Felicia was turning to retrace her footsteps, fearful of intruding, when the bedroom door opened and her grandfather came into the sitting-room, looking much agitated.
"Don't run away, child," he said kindly; "your uncle is expecting you; he tells me you are going to sit with him this afternoon."
"Yes, grandfather."
"That's right." He regarded her undecidedly for a moment, then added in a lower tone: "I want him to see another doctor—a specialist I've been bearing a great deal of lately—but he says he will not. Try if you cannot persuade him to change his mind." And without another word he went out of the room.
Felicia listened to his retreating footsteps in the corridor, then, as the sound of them died away, she entered her uncle's bedroom, and approached the bed.
She saw at a glance that the invalid was disturbed and in anything but a good-humour. The lines of ill-temper on either side of his mouth seemed more marked than usual, and there was a deep frown between his brows. In answer to her solicitous inquiries as to his health, he answered her somewhat testily—
"Better? Oh, yes. If I wasn't I should be dead by this time, I verily believe. I couldn't have lived to bear that pain much longer. There, child, don't look so grieved. I'm not suffering now, you know. Sit down where I can see you. That's right. Father's been here, worrying me to consent to see another doctor, but what's the good when—"
"It might be some good, Uncle Guy," Felicia broke in eagerly; "you cannot tell it would not; and grandfather wishes it so much."
"No doctor can straighten my back, child," he reminded her with a ring of bitterness in his voice.
"N—o—o," she answered reluctantly; "I suppose not. But, perhaps this doctor, if he is very clever, could give you some medicine to make you suffer less. If you could be spared pain, think what happiness that would be to grandfather—to us all."