“Good night, dear boy. Another time you must take better care of yourself. Remember your life is precious to us all.”
With these affectionate words Captain Oliphant left the room, candle in hand. As he passed his daughter’s boudoir he looked in. It was empty. The young ladies had long since taken refuge in their bedroom. All the house, in fact, except Captain Oliphant, had done the same.
That gentleman, as he passed another door which stood half open, could not resist a friendly impulse to peep in. It was a snug room, with a piano in one corner, and foils, boxing gloves, Oxford prints, and other tokens of a bachelor proprietorship displayed on the walls. The table was littered with classical exercises, music scores, and letters. A college boating-jacket hung behind the door, and one or two prize-goblets decorated the mantelpiece.
Captain Oliphant displayed a genial interest in everything. He read the inscriptions on the goblets, glanced casually through the papers, read the addresses on a few of the letters, and generally took stock of the apartment. Of course, like an honourable gentleman, he disturbed nothing, and presently, distressed by a sudden fit of coughing from the direction of his ward’s room, he hastily stepped out into the lobby again and made his way back to the library.
Before he went to bed this methodical person committed three several matters to paper. In his memorandum-book he wrote the name of a certain college at Oxford, and a date, corresponding, oddly enough, to the name and date on one of the goblets in Mr Armstrong’s room.
That done, he scrawled a post card to Dr Brandram, requesting him to call and see Roger, whose cough was still a little troublesome.
After that, he pulled out of his pocket and read with a somewhat pained expression a letter he had received the day before by the Indian mail. It was gather long, but the passage which pained Captain Oliphant particularly ran thus:—
“The trouble about the mess accounts is not blown over yet. I have done what I can for you. I hope you will make it unnecessary for me to enter into details with the parties chiefly interested in that affair. It depends pretty much on what you are able to tell me, whether I can give you the time you mention in your last. You will consult your own interests best by being quite square,” and so on.
The expression which Captain Oliphant mentally applied to the writer as he re-read this pleasant passage was not wholly flattering, and his countenance, as I have said, bore traces of considerable pain. However, after a little meditation it cleared somewhat, and he wrote:—
“It seems to me a pity you should take up a position which can only end in trouble all round. You know how things stand, and how impossible it is to hasten matters. At the present moment there seems every probability of my being able to discharge all my accounts—yours among them—considerably earlier than the time first mentioned. It is worth your while, under the circumstances, reconsidering what, you must allow me to say, is a preposterous claim for interest. Of course, if you charge me for the full term, I have very little inducement to settle up sooner. Turn it over, like a sensible man, and believe me, meanwhile,
“Yours truly,
“E.O.
“P.S.—I enclose a copy of the clauses of the will most likely to interest you. I am sorry to say my ward is in very bad—I might say seriously bad—health. He has a constitutional complaint, which, I greatly fear, will make this winter a most anxious time to us all.”