‘It is not to be thought of, I suppose?’ Sir George said; and he looked at the other interrogatively.

‘Good Lord, no!’ the physician answered.  ‘No, no, no!’ he added weightily.

Sir George nodded, and, turning, looked thoughtfully through the window.  His face still wore a flush.  ‘Yet something must be done for her,’ he said in a low voice.  ‘I can’t let her here, read that.’

Dr. Addington took the open letter the other handed to him, and, eyeing it with a frown while he fixed his glasses, afterwards proceeded to peruse it.

‘Sir,’ it ran—­it was pitifully short—­’when I sought you I deemed myself other than I am.  Were I to seek you now I should be other than I deem myself.  We met abruptly, and can part after the same fashion.  This from one who claims to be no more than your well-wisher.—­JULIA.’

The doctor laid it down and took a pinch of snuff.  ‘Good girl!’ he muttered.  ’Good girl.  That—­that confirms me.  You must do something for her, Sir George.  Has she—­how did you get that, by the way?’

’I found it on the table.  I made inquiry, and heard that she left Marlboro’ an hour gone.’

‘For?’

‘I could not learn.’

‘Good girl!  Good girl!  Yes, certainly you must do something for her.’

‘You think so?’ Sir George said, with a sudden queer look at the doctor, ‘Even you?’

‘Even I!  An allowance of—­I was going to suggest fifty guineas a year,’ Dr. Addington continued impulsively.  ’Now, after reading that letter, I say a hundred.  It is not too much, Sir George!  ’Fore Gad, it is not too much.  But—­’

‘But what?’

The physician paused to take an elaborate pinch of snuff.  ’You’ll forgive me,’ he answered.  ’But before this about her birth came out, I fancied that you were doing, or going about to do the girl no good.  Now, my dear Sir George, I am not strait-laced,’ the doctor continued, dusting the snuff from the lappets of his coat, ’and I know very well what your friend, my Lord March, would do in the circumstances.  And you have lived much, with him, and think yourself, I dare swear, no better.  But you are, my dear sir—­you are, though you may not know it.  You are wondering what I am at?  Inclined to take offence, eh?  Well, she’s a good girl, Sir George’—­he tapped the letter, which lay on the table beside him—­’too good for that!  And you’ll not lay it on your conscience, I hope.’

‘I will not,’ Sir George said quietly.

‘Good lad!’ Dr. Addington muttered, in the tone Lord Chatham had used; for it is hard to be much with the great without trying on their shoes.  ‘Good lad!  Good lad!’

Soane did not appear to notice the tone.  ’You think an allowance of a hundred guineas enough?’ he said, and looked at the other.

‘I think it very handsome,’ the doctor answered.  ‘D——­d handsome.’

‘Good!’ Sir George rejoined.  ‘Then she shall have that allowance;’ and after staring awhile at the table he nodded assent to his thoughts and went out.