“He wrote me word that he was very glad, and said he should write to Gertrude’s uncle.”
“Ah, yes. H’m!” said the doctor. “Best thing, too. They were once very great friends, John.”
“Yes, I have heard so,” said Huish. “I think Captain Millet loved my mother.”
“H’m, yes,” said the doctor, nodding. “They quarrelled. Well, but this is a surprise! You dog, you! But the secrecy of the whole thing! How snug you kept it! But, I say, you ought to have written to us all.”
“Well, certainly, I might have written to you, doctor, but I confess I forgot.”
“I say, though, you should have written to the old man.”
“We did, letter after letter.”
“Then that old—there, I won’t say what, must have suppressed them. She was mad because her favourite lost. It would have been murder to have tied her up to that wreck. I say, though, my boy,” continued the doctor seriously, “I don’t think you ought to have carried on so with Frank Morrison. He has had D.T. terribly.”
“What had that to do with me?” said Huish. “If a man will drink, he must take the consequences.”
“Exactly,” said the doctor coldly; “but his friends need not egg him on so as to win his money.”