He sat by his solitary breakfast-table on the morning after his interview with the physician, and watched Jarvis as he moved to and fro, waiting on his master with what seemed affectionate attention.
Douglas ate little. A failing appetite had been one of the symptoms that accompanied the low fever from which he had lately suffered.
This morning, depression of spirits rendered him still less inclined to eat.
He was thinking of Jarvis and of the past—those careless, happy, childish days, in which this man had been second only to his own kindred in his boyish affection.
While he meditated gravely upon this most painful subject, deliberating as to the manner in which he should commence a conversation that was likely to be a very serious one, he happened to look up, and perceived that he was watched by the man he had been lately watching. His eyes met the gaze of his old servant, and he beheld a strange earnestness in that gaze.
The old man did not flinch on meeting his master's glance.
"I beg your pardon for looking at you so hard, Mr. Douglas," he said; "but I was thinking about you very serious, sir, when you looked up."
"Indeed, Jarvis, and why?"
"Why you see, sir, it was about your appetite as I was thinking. It's fallen off dreadful within the last few weeks. The poor breakfastes as you eats is enough to break a man's heart. And you don't know the pains as I take, sir, to tempt you in the way of breakfastes. That fish, sir, I fetched from Grove's this morning with my own hands. They comes up in a salt-water tank in the bottom of their own boat, sir, as lively as if they was still in their natural eleming, Grove's fish do. But they might be red herrings for any notice as you take of 'em. You're not yourself, Mr. Douglas, that's what it is. You're ill, Mr. Douglas, and you ought to see a doctor. Excuse my presumption, sir, in making these remarks; but if an old family servant that has nursed you on his knees can't speak free, who can?"
"True," Douglas answered with a sigh; "I was a very small boy when you carried me on your shoulders to many a country fair, and you were very good to me, Jarvis."