While he was still in doubt and perplexity, he chanced to meet one morning, a famous physician, with whom he was rather intimate, though he had never employed him professionally. Dr. Eglinton was a general favourite; many people, besides his patients, liked to hear his full cheery tones, and to see his quaint pleasant face, with the fin sourire that pointed his inexhaustible anecdotes; he was the most inveterate gossip that ever steered quite clear of ill-nature.
"You're not looking in such rude health as one would suspect at the end of the hunting season," the Doctor said, "but I suppose there's nothing in my way this morning. I wish I could say as much for an old friend of yours, whom I have just left at the Burlington. It's the Rector of Dene. By the bye, it would be a great charity if you would call on him to-day: he seems lonely and out of spirits—indeed, the nature of his disease is depressing. I know he's very fond of you, and you might do him more good than my physic can. I fear it is a hopeless case—a heart-complaint of some standing—though the symptoms have only become acute and aggravated within the last two years. Do you know if he has had any great domestic troubles or worries of late? He was not communicative, and I did not dare to press him. Nothing can be so bad for him as anything of the sort; and any heavy or sudden shock might be instantly fatal."
It was not only surprise and pain, but sharp self-reproach too, that made Wyverne turn so pale. Revenge is essentially selfish, even when it will reason at all; he had actually forgotten his kind old friend's existence while pondering how to punish his son. He knew right well what had been the great trouble that had weighed on Gilbert Knowles's heart for the last two years. The Rector was of course unable to intercede or avert the catastrophe; but, when he heard of the final rupture of Helen's engagement, he bowed his head despairingly, and had never raised it since. I told you how he loved her, and how sincerely he loved Alan. On their union rested the last of his hopes; when that was crushed, he felt he should never have strength or spirits enough to nourish another.
No wonder Wyverne's reply was strangely embarrassed and inconsequent:
"I don't know—yes—perhaps there may have been some trouble on his mind. The dear old Rector! I wish I had heard of this before. Of course I'll go to him; but not to-day—it's impossible to-day. Good-bye: I shall see you again very soon. I shall want to hear about your patient."
His manner, usually posé to a degree, was so abrupt just then, that it set the Doctor musing as he walked away.
"There's something wrong there," he muttered, half aloud (it was a way he had); "I wish I knew what it was; he's well worth curing. He's not half the man he was when he was ruined. None of us are, for that matter: I suppose there's something bracing in the air of poverty. I did hear something about a cousinly attachment, but it can't be that: Wyverne is made of too sterling stuff to pine away because an amourette goes wrong: besides, he's always with Lady Clydesdale now, they say. What don't they say, if one had only time to listen," &c., &c.
The good physician had a little subdued element of cynicism in his nature, which he only indulged when soliliquizing, or over the one cigar that professional decorum winked at, when the long day's toil was done.
"Not to-day." No; Alan felt that it would be impossible to meet the father, till the interview with the son was over. He went back to his rooms, and sat there thinking for a full hour. Then he took some papers from a locked casket, and went straight to the Temple.
Knowles's servant chanced to be out, so he came himself to open the door of his chambers. He was prosperous and careful, you know, and could meet the commercial world boldly, abroad or at home; but the most timorous of insolvents never felt so disagreeable a thrill at the apparition of the sternest of creditors, as shot through Harding's nerves when he saw on the threshold, the calm courteous face, of the man whom he disliked and feared beyond all living. There was something in that face—though a careless observer would have detected no ruffle in its serenity—that stopped the other in his greeting, and in the act of offering his hand. Not a word passed between the two, till Knowles had followed his visitor into the innermost of the two sitting-rooms, closing the doors carefully behind them. Then Wyverne spoke—