The doctor, save in the presence of a patient, had no such control over himself as John Crewys carried from the law-courts, into his life of every day.

“Why don’t you,” he said, in fiery tones, “let in air and life, and a view of the outside world, and as much sunshine as possible into this musty old house?  You have the power, if you had only the will.”

“You speak figuratively, I notice,” said John.  “I should be much obliged if you would tell me exactly what you mean.”

He would have answered in warmer and more kindly tones had Sarah’s words not rung upon his ear.

Was the doctor going to fight Lady Mary’s battles now, and with him, of all people in the world?  As though there were any one in the world to whom her interests could be dearer than—­

John stopped short in his thoughts, and looked attentively at the doctor.  His heart smote him.  How pallid was that tired face; and the hollow eyes, how sad and tired too!  The doctor had been up all night, in a wretched isolated cottage, watching a man die—­but John did not know that.

He perceived that this was no meddler, but a man speaking of something very near his heart; no presuming and interfering outsider who deserved a snub, but a man suffering from some deep and hidden cause.

The doctor’s secret was known to John long before he had finished what he had to say; but he listened attentively, and gave no sign that this was so.

“She will die,” said Blundell, “if this goes on;” and he neither mentioned any name, nor did John Crewys require him to do so.

The doctor’s words came hurrying out incoherently from the depths of his anxiety and earnestness.

“She will die if this goes on.  There were few hopes and little enough pleasure in her life before; but what is left to her now? De mortuis nil nisi bonum. But just picture to yourself for a moment, man, what her life has been.”

He stopped and drew breath, and strove to speak calmly and dispassionately.

“I was born in the valley of the Youle,” he said.  “My people live in a cottage—­they call it a house, but it’s just a farm—­on the river,—­Cullacott.  I was a raw medical student when she came here as a child.  Her father was killed in the Afghan War.  He had quarrelled with his uncle, they said, who afterwards succeeded to the earldom; so she was left to the guardianship of Sir Timothy, a distant cousin.  Every one was sorry for her, because Sir Timothy was her guardian, and because she was a little young thing to be left to the tender mercies of the two old ladies, who were old even then.  If you will excuse my speaking frankly about the family”—­John nodded—­“they bullied their brother always; what with their superiority of birth, and his being so much younger, and so on.  Their bringing-up made him what he was, I am sure.  He went nowhere; he always fancied people were laughing at him.  His feeling about his—­his