“Where’s George?” sharply asked Mr. Snow.
“In London,” replied Thomas Godolphin. But he said it in no complaining accent: neither did his tone invite further comment.
Mr. Snow was one who did not wait for an invitation in such a cause ere he spoke. “It is one of two things, Mr. Godolphin. Either George must come back and face this worry, or else you’ll die.”
“I shall die, however it may be, Snow,” was the reply of Thomas Godolphin.
“So will most of us, I expect,” returned the doctor. “But there’s no necessity for being helped on to it by others, ages before death would come of itself. What’s your brother at in London? Amusing himself, I suppose. He must be got here.”
Thomas shook his head. The action, as implying a negative, aroused the wrath of Mr. Snow. “Do you want to die?” he asked. “One would think it, by your keeping your brother away.”
“There is no person who would more gladly see my brother here than I,” returned Thomas Godolphin. “If—if it were expedient that he should come.”
“Need concealment be affected between us, Mr. Godolphin?” resumed the surgeon, after a pause. “You must be aware that I have heard the rumours afloat. A doctor hears everything, you know. You are uncertain whether it would be safe for George to come back to Prior’s Ash.”
“It is something of that sort, Snow.”
“But now, what is there against him—it is of no use to mince the matter—besides those bonds of Lord Averil’s?”