“What’s up?” he inquired tersely. “The heart not troubling you more than usual, I hope?”
To look at General Clandon, as he stood in the surgery, a fine upstanding figure of a man, you would have said he was free from all human ailments. Nobody could have guessed that he carried in that stalwart frame the seeds of a mortal disease that, at any moment, might lay him low.
“No, no more than usual. But yes, I think the palpitations are a little more frequent the last week or two.”
“Let me run the rule over you.” Doctor Jones produced his stethoscope. “Why didn’t you send for me before?”
“Just a moment, my good old friend, before you begin. Isobel particularly wants to go to Spain for reasons you can guess—her fiancé’s there. I can’t let her go without me, unless I could lay my hands upon a suitable chaperon. I want you to tell me if you will give me permission to go with her myself. I should take the journey in easy stages, of course.”
There was a very wistful look in the old man’s eyes as he uttered the last words; it seemed as if he were pleading for permission to gratify his daughter’s wish.
“Isobel, of course, won’t hear of it, after what you have told me; she did not know I was coming here. But if you could give your sanction, it would make us both very happy,” he added hastily, as he began to unbutton his coat.
Jones had been an army doctor, and he was very sympathetic. It was very pathetic, this poor old father with almost two feet in the grave, begging a little further respite from death.
“I will see what we can do, as soon as I have examined you,” he said kindly. “If it is humanly possible for you to go, I will let you go, for Isobel’s sake.”
The examination was a searching and lengthy one. When it was finished, Doctor Jones laid down his stethoscope with a little sigh.