"To London?" echoed Carine, turning her chair to the fire, and facing Mark.
"There's the grandest opening: there's the grandest opening for a fortune to be made there. And--Carine--I think I shall quit Hallingham." Mrs. Cray's violet eyes extended themselves in the extreme of wonder. She sat staring at him.
"Caroline, I hate the profession, and how I came ever to be such a fool as to go into it I cannot understand," said Mark, throwing himself on a chair as he plunged into confidence. "So long as the doctor lived I could not well say anything about it; I did not see my way clear to do so. But things have altered now, and I think I shall give up the medical life."
"But--good gracious, Mark!--I can't understand," exclaimed Caroline, in her bewilderment. "If you give up your profession, you give up our means of living. We can't starve."
"Starve!" laughed Mark. "Can't you trust me better than that? Look here, Caroline; let us come to figures. I don't suppose I should clear at first above eight hundred a-year, or so, by the practice----"
"O, Mark!"
"Well, say a thousand for argument's sake. Let us assume that I net it clear. It's a nice income, no doubt, but I shall make three times that, if I go into the thing in London."
Caroline, half doubting, half eager, all bewildered, sat waiting to hear more.
"There's a splendid opportunity offered me if I give up the medical profession and embark altogether in a new line of life. I--you have heard me speak of my old chum Barker, have you not?" he broke off to ask.
"Barker?" she repeated. "Yes, I think I remember the name. He got into some dreadful trouble, did he not, and was sent to prison?"