So the love between Kilsyth and his girl was the happiness of his existence, the one gentle bond of union between him and the outer world. For so large-hearted a man, he had few intimate relations with life; looking on at it benevolently, rather than taking part even in what it had to offer of gentleness and affection. This was perhaps because he was so thoroughly, what is called "old-fashioned." Lady Muriel he honoured, respected, and gloried in. On the few occasions when he was compelled to show himself in London society, he went through his duty as though enjoying it as much as the most foppish Osric at the court; supported chiefly by the universal admiration which his wife excited, and not a little by the remembrance that another month would see him freed from all this confounded nonsense, and up to his waist in a salmon stream. There could be no terms of praise too warm for "my lady," who was in his eyes equally a miracle of talent and loveliness, to whom he always deferred in the largest as in the smallest matters of life; but it was Madeleine
"who had power
To soothe the sportsman in his softer hour."
It was Madeleine who had his deepest, fondest love--a love without alloy; pure, selfless, and eternal.
These feelings understood, it may be imagined Kilsyth had the warmest feelings of gratitude and regard towards Dr. Wilmot for having, as everyone in the house believed, and as was really the fact, saved the girl's life, partly by his skill, principally by his untiring watchfulness and devotion to her at the most critical period of her illness. In such a man as Kilsyth these feelings could not remain long unexpressed; so that within a couple of days of the interview between Lady Muriel and Dr. Wilmot, Kilsyth took an opportunity of meeting the doctor as he was taking his usual stretch on the terrace, and accosting him.
"Good-morning, Dr. Wilmot; still keeping to the terrace as strictly as though you were on parole?"
"Good-morning to you. I'm a sanitarian, and get as much fresh air as I can with as little labour. This terrace seems to me the only level walking ground within eyeshot; and there's no more preposterous mistake than overdoing exercise. Too much muscularity and gymnastics are amongst the besetting evils of the present day, depend upon it."
"Very likely; but I'm not of the present day, and therefore not likely to overdo it myself, or to tempt you into overdoing it. But still I want you to extend your constitutional this morning round to the left; there's a path that skirts the craig--a made path in the rock itself, merely broad enough for two of us to walk, and which has the double advantage that it gives us peeps of some of the best scenery hereabouts; and it is so little frequented, that it will give us every chance of uninterrupted conversation. And I want to talk to you about Madeleine."
Whatever might have been Chudleigh Wilmot's previous notions as to the pleasure derivable from an extended walk with the old gentleman, the last word decided him; and they started off at once.
"I won't pretend to conceal from you, Dr. Wilmot," said Kilsyth, after they had proceeded some quarter of a mile, talking on indifferent subjects, and stopping now and then to admire some point in the scenery,--"I won't pretend to conceal from you, that ever since your arrival here I have had misgivings as to the manner in which you were first summoned. I--"