“I should think that is hardly necessary,” said Lydgate.  “He seems tame and terrified enough.  He might become more unmanageable.  But there is a man here—­is there not?”

“I have more than once stayed here a few nights for the sake of seclusion,” said Bulstrode, indifferently; “I am quite disposed to do so now.  Mrs. Abel and her husband can relieve or aid me, if necessary.”

“Very well.  Then I need give my directions only to you,” said Lydgate, not feeling surprised at a little peculiarity in Bulstrode.

“You think, then, that the case is hopeful?” said Bulstrode, when Lydgate had ended giving his orders.

“Unless there turn out to be further complications, such as I have not at present detected—­yes,” said Lydgate.  “He may pass on to a worse stage; but I should not wonder if he got better in a few days, by adhering to the treatment I have prescribed.  There must be firmness.  Remember, if he calls for liquors of any sort, not to give them to him.  In my opinion, men in his condition are oftener killed by treatment than by the disease.  Still, new symptoms may arise.  I shall come again to-morrow morning.”

After waiting for the note to be carried to Mrs. Bulstrode, Lydgate rode away, forming no conjectures, in the first instance, about the history of Raffles, but rehearsing the whole argument, which had lately been much stirred by the publication of Dr. Ware’s abundant experience in America, as to the right way of treating cases of alcoholic poisoning such as this.  Lydgate, when abroad, had already been interested in this question:  he was strongly convinced against the prevalent practice of allowing alcohol and persistently administering large doses of opium; and he had repeatedly acted on this conviction with a favorable result.

“The man is in a diseased state,” he thought, “but there’s a good deal of wear in him still.  I suppose he is an object of charity to Bulstrode.  It is curious what patches of hardness and tenderness lie side by side in men’s dispositions.  Bulstrode seems the most unsympathetic fellow I ever saw about some people, and yet he has taken no end of trouble, and spent a great deal of money, on benevolent objects.  I suppose he has some test by which he finds out whom Heaven cares for—­he has made up his mind that it doesn’t care for me.”

This streak of bitterness came from a plenteous source, and kept widening in the current of his thought as he neared Lowick Gate.  He had not been there since his first interview with Bulstrode in the morning, having been found at the Hospital by the banker’s messenger; and for the first time he was returning to his home without the vision of any expedient in the background which left him a hope of raising money enough to deliver him from the coming destitution of everything which made his married life tolerable—­ everything which saved him and Rosamond from that bare isolation in which they would be forced to recognize