He lifted his hat as she came to him; but they spoke no word of greeting.
“Tell me quickly,” she said. “I am Maggie Deronnais.”
He turned to walk by her side, saying nothing for a moment.
“The facts or the interpretation?” he asked in his brisk manner. “I will just say first that I have seen him this morning.”
“Oh! the facts,” she said. “Quickly, please.”
“Well, he is going to Mr. Morton’s chambers this afternoon; he says …”
“What?”
“One moment, please. … Oh! he is not seriously ill, as the world counts illness. He thought he was just very tired this morning. I went round to call on him. He was in bed at half-past ten when I left him. Then I came straight down here.”
For a moment she thought the old man mad. The relief was so intense that she flushed scarlet, and stopped dead in the middle of the road.
“You came down here,” she repeated. “Why, I thought—”
He looked at her gravely, in spite of the incessant twinkle in his eyes.
She perceived that this old man’s eyes would twinkle at a deathbed.
He stroked his grey beard smoothly down.
“Yes; you thought that he was dead, perhaps? Oh, no. But for all that, Miss Deronnais, it is just as serious as it can be.”
She did not know what to think. Was the man a madman himself?
“Listen, please. I am telling you simply the facts. I was anxious, and I went round this morning first to Lady Laura Bethell. To my