’Why, how the deuce can I be more explicit?  Isn’t her eldest living child plain enough, whether he be Jack, or she be Gill?’

‘What did your lawyer say to this, Scatcherd?’

’Lawyer!  You don’t suppose I let my lawyer know what I was putting.  No; I got the form and the paper, and all that from him, and I did it in another.  It’s all right enough.  Though Winterbones wrote it, he did it in such a way he did not know what he was writing.’

The doctor sat a while longer, still looking at the counter-pane, and then got up to depart.  ‘I’ll see you again soon,’ said he; ’to-morrow, probably.’

‘To-morrow!’ said Sir Roger, not at all understanding why Dr Thorne should talk of returning so soon.  ’To-morrow! why I ain’t so bad as that, man, am I?  If you come so often as that you will ruin me.’

’Oh, not as a medical man; not as that; but about this will, Scatcherd.  I must think if over; I must, indeed.’

’You need not give yourself the least trouble in the world about my will till I’m dead; not the least.  And who knows—­may be, I may be settling your affairs yet; eh, doctor? looking after your niece when you’re dead and gone, and getting a husband for her, eh?  Ha! ha! ha!’

And then, without further speech, the doctor went his way.

CHAPTER XI

THE DOCTOR DRINKS HIS TEA

The doctor got on his cob and went his way, returning duly to Greshamsbury.  But, in truth, as he went he hardly knew whither he was going, or what he was doing.  Sir Roger had hinted that the cob would be compelled to make up for lost time by extra exertion on the road; but the cob had never been permitted to have his own way as to pace more satisfactorily than on the present occasion.  The doctor, indeed, hardly knew that he was on horseback, so completely was he enveloped in the cloud of his own thoughts.

In the first place, that alternative which it had become him to put before the baronet as one unlikely to occur—­that of the speedy death of both father and son—­was one which he felt in his heart of hearts might very probably come to pass.

’The chances are ten to one that such a clause will never be brought to bear.’  This he had said partly to himself, so as to ease the thoughts which came crowding on his brain; partly, also, in pity for the patient and the father.  But now that he thought the matter over, he felt that there were no such odds.  Were not the odds the other way?  Was it not almost probable that both these men might be gathered to their long account within the next four years?  One, the elder, was a strong man, indeed; one who might yet live for years to come if he could but give himself fair play.  But then, he himself protested, and protested with a truth too surely grounded, that fair play to himself was beyond his own power to give.  The other, the younger, had everything against him.  Not only was he a poor, puny creature, without physical strength, one of whose life a friend could never feel sure under any circumstances, but he also was already addicted to his father’s vices; he also was already killing himself with alcohol.