"Sit down, sit down," said the physician, shortly. "Calm yourself, or you will fall in a fit as did your horror-struck rival on hearing the dreadful news of her death."
"Fell in a fit, did he?" said Colville, stopping short in his hurried walk. "I wish he had died. But, no! he might have rejoined her then in some better land than this."
"If there be a better land, which I doubt," said Pratt, with a cold sneer.
Colville threw himself down into an arm-chair and looked moodily across at the physician.
"Well, what have you come after?" he asked, abruptly and testily. "You have put me up to so many devilish schemes that I always expect some villany when I see your satanic countenance."
"I have put my freedom in jeopardy this week for the sake of your happiness," Doctor Pratt answered with assumed indifference, "but if you take such a high tone I can leave with my secret untold."
"A secret!" said Colville, looking up with some interest; "your secrets are always worth hearing, doctor. Let me have it, I beg you."
"This one is worth hearing, any way," said Doctor Pratt grimly, and, rising, he turned the door-key in the lock, after looking out suspiciously into the wide hall. Returning, he drew his chair close to Colville's and continued, calmly: "I cannot afford to give you this secret, Colville, I will sell it to you for the pretty little sum of ten thousand dollars—a mere bagatelle, that, to a man of your wealth."
"Ten thousand dollars! is the man mad?" muttered Colville. "Why, man alive, there is not a secret under the sun I would pay that much for!"