“My dear General, it is impossible. You are a brave man, you have faced death more than once on the battlefield, and you have always asked me to tell you the truth. If you undertake that voyage, you are committing suicide.”
“You don’t give me very long then?” asked the General quietly. The doctor shrugged his shoulders and turned his head away. He could not quite put it in words.
“You have had some extra excitement lately? Great inroads have been made since I last examined you.”
“Yes,” answered General Clandon quietly, “there has been a good deal of excitement lately.”
It was true. The uncertain position of Isobel as regards her engagement, the hurried visit to Ticehurst Park, the danger overhanging Guy Rossett had agitated him very much.
He returned home very crestfallen. He had hoped against hope for the doctor’s favourable verdict. He had longed to be able to say to her: “It is all right, I will take you to Spain myself.”
But in the face of those grave words it was impossible to say it. It would be no benefit to her to take her out, and die before they got to the end of the journey.
Isobel met him in the hall of their pretty little home, half villa, half cottage.
“Why, where in the world have you been?” she cried, “running away at this early hour of the morning?”
They lived such an intimate and domestic life, that it was almost a point of honour to give notice of each other’s movements.