"Aye, about Tom," he replied, turning his chair to face me, and propping his right elbow upon his table. "Well, I fear Tom is in a bad way."
"In health, you mean?"
"I do. His cough is frightful, and he is more like a skeleton than a living being. I should say the illness has laid hold of his lungs."
"Has he had a doctor?"
"No. Asks how he is to have one. Says a doctor might (they were his own words) smell a rat. Doctors are not called in to the class of people lodging in that house unless they are dying: and it would soon be seen by any educated man that Tom is not of their kind. My opinion is, that a doctor could not do him much good now," added Lake.
He looked at me as he spoke; to see, I suppose, whether I took in his full meaning. I did—unhappily.
"And what do you think he is talking of now, Charles?" returned Lake. "Of giving himself up."
"Giving himself up! What, to justice?"
Lake nodded. "You know what Tom Heriot is—not much like other people."
"But why should he think of that? It would end everything."