"You must go now, my dear fellow. It is now half-past ten, and I will be at Pennington's at one o'clock, to see how he goes on; so you need not go there. And, meanwhile, I must take a little medicine."
"Major, you are not going to doctor yourself?" cried Tom.
"There is a certain medicine called prayer, Mr. Thurnall—an old specific for the heart-ache, as you will find one day—which I have been neglecting much of late, and which I must return to in earnest before midnight. Good-bye, God bless and keep you!" And the Major retired to his bed-room, and did not stir off his knees for two full hours. After which he went to Pennington's, and thence somewhere else; and Tom met him at four o'clock that morning musing amid unspeakable horrors, quiet, genial, almost cheerful.
"You are a man," said Tom to himself; "and I fancy at times something more than a man; more than me at least."
Tom was right in his fear that after excitement would come collapse; but wrong as to the person to whom it would come. When he arrived at the surgery door, Headley stood waiting for him.
"Anything fresh? Have you seen the Heales?"
"I have been praying with them. Don't be frightened. I am not likely to forget the lesson of this afternoon."
"Then go to bed. It is full twelve o'clock."
"Not yet, I fear. I want you to see old Willis. All is not right."
"Ah! I thought the poor dear old man would kill himself. He has been working too hard, and presuming on his sailor's power of tumbling in and taking a dog's nap whenever he chose."