"Cooled off! since when?"
"Since your sister's illness."
"Since my sister's illness! Why, what could that have to do with them?"
"Well, you see, some of the people in the house got frightened at the notion of infection and that kind of thing, and bolted off. Lady Fairfax was one of the first to rush away; and Charley, who is loyalty itself in everything, as you know, was deucedly annoyed about it. My lady had been leading him a pretty dance for a few days previously, playing off little Towcester against him, and--"
"Ah, yes. No doubt Charley was right, quite right. And that was all about him, eh? And so the people were frightened at poor Madeleine's illness, were they?"
"Gad, they were, and not without reason too. The poor child was awfully bad; and indeed, if it had not been for Wilmot, I much doubt whether she would have pulled through."
"Hadn't been for Wilmot? Wilmot! O, yes, the London doctor who was staying somewhere, near, and who was telegraphed for. Tell me about Dr. Wilmot--a clever man, isn't he?"
"Clever! He's wonderful! Keen, clear-headed fellow; sees his way through a brick wall in a minute. Not that at Kilsyth he did not do as much by his devotion to his patient as by his skill."
"Devotion? O, he was devoted to his patient, eh?" said Ronald, biting his nails.
"Never saw such a thing in all your life. Went in a regular perisher," said Duncan Forbes, dropping his hands to emphasise his words. "Put himself in regular quarantine; cut himself off from all communication with anybody else, and shut himself up in the room with his patient for days together. It's the sort of thing you read of in poems, and that kind of thing, don't you know, but very seldom meet with in real life. If Wilmot had been a young man, and your sister had had any chance of making him like her, I should have said it was a case of smite. But Wilmot is an old married man; and these doctors don't indulge much in being captivated, specially by patients in fevers, I should think!"