’It’s such a comfort to leave my lady to you; only don’t you be deluded by her ways.  She’ll not show she’s ill till she can’t help it.  Consult with Bradley,’ (Lady Cumnor’s ’own woman,’—­she disliked the new-fangledness of ‘lady’s-maid,’) ’and if I were you, I’d send and ask Gibson to call—­you might make any kind of a pretence,’—­and then the idea he had had in London of the fitness of a match between the two coming into his head just now, he could not help adding,—­’Get him to come and see you, he’s a very agreeable man; Lord Hollingford says there’s no one like him in these parts:  and he might be looking at my lady while he was talking to you, and see if he thinks her really ill.  And let me know what he says about her.’

But Clare was just as great a coward about doing anything for Lady Cumnor which she had not expressly ordered, as Lord Cumnor himself.  She knew she might fall into such disgrace if she sent for Mr. Gibson without direct permission, that she might never be asked to stay at the Towers again; and the life there, monotonous in its smoothness of luxury as it might be to some, was exactly to her taste.  She in her turn tried to put upon Bradley the duty which Lord Cumnor had put upon her.

‘Mrs. Bradley,’ she said one day, ’are you quite comfortable about my lady’s health?  Lord Cumnor fancied that she was looking worn and ill?’

’Indeed, Mrs. Kirkpatrick, I don’t think my lady is herself.  I can’t persuade myself as she is, though if you was to question me till night I couldn’t tell you why.’

’Don’t you think you could make some errand to Hollingford, and see Mr. Gibson, and ask him to come round this way some day, and make a call on Lady Cumnor?’

’It would be as much as my place is worth, Mrs. Kirkpatrick.  Till my lady’s dying day, if Providence keeps her in her senses, she’ll have everything done her own way, or not at all.  There’s only Lady Harriet that can manage her at all, and she not always.’

’Well, then—­we must hope that there is nothing the matter with her; and I dare say there is not.  She says there is not, and she ought to know best herself.’

But a day or two after this conversation took place, Lady Cumnor startled Mrs. Kirkpatrick, by saying suddenly,—­

’Clare, I wish you’d write a note to Mr. Gibson, saying, I should like to see him this afternoon.  I thought he would have called of himself before now.  He ought to have done so, to pay his respects.’

Mr. Gibson had been far too busy in his profession to have time for mere visits of ceremony, though he knew quite well he was neglecting what was expected of him.  But the district of which he may be said to have had medical charge was full of a bad kind of low fever, which took up all his time and thought, and often made him very thankful that Molly was out of the way in the quiet shades of Hamley.

His domestic ‘raws’ had not healed over in the least, though he was obliged to put the perplexities on one side for the time.  The last drop—­the final straw, had been an impromptu visit of Lord Hollingford’s, whom he had met in the town one forenoon.  They had had a good deal to say to each other about some new scientific discovery, with the details of which Lord Hollingford was well acquainted, while Mr. Gibson was ignorant and deeply interested.  At length Lord Hollingford said suddenly,—­