"The offices all keep their own doctors, and those doctors, it is my belief, are unnecessarily particular. I should call them crotchety, Jane."
"I think it must amount to this," said Jane; "that if there is anything seriously the matter with you, no office will be found to do it; but if the affection is only trifling or temporary you may be accepted."
"That is about it. Oh, Jane!" he added, with an irrepressible burst of anguish, "what would I not give to have insured my life before this came upon me! All those past years! They seem to have been allowed to run to waste, when I might have been using them to lay up in store for the children!"
How many are there of us who, looking back, can feel that our past years, in some way or other, have not been allowed to run to waste?
What a sleepless night that was for him! What a sleepless night for his wife! Both rose in the morning equally unrefreshed.
"To what doctor will you go?" Jane inquired as she was dressing.
"I have been thinking of Dr. Arnold of Finsbury," he replied.
"Yes, you could not go to a better. Edgar, you will let me accompany you?"
"No, no, Jane. Your accompanying me would do no good. You could not go into the room with me."
She saw the force of the objection. "I shall be so very anxious," she said, in a low tone.