We were now, therefore, left without the attendance of a medical man. Although there was no actual necessity for another doctor⁠—nursing and watching being, as the physician had observed, all that Miss Halcombe required⁠—I should still, if my authority had been consulted, have obtained professional assistance from some other quarter, for form’s sake.

The matter did not seem to strike Sir Percival in that light. He said it would be time enough to send for another doctor if Miss Halcombe showed any signs of a relapse. In the meanwhile we had the Count to consult in any minor difficulty, and we need not unnecessarily disturb our patient in her present weak and nervous condition by the presence of a stranger at her bedside. There was much that was reasonable, no doubt, in these considerations, but they left me a little anxious nevertheless. Nor was I quite satisfied in my own mind of the propriety of our concealing the doctor’s absence as we did from Lady Glyde. It was a merciful deception, I admit⁠—for she was in no state to bear any fresh anxieties. But still it was a deception, and, as such, to a person of my principles, at best a doubtful proceeding.