The dread was not for himself, but for those dependent on him. Who would help them if his help failed? The whole night long he lay awake, tormenting himself. With morning light—daylight does not come early when November is on the dawn—he rose and took his breakfast. Dropping a note to the Head Master, explaining the cause of his absence, he went off by train to London, doing all in a quiet manner. Times and again it had been in his thoughts to go to this gentleman, who was one of fame, especially in diseases of the heart. Very nearly an hour did he wait in the anteroom, before his turn came.
He was examined, questioned, talked to: and then the doctor sat down to his table and took up a pen. But he laid it down again.
"I am about to write you a prescription; but I tell you candidly it is not medicine you want. One thing may do you good; and one thing only."
"What is that?"
"Rest. Rest both of mind and body. I do not mean tranquillity only, but entire rest from all kinds of exertion. Great or sudden exertion might be——" the doctor paused; and, as it struck Mr. Henry, seemed to change the word he had been about to speak—"prejudicial to you, excessively so. You must avoid alike fatigue and emotion."
"I gather, then, that my heart is not sound."
"Not quite as sound as could be wished."
"Is it so unsound as to place me in danger?" questioned Mr. Henry, his luminous eyes bent earnestly on the physician. "You need not fear to speak freely to me. I have come here to ask you to do so."
"In a case such as yours there is no doubt danger," replied the doctor. "We can do little. It lies chiefly with the patient himself."
"What does?"