While the Doctor was writing, Sir Within walked to and fro with short and hurried steps, his mouth twitched from time to time, and a nervous motion of his fingers betrayed the immense agitation that possessed him, and against which he struggled hard to subdue all outward signs. Had the occasion been a ministerial conference—had the event been one in which a bold front was called for, to cover a weak position, or affront a coming peril—the old envoy would have borne himself well and bravely; no one could have worn an easier look in a trying emergency, or better baffled the searching that would try to detect a secret misgiving. But where was all this subtlety now? Of what did it avail him? He bent before this blow as humbly as a school-girl, and soon even abandoned the attempt to dissimulate, and wrung his hands in passionate sorrow as he went.
“Will that do, then, Sir Within?” asked the Doctor, as he handed him the note he had just written.
“I have not my glass,” said he, hurriedly, while his fingers held it; “but of course it is all right. You will instruct me as to the fee—you will do whatever is necessary, and you will also, I trust, remain here. I wish you not to leave the Castle.”
“Impossible, Sir Within. Sir Godfrey Wynne is very ill, and I have a very anxious case at Glassnwyd.”
“But none of them, I will venture to say, so needful of watching as this. You have just told me how precarious these cases are. Remember, Sir, I have some claims upon you.”
“The very greatest, Sir Within. But for your munificent donation, I should never have been physician to the Wrexham Hospital.”
“I did not mean that,” said Sir Within, flushing scarlet; “I did not allude to that. I spoke of old family claims in your father’s time. Dalradem was always his staunch supporter.”
“I know it well, Sir; but a doctor owes allegiance to the very humblest of those who need him.”
“A doctor, I presume, is bound to accord the patient whatever of his time he can pay for?”
“Not to the detriment of others who are ill, Sir Within.”