"I wish I could," I said, reflectively.
"Oh, it won't be difficult," she replied.
I looked at her in surprise.
"What can you mean?" I asked.
To my amazement, she flung herself on her knees at my feet.
"You can invent something," she said, clasping my hand and pressing it frantically between both her own. "Oh, it would not be a crime—and it would save a life—two lives. Say you saw symptoms of apoplexy. Say—oh, you will know what to say—and you are a great doctor, and you will be believed."
"Get up," I said, sternly; "I will forgive your wild words, for circumstances have excited you so much that you do not quite know what you are saying. Believe me that nothing would give me more sincere satisfaction than to be able to discover the real cause of poor Randall's death. But you mistake your man utterly when you make the suggestion you do. Now I must leave you. It is almost morning, and I have promised to meet Brabazon downstairs at an early hour."
I went back to my own room, where I sat in anxious thought until the time which Brabazon had appointed for us to meet arrived. I then went down to the smoking-room, where I found him.
He looked harassed and ill—no wonder. The subject we had met to discuss was how best the news of their only son's death was to be broken to Lord and Lady Hartmore. The Hartmores' place was situated about a hundred miles away. Brabazon said that there was nothing whatever for it but to telegraph the unhappy circumstance to them.
"And I fear doing so very much," he added, "for Hartmore is not strong: he has a rather dangerous heart affection."