It was a little after nine when there was a ring at the hall door.  Not the lovers back so early?  She heard a man’s voice in the hall.  The next moment Beaumaroy was shown in, and the door shut behind him.  He stood still by it, making no motion to advance towards her.  He was breathing quickly, and she noticed beads of perspiration on his forehead.  She had sprung to her feet at the sight of him and faced him with indignation.

“You have no right to come here, Mr. Beaumaroy, after what passed between us this afternoon.”

“Besides being, as you saw yourself, very excited, my poor old friend isn’t at all well tonight.”

“I’m very sorry; but I’m no longer Mr. Saffron’s medical attendant.  If I declined to be this afternoon, I decline ten times more tonight.”

“For all I know, he’s very ill indeed, Dr. Arkroyd.”  Beaumaroy’s manner was very quiet, restrained, and formal.

“I have come to a clear conclusion about Mr. Saffron’s case since I left you.”

“I thought you might.  I suppose ‘Morocco’ put you on the scent?  And I suppose, too, that you looked at that wretched bit of paper?”

“I—­I thought of it—­” Here Mary was slightly embarrassed.

“You’d have been more than human if you hadn’t.  I was out again after it in five minutes—­as soon as I missed it; you’d gone, but I concluded you’d seen it.  He scribbles dozens like that.”

“You seem to admit my conclusion about his mental condition,” she observed stiffly.

“I always admit when I cease to be able to deny.  But don’t let’s stand here talking.  Really, for all I know, he may be dying.  His heart seems to me very bad.”

“Go and ask Dr. Irechester.”

“He dreads Irechester.  I believe the sight of Irechester might finish him.  You must come.”

“I can’t—­for the reasons I’ve told you.”

“Why?  My misdeeds?  Or your rules and regulations?  My God, how I hate rules and regulations!  Which of them is it that is perhaps to cost the old man his life?”

Mary could not resist the appeal; that could hardly be her duty, and certainly was not her inclination.  Her grievance was not against poor old Mr. Saffron, with his pitiful delusion of greatness, of a greatness, too, which now had suffered an eclipse almost as tragical as that which had befallen his own reason.  What an irony in his mad aping of it now!

“I will come, Mr. Beaumaroy, on condition that you give me candidly and truthfully all the information which, as Mr. Saffron’s medical attendant, I am entitled to ask.”

“I’ll tell you all I know about him, and about myself, too.”

“Your affairs and—­er—­position matter to me only so far as they bear on Mr. Saffron.”

“So be it.  Only come quickly; and bring some of your things that may help a man with a bad heart.”

Mary left him, went to her surgery, and was quickly back with her bag.  “I’ll get out the car.”