‘No, sir,’ said Miss Prissy.
‘Have any of the parties ever communicated with you on the subject at all?’ said the Doctor.
‘No, sir,’ said Miss Prissy.
‘That is all,’ said the Doctor. ‘I will not detain you. I am very much obliged to you, madam.’
He rose and opened the door for her to pass out, and Miss Prissy, overawed by the stately gravity of his manner, went out in silence.
CHAPTER XL.
When Miss Prissy left the room the Doctor sat down by the table, and covered his face with his hands. He had a large, passionate, determined nature; and he had just come to one of those cruel crises in life, in the which it is apt to seem to us that the whole force of our being—all that we can hope, or wish, or feel—has been suffered to gather itself into one great wave, only to break upon some cold rock of inevitable fate, and go back moaning into emptiness.