"Ay," said Jan. "This is my first round to-day. Bitterworths have sent for me in desperate haste. Folks always get ill at the wrong time."
"Why don't you ride?" asked Lionel, turning with Jan, and stepping out at the same pace.
"There was no time to get the horse ready. I can walk it nearly as fast. I have had no breakfast yet."
"No breakfast!" echoed Lionel.
"I dived into the kitchen and caught up a piece of bread out of the basket. Half my patients must do without me to-day. I have only just got away from Hook's."
"How is the girl?"
"In great danger," replied Jan.
"She is ill, then?"
"So ill, that I don't think she'll last the day out. The child's dead. I must cut across the fields back there again, after I have seen what's amiss at Bitterworth's."
The words touching Alice Hook caused quite a shock to Lionel. "It will be a sad thing, Jan, if she should die!"