‘We have come on business, doctor.’
‘So I understood from your letter, although you did not exactly specify what. It is not then merely to visit my establishment, which by the bye I should be only too happy to show, but—’
‘To see Lady Farrington.’
‘Indeed! This gentleman is perhaps acquainted with, possibly interested in, the case?’
‘This Mr. Larkins,’ said Sir Rupert, not without bitterness, ‘is an old friend and protégé of her ladyship’s. He has not seen her for some years—in fact not since she has been here.’
‘To be sure, to be sure, I remember now,’ and the doctor looked at Herbert with a keen, cunning glance, wondering whether there was anything to fear from that quarter.
‘I have not yet been my rounds,’ he said; ‘I cannot tell how her ladyship is this morning; but if she is presentable—there are times, you understand, when she is not quite, quite self-possessed, you know, and perhaps—’
‘Mr. Larkins thinks that there may be some mistake; that the poor lady is not what you, Dr. Fewster, and what we all imagine. He has heard that she is perfectly quiet and rational.’
‘May I ask from whom?’
Herbert did not reply. He was too much interested in the door, at which he was looking steadily. He was perhaps expecting some one.