“Well, such a night!” lamented Mrs. Mangan, for the twentieth time, clinging to the door; “I wish to God the telegraph wires were down before they could send for you!  Oh, will you take care of yourself now, Francis?”

“Of course I will!  Go in out of the wet—­” he pushed himself in under the low hood of the car, and glided into the darkness.

A doctor is a dedicated man.  He accepts risks with a laugh, and toil with, perhaps, a grumble, but he does not flinch.  Obscure and inglorious perils are his, and hardships that only himself can gauge.  Be sure that they are not unrecorded.  They shine, and their splendour is hidden, like those lanterns that were hidden under the coats of the lantern-bearers.  But there is, very surely, some screen, sensitive to its rays, on which that light is thrown, that will some day show us what we have been too self-centred to realise, and will dazzle us with the devotion to which we are now too much habituated to admire.

CHAPTER XL

It was Barty who had brought out the car, and, on his father’s departure, he released the grip of the railings that had enabled him to keep his footing, and was, literally, blown into the house.

“Shut the door, my Pigeon-pie!” said his mother, “the wind’s too strong for me.”

Barty was too well accustomed to this expression of his mother’s affection to resent it, and having done her bidding, he followed her into the Doctor’s room, which alone had a fire in it.

“Nothing would please Tishy only to go down to the Whelplys,” complained Mrs. Mangan, poking the fire, and seating herself in front of it with a long, groaning sigh of exhaustion; “some nonsense about a wreath.  A wreath indeed!  Any one’d be lucky that kept their hair on their heads in this wind, let alone a wreath!  You’ll have to go fetch her, my poor boy!  I’ll not be easy till I see her and Pappy home again!  I thought maybe Larry might have come over, but I declare now I’m glad he did not.”

“Larry’s not like himself lately,” said Barty, sitting down in his father’s chair, and taking from his pocket a paper packet and extracting a crushed cigarette from it.  “I think the loss of th’ election disappointed him greatly.”

“’Twas well he had Tishy to console him,” said Mrs. Mangan, “it was in the nick of time she cot him!”

“It was,” replied Barty, tepidly.  “I think also,” he went on, “he’s put out about his aunt not coming down for the wedding, and even young Mrs. Kirby away.  It’s funny to think Coppinger’s Court and Mount Music are empty now, the two of them—­or will be after to-morrow.  Miss Christian went to-day.”

("See now how he’s talking of her!” thought his mother.  “I wonder did Francis say anything to him?”) Aloud she said:  “It’s a pity she’s gone, but it mightn’t be for long.”

“I saw her yesterday.  The Doctor sent me there for a map,” said Barty, with elaborate unconcern.