“If you dare to say—Bah?” cried Geoffrey, “I won’t quarrel. You’re hipped, doctor—tired—upset—but don’t call a man names. It stirs up a fellow’s bile, as old Paul says.”
The doctor panted in his anger, for calm, peaceable Dr Rumsey seemed quite transformed.
“And you can talk like this?” he cried, “with that poor girl, the mother of your new-born child, lying an outcast from her home!”
“What?” roared Geoffrey, catching at the doctor’s arm.
“He is a fool!” exclaimed Dr Rumsey; and, wrenching away his arm, he strode off towards the town, leaving Geoffrey staring as if he were stunned.
He was stunned mentally, and for a few minutes he felt as if he could not collect his thoughts. Then his first impulse was to run after the doctor.
“Oh, it’s too absurd,” he cried; and at last, sick at heart, uneasy, and disgusted with his late companion, and not even yet fully realising his position in the tragedy of the night, he walked stiffly up to the cottage, hesitated for a few moments as to whether he should enter, and ended by letting himself in, and going to his room, to try and secure a few hours’ rest.