"Oh yes, I found it out very soon after your departure, from the desolation which seemed to have fallen upon the house down yonder. Nurses and patients joined in one chorus of regret; and as for poor old Madame Vaughan, she seemed actually to forget the loss of the child she has been bewailing for so many years in her intense sorrow at your departure."
"Poor dear maman!" said George, with a smile; "I feared she would miss me and my nightly visits very much. It's so long since I went away that I imagine I was regarded as a permanent fixture in the establishment."
"I confess I looked upon you in that light very much myself, George," said the Doctor, "and after your departure felt what Mr. Browning calls the 'conscience prick and memory smart' at not having previously asked why and where you were going. It is rather late to pretend any interest now you have returned, but still I would ask where you have been and why you went."
"I have been staying with some people who are friends of yours down in the west."
"Down in the west you have been staying?" said the Doctor. "Whom do I know down in the west? Penruddock--Bulteel--Holdsworth?"
"Not so far west as where those people you have just named live," said George. "I have been staying with the Derinzys."
"The Derinzys!"
And the Doctor's eyebrows went up into his large forehead, and his usually calm face expressed intense astonishment.
After a few minutes' pause, he said:
"Ah, I forgot. Young Derinzy is a colleague of yours, and a chum, I think I have heard you say."