“Out with you! To see your patient the poacher?”
“Oh, no,” replied Oldroyd, smiling. “He is quite well again now. I have not been there these two months; but I can soon find an object for a walk.”
“A walk? Yes, perhaps. We shall see. Will you close the shutters when you go. I must have darkness for such work as this.”
“Yes, I’ll close them,” said Oldroyd quietly; and crossing the room he did what he had been requested before walking out of the observatory, leaving Alleyne absorbed once more in his thoughts, and too intent to raise his head as his visitor bade him good-day.
By accident or design, Oldroyd encountered Lucy once more in crossing the hall, bowing to her gravely, his salute being received with chilling courtesy by the young lady, who again hurried away, truth to tell, to ascend to her bedroom and cry over the unhappy way in which her life course was being turned.
“Well,” said Mrs Alleyne anxiously, as she advanced to meet Oldroyd, “what do you think?”
“Exactly what I thought before I saw your son, madam. He is again setting Nature at defiance and suffering for the sin.”
“And what is to be done?”
Oldroyd shook his head as he thought of the medicine that would have cured Alleyne’s complaint—a remedy that appeared to be unattainable, watched as it were by a military dragon of the name of Rolph, and all the young doctor could say for the anxious mother’s comfort was on leaving,—
“We must wait.”