The rapidly failing daylight showed a large elderly, rather pompous gentleman, with a bald head, grizzled whiskers, and heavy plebeian features.

His face was smooth and unwrinkled, as the faces of prosperous and self-satisfied persons sometimes are, even after sixty, which was the age Sir Timothy had attained.

Dr. Blundell, who sat opposite his patient, was neither prosperous nor self-satisfied.

His dark clean-shaven face was deeply lined; care or over-work had furrowed his brow; and the rather unkempt locks of black hair which fell over it were streaked with white.  From the deep-set brown eyes looked sadness and fatigue, as well as a great kindness for his fellow-men.

“I came the moment I received your letter,” he said.  “I had no idea you were back from London already.”

“Dr. Blundell,” said Sir Timothy, pompously, “when I took the very unusual step of leaving home the day before yesterday, I had resolved to follow the advice you gave me.  I went to fulfil an appointment I had made with a specialist.”

“With Sir James Power?”

“No, with a man named Herslett.  You may have heard of him.”

“Heard of him!” ejaculated Blundell.  “Why, he’s world-famous!  A new man.  Very clever, of course.  If anything, a greater authority.  Only I fancied you would perhaps prefer an older, graver man.”

“No doubt I committed a breach of medical etiquette,” said Sir Timothy, in self-satisfied tones.  “But I fancied you might have written your version of the case to Power.  Ah, you did?  Exactly.  But I was determined to have an absolutely unbiassed opinion.”

“Well,” said Blundell, gently.

“Well—­I got it, that’s all,” said Sir Timothy.  The triumph seemed to die out of his voice.

“Was it—­unsatisfactory?”

“Not from your point of view,” said the squire, with a heavy jocularity which did not move the doctor to mirth.  “I’m bound to say he confirmed your opinion exactly.  But he took a far more serious view of my case than you do.”

“Did he?” said Blundell, turning away his head.

“The operation you suggested as a possible necessity must be immediate.  He spoke of it quite frankly as the only possible chance of saving my life, which is further endangered by every hour of delay.”

“Fortunately,” said Blundell, cheerfully, “you have a fine constitution, and you have lived a healthy abstemious life.  That is all in your favour.”

“I am over sixty years of age,” said Sir Timothy, coldly, “and the ordeal before me is a very severe one, as you must be well aware.  I must take the risk of course, but the less said about the matter the better.”

Dr. Blundell had always regarded Sir Timothy Crewys as a commonplace contradictory gentleman, beset by prejudices which belonged properly to an earlier generation, and of singularly narrow sympathies and interests.  He believed him to be an upright man according to his lights, which were not perhaps very brilliant lights after all; but he knew him to be one whom few people found it possible to like, partly on account of his arrogance, which was excessive; and partly on account of his want of consideration for the feelings of others, which arose from lack of perception.