“Not I,” said the pater: “he gave me no opportunity. Had I been a sheriffs-officer with a writ in my hand he could hardly have turned off shorter. They had moved into the other house that day, he muttered, and he must lock up Maythorn Bank and be after them.”
This account of Sir Dace was in a measure cleared up the next morning. Who should come in after breakfast but the surgeon, Cole. Talking of this and that, Sir Dace Fontaine’s name came up.
“I am on my way now to Sir Dace; to the new place,” cried Cole. “They went into it yesterday. Might have gone in a month ago, but Sir Dace made no move to do it. He seems to have no heart left to do anything; neither heart nor energy.”
“I knew he was ill,” cried the Squire. “No mistaking that. And now, Cole, what is it that’s the matter with him?”
“He shows symptoms of a very serious inward complaint,” gravely answered Cole. “A complaint that, if it really does set in, must prove fatal. We have some hopes yet that we shall ward it off. Sir Dace does not think we shall, and is in a rare fright about himself.”
“A fright, is he! That’s it, then.”
“Never saw any man in such a fright before,” went on Cole. “Says he’s going to die—and he does not want to die.”
“I said last night the man was like a walking shadow. And there’s a kind of scare in his face.”
Cole nodded. “Two or three weeks ago I got a note from him, asking me to call. I found him something like a shadow, as you observe, Squire. The cold weather had kept him indoors, and I had not chanced to see him for some weeks. When Sir Dace told me his symptoms, I suppose I looked grave. Combined with his wasted appearance, they unpleasantly impressed me, and he took alarm. ‘The truth,’ he said, in his arbitrary way: ‘tell me the truth; only that. Conceal nothing.’ Well, when a patient adjures me in a solemn manner to tell the truth, I deem it my duty to do so,” added Cole, looking up.