"He won't hear us," said the doctor. "You need not trouble yourself about that. Some one has been attending him, I suppose?"

"Yes," she answered, "but not in this neighbourhood; we have only just come here."

"So the cabman told me," he replied. "Has he," indicating Mortomley with a turn of his head, "been living low?"

"He has had everything the doctor told me to give him."

"Beef-tea, wine, and so forth?"

"Yes, all sorts of wine, and everything we could think of or imagine."

"Just as I supposed," remarked the doctor. "And medicine, of course, draughts and drops, and those sort of things?"

"Yes; all that was ordered."

"And how does it happen a man in his state of health was out at such a time of night—out, in fact, at all?" asked the doctor suddenly.

"Because where we lived was killing him," Dolly answered; "because a dear friend wanted to take us to Brighton with her. And—and—well if I must tell you, other members of her family did not make us welcome when we got to her house in London, and I was obliged to bring him here."