“It’s hard enough to say how it’ll go with him,” he said, sitting down opposite to me at the breakfast-table. “Yes, thank you, I take three lumps; I’ve a very sweet tooth. Of course, he’s not as young as he was, y’ know; it’s a nasty attack, and his constitution’s greatly pulled down since I saw him last.”
Beyond this he did not seem inclined to give an opinion, and began to tell me about some Shakespeare recitations, in which, it appeared, he was to take a prominent part. But I reverted to the subject of my uncle’s illness at the first opportunity.
“Oh, never fear, he’ll pull round; but we’ll have to be very careful of him,” he said, hurrying through his breakfast with practised rapidity.
“He was wandering in his head last night,” I said tentatively.
“Oh, I know that, I know that,” he replied, rubbing his truculent red moustache violently with his napkin; “Roche told me all about that.”
“Because,” I went on, “if you thought there was anything serious, I would not go over to Garden Hill to-day. Miss Burke asked me to spend a few days with her,” I explained.
“Well, why not?” broke in Dr. Kelly, brusquely. “Now, if you don’t mind me telling you so, it would be the best thing you could do”—screwing up one small intelligent eye and looking at me observantly. “You just want a little change, and Roche is well able to mind your uncle”—he gave his tea-cup a swing to collect what remained of the three lumps before swallowing its contents. “Well, I must be off now. I’ll be at Miss Burke’s meself this afternoon, and I’ll call in here again on my way home. Good morning.”
Roche was waiting in the hall, and I heard Dr. Kelly’s last words.
“Mind, now, you keep a good eye on him. I’ll send over the medicine.”
Up to this I had not been able to examine the contents of the post-bag, and I now went over to the sideboard and shook them out. There was nothing in it but a circular or two, and a small flat parcel. I turned over the latter, and saw with a start my own name in Willy’s cramped boyish handwriting. Cutting the string quickly, I found inside another wrapping of paper, carefully tied up, and sealed with his well-remembered signet-ring. Under the string a half-sheet of note-paper, folded in two, had been slipped. There were only a very few words written in pencil on it.