It was impossible for either of them to pass the other, had they so wished it, without being guilty of absolute rudeness, and they stopped simultaneously.
"You are ill, Dr. Davenal?" exclaimed Oswald, speaking impulsively.
"Middling. I have got a cold hanging about me. We have had some bad weather here."
It cannot be denied that Dr. Davenal's tone and manner betrayed a coldness never yet offered to Oswald Cray. Generous man though he was by nature, as little prone to take offence as most people, he did think that Oswald Cray's slighting conduct had been unjustifiable, and he could not help showing his sense of it.
They stood a moment in silence, Oswald marking the ravages illness or something else had made on the doctor's face and form. His figure was drooping now, his face was careworn; but the sickness looked to be of mind more than of body. Unfortunately those miserable suspicions instilled into Oswald Cray's brain arose now with redoubled force, and a question suggested itself--could anything save remorse change a man as he had changed, in the short space of time?
"You are a stranger now, Mr. Oswald Cray. What has kept you from us?"
"The last time I called you were all out," he answered, somewhat evasively.
"And you could not call again! As you please, of course," continued the doctor, as Oswald's feet, took a somewhat repellant turn, and the Oswald pride became rather too conspicuous. "I had wished to say a word or two to you with regard to the will made by Lady Oswald; but perhaps you do not care to hear it."
"Anything that you, or I, or any one else can say, will not alter the will, Dr. Davenal. And it does not in the least concern me."
"But I think you are resenting it in your heart, for all that."