tried every doctor in Beachbourne, and quarrelled with them all in succession. I wouldn't attend him again for any money. Good-bye, and good luck to you!"
In some trepidation, Harold knocked, and was admitted through a handsome hall into a spacious sitting-room, littered with almost every conceivable object. On a sofa reclined a grey-haired man about sixty, whose tanned face, speaking of long residence in the tropics, was disfigured by a look of fretful ill-health. A retired Anglo-Indian, distinguished in the Civil Service, Sir Edward had seen more of the world than most men.
"You're not in partnership with anybody here, are you?" he asked, when Harold had examined him carefully.
"No."