“Oh, hush,” cried Gussy, “he will be a friend, he has a kind face!”
“His name is Dr. Harding,” said Julia, breaking in. “He came for Janet, but mamma said he was an old friend: and Dolff told him by chance that he—he, you know—was living, and not dead.”
“This is all mere madness,” said Dr. Harding. “I did not want to know anything about the affairs of the family, but I have my duty to do—I must do what is my duty.”
There came a faint voice from behind—from the chair in which the mother lay, only as it seemed half-conscious, propped by pillows.
“See him,” it said. “See him, see him; a doctor, he will know.”
They all turned round startled, but it was Meredith alone who caught up the meaning of this half-stifled utterance. He put his hand on the doctor’s arm.
“Come here,” he said, “and look at the man for yourself.”
He opened the door softly as he spoke. There had been sounds outside to which no one had paid any attention till now. The lamp had been lighted in the hall, and it threw a strong light upon a man in a wheeled chair with white hair and beard. He was speaking in a note of half-whispering complaint.
“Why do you bring me in, when I don’t want to come in, Vicars? Dark—I like it when it’s dark and nobody can see.”
“It don’t do you no good, sir,” said Vicars, “to be out in the dark.”