“At any rate, the doctor hopes that he may come downstairs in ten days. And then, I’m afraid, we shall have Josina to nurse.”
The girl protested that she was well, quite well. But her heavy eyes and the shadows under them belied her words.
“Well, I’m off to town,” he said, “I have to see Welshes for him.”
He left them, and ten minutes later he was on the road to Aldersbury, still undecided, still uncertain what course he would pursue, and at one moment accusing himself of a weakness that deserved the contempt of every strong man, at another praising moderation and a country life. Had he had eyes and ears for the things about him as he rode, he might have found much to support the latter view. The cawing of rooks, the murmur of wood-doves, the scents of late spring filled the balmy air. The sky was pure blue, and beneath it the pastures shone yellow with buttercups. Tree and field, bank and hedge-row rioted in freshest green, save where the oak wood, slow to change and careless of fashion, clung to its orange garb, or the hawthorn stood out, a globe of snow. The cuckoo and the early corncrake told of coming summer, and behind him the Welsh hills simmered in the first heat of the year. Clement, had he passed that way, would have noted it all, and in the delight of the eye and the spring-tide of all growing things would have found ground to rejoice, whatever his trouble.
But Arthur, wrapt in his own thoughts, barely noticed these things. He rode with his eyes fixed on his horse’s ears, and only roused himself when he saw the very man whom he wished to see coming to meet him. It was Dr. Farmer, in the mahogany-topped boots, the frilled shirt, and the old black coat—shaped as are our dress coats but buttoned tightly round the waist—which the dust of a dozen summers and every road in the district had whitened.
“Hallo, doctor!” Arthur cried as they met. “Are you going up to the house to-day?”
“No, Mr. Bourdillon. But I can if necessary. How is he?”
“That is what I want you to tell me. One can’t talk freely at the house and I have a reason for wishing to know. How is he, doctor?”
“Do you mean——”
“Has this really shaken him? Will he be the same man again?”