“I am not aware that there was any taking in in the case. I knew that agitation was dangerous for him. It was better for us to wait, at our age, than to have the self-reproach afterwards.” This was all true, yet it was embarrassing to say.
“I see,” said Mr. Babington; “a waiting game doesn’t always recommend itself to the lookers-on, Dr. Langton. It might have lasted for years.”
“I did not think,” said Langton hastily, “that it could have lasted for weeks. He has lived longer than I expected.”
“And you were there at one side of him, and his daughter at the other, waiting. I think I’d rather not have my daughter engaged to a doctor, meaning no disrespect to you.”
“It sounds like something more than disrespect,” said Langton, with offence. “If you think I did not do my duty by my patient”—
“Oh no, I don’t think that; but I think you will be disappointed, Dr. Langton. I don’t quite see why you have sent for the boys. If the one was for your interest, the other was dead against it. It is a disagreeable business altogether. If they were to set up a plea against you of undue influence”—
“I think,” said Langton, “that this is not a subject to be discussed between us. You know very well that my influence with Mr. Chester was”—
“About the same as every other man’s, and that was nothing at all,” said the lawyer, with a laugh. It is unseemly to laugh in a house all draped and shrouded in mourning, and the sound seemed to produce a little stir of horror in the silent place, all the more that Winifred came in at the moment, as white as a spectre, in her black dress. Her look of astonished reproach made the lawyer in his turn change countenance.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Winifred, I beg you a thousand pardons. It was not any jest, I assure you, it was in very sober earnest. My dear young lady, I need not say how shocked I was and distressed”—
The sudden change of aspect, the gloom which came over Mr. Babington’s cheerful countenance, would have been more comical than melancholy to an unconcerned spectator; but Winifred accepted it without criticism. She said, “Did you know how ill he was?” with tears in her eyes.