It was the Reverend Mr. Webster, perpetual curate of the parish around Templemore. And I seemed to know him before I heard his name, for he was the very image of his son, Long Webster, who used to be at Oxford.
“I am so grieved not to have been able to get here before,” he said; “but I had just gone out for some hours when Mrs. Temple’s message was brought to the Parsonage. Is he any better?”
“I am afraid not,” I answered. “We don’t know what to make of it; it all seems so sudden and strange.”
“But what is it?” he asked in a whisper.
“I don’t know, sir. The doctors have said something about the heart.”
“I should like to see the doctors before I go in to Mrs. Temple. Are they here?”
“One of them is, I think. They have been going in and out all day.”
I fetched the doctor out to him; and they talked together in low tones in the shaded and quiet porch. Not a ray of hope sat on the medical man’s face: he as good as intimated that Temple was dying.
“Dear me!” cried the dismayed Mr. Webster.