"I'm Doctor Mervyn," said the doctor, making his bow, and eyeing the stranger curiously.
"Oh! Thanks, Doctor Mervyn! I hope it is not a long way from your house, I am here very ridiculously circumstanced. I should not have had any clothes, if it had not been for a very lucky accident, and for a day or two I shall be totally without money—a mere Robinson Crusoe."
"Oh, that don't matter; I shall be very happy to see after you in the meantime, if there should be anything in my way," answered the doctor, bluntly.
"You are very kind, thanks. This place, they tell me, is called Malory. What Mr. Ware is that to whom it belongs?"
"The Honourable Mr. Ware, brother of Lord H——. He is travelling on the Continent at present with his wife, a great beauty some fifteen years since; and his daughter, his only child, is at present here with her governess."
"Oh, I thought some one said he had two?"
The doctor re-asserted the fact, and for some seconds the stranger looked on the floor abstractedly.
"You wished a word or two of advice, I understand?" interrupted the doctor at length. "You have had a narrow escape, sir—a tremendous escape! You must have been awfully shaken. I don't know how you escaped being smashed on those nasty rocks."
"I am pretty well smashed, I fancy," said the young man.
"That's just what I wanted to ascertain."