Undershaw laughed.
"If I do, I mustn't be taken as aiding and abetting you. But of course—if you wish it."
"Ten o'clock to-morrow," said Melrose, accompanying him to the door. "Ten o'clock, sharp." He stood, with raised forefinger, on the threshold of the newly opened room, bowing a stiff farewell.
Undershaw escaped. But as he turned into the pillared hall, Nurse Aston hurriedly emerged from Faversham's room. She reported some fresh trouble in one of the wounds on the leg caused by the accident, which had never yet properly healed. There was some pain, and a rise in temperature.
* * * * *
The unfavourable symptoms soon subsided. But as the fear of blood-poisoning had been in Undershaw's mind from the beginning, they led him to postpone, in any case, the arrangements that had been set on foot for Faversham's departure. During three or four days afterward he saw little or nothing of Melrose. But he and Nurse Aston were well aware that unusual things were going on in the house. Owing to the great thickness of the walls, the distance of Faversham's room from the scene of action, and the vigilance of his nurse, who would allow no traffic whatever through the front hall, the patient was protected from the noise of workmen in the house, and practically knew nothing of the operations going on. Melrose appeared every evening as usual, and gave no hint.
On the afternoon of the fourth day, Melrose met Undershaw in the hall, as he entered the house.
"How is he?"
"All right again, I think, and doing well. I hope we shall have no further drawbacks."
"Be good enough to give me ten minutes—before you see Mr. Faversham?"