The man Pike, who still occupied his shed undisturbed, had been ailing for some time.  An attack of rheumatic fever in the summer had left him little better than a cripple.  He crawled abroad still when he was able, and would do so, in spite of what Mr. Hillary said; would lie about the damp ground in a lawless, gipsying sort of manner; but by the time winter came all that was over, and Mr. Pike’s career, as foretold by the surgeon, was drawing rapidly to a close.  Mrs. Gum was his good Samaritan, as she had been in the fever some years before, going in and out and attending to him; and in a reasonable way Pike wanted for nothing.

“How long can I last?” he abruptly asked the doctor one morning.  “Needn’t fear to say. She’s the only one that will take on; I shan’t.”

He alluded to Mrs. Gum, who had just gone out.  The surgeon considered.

“Two or three days.”

“As much as that?”

“I think so.”

“Oh!” said Pike.  “When it comes to the last day I should like to see Lord Hartledon.”

“Why the last day?”

The man’s pinched features broke into a smile; pleasant and fair features once, with a gentle look upon them.  The black wig and whiskers lay near him; but the real hair, light and scanty, was pushed back from the damp brow.

“No use, then, to think of giving me up:  no time left for it.”

“I question if Lord Hartledon would give you up were you in rude health.  I’m sure he would not,” added Mr. Hillary, endorsing his opinion rather emphatically.  “If ever there was a kindly nature in the world, it’s his.  What do you want with him?”

“I should like to say a word to him in private,” responded Pike.

“Then you’d better not wait to say it.  I’ll tell him of your wish.  It’s all safe.  Why, Pike, if the police themselves came they wouldn’t trouble to touch you now.”

“I shouldn’t much care if they did,” said the man. “I haven’t cared for a long while; but there were the others, you know.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Hillary.

“Look here,” said Pike; “no need to tell him particulars; leave them till I’m gone.  I don’t know that I’d like him to look me in the face, knowing them.”

“As you will,” said Mr. Hillary, falling in with the wish more readily than he might have done for anyone but a dying man.

He had patients out of Calne, beyond Hartledon, and called in returning.  It was a snowy day; and as the surgeon was winding towards the house, past the lodge, with a quick step, he saw a white figure marching across the park.  It was Lord Hartledon.  He had been caught in the storm, and came up laughing.

“Umbrellas are at a premium,” observed Mr. Hillary, with the freedom long intimacy had sanctioned.

“It didn’t snow when I came out,” said Hartledon, shaking himself, and making light of the matter.  “Were you coming to honour me with a morning call?”