"It's a curious thing," he observed cynically, "how a man can go through half his life without learning to hold his tongue about his private affairs."
Melville raised his eyebrows, and whistled a few notes of a popular music-hall ditty.
For about a hundred yards the two walked on in silence. Then Ralph put his hand in his friend's arm.
"Don't talk to me about it, Jack," he said, "there's a good fellow, but I have been the most confounded snob that ever lived."
Nothing more was said till they parted at the street corner, and then Melville stood and watched his friend out of sight.
"Another good man gone wrong!" he observed philosophically; and, shrugging his shoulders, he made his way back to the hospital.
The long day and the interminable night were over.
"Even an Eastern Counties train
Must needs come in at last."
And Dudley did actually find himself alighting at the familiar little station on a bright August morning. Never before had his home seemed so attractive to him. The strong east wind was like wine, fleecy clouds chased each other across a brilliant blue sky, and the first mellow glow was just beginning to tinge the billowy acres of corn. The tall trees at the foot of his aunt's garden threw broken shadows across the quiet lawn. The beds were bright with old-fashioned flowers, and the house, with its pillared portico, rose, white and stately, beyond the sweep of the carriage-drive.
"Welcome home, doctor!" said the gatekeeper's wife, curtseying low as Ralph passed the lodge. "You're gey late this year. Jeames cam' through frae Edinbury a fortnight syne."