“I don’t think so,” said the doctor.
“I’ll let you know about the specialist. But if you’re sure—”
The doctor waved a deprecating hand. It might have been the hand of his brother, the Vicar.
Two.
Edwin proceeded towards the town, absorbed in a vision of his father seated in the dining-room, inexpressibly melancholy, and Maggie with her white apron bending over him to offer some nice soup. It was a desolating vision—and yet he wondered why it should be! Whenever he reasoned he was always inimical to his father. His reason asked harshly why he should be desolated, as he undoubtedly was. The prospect of freedom, of release from a horrible and humiliating servitude—this prospect ought to have dazzled and uplifted him, in the safe, inviolable privacy of his own heart. But it did not... What a chump the doctor was, to be so uncommunicative! And he himself! ... By the way, he had not told Maggie. It was like her to manifest no immediate curiosity, to be content to wait... He supposed he must call at his aunt’s, and even at Clara’s. But what should he say when they asked him why he had not asked the doctor for a name?
Suddenly an approaching man whose face was vaguely familiar but with whom he had no acquaintance whatever, swerved across the footpath and stopped him.
“What’s amiss with th’ old gentleman?” It was astounding how news flew in the town!
“He’s not very well. Doctor’s ordered him a rest.”
“Not in bed, is he?”