His next thought was to telegraph immediately to Christabel. He asked his nurse to bring him a telegraph form and a pencil, and with a shaking hand began to write:—
"No! a thousand times no. I owe no allegiance to any one but to you. There can be no question of broken faith with the person of whom you write. I hold you to your promise."
Scarcely had his feeble fingers scrawled the lines than he tore up the paper.
"I will see the doctor first," he thought. "Am I a man to claim the fulfilment of a bright girl's promise of marriage? No, I'll get the doctor's verdict before I send her a word."
When the old family practitioner had finished his soundings and questionings, Angus asked him to stop for a few minutes longer.
"You say I'm better this afternoon, and that you'll get me over this bout," he said, "and I believe you. But I want you to go a little further and tell me what you think of my case from a general point of view."
"Humph," muttered the doctor, "it isn't easy to say what proportion of your scemptoms may be temporary, and what pairmenent; but ye've a vairy shabby pair of lungs at this praisent writing. What's your family heestory?"
"My father died of consumption at thirty."
"Humph! ainy other relative?"
"My aunt, a girl of nineteen; my father's mother, at seven-and-twenty."