“Good God!” I said.  “Is it infectious?”

“Not at present,” he answered, with detestable composure.  “It may turn to infection—­but no such deplorable complication had taken place when I left Blackwater Park.  I have felt the deepest interest in the case, Mr. Fairlie—­I have endeavoured to assist the regular medical attendant in watching it—­accept my personal assurances of the uninfectious nature of the fever when I last saw it.”

Accept his assurances!  I never was farther from accepting anything in my life.  I would not have believed him on his oath.  He was too yellow to be believed.  He looked like a walking-West-Indian-epidemic.  He was big enough to carry typhus by the ton, and to dye the very carpet he walked on with scarlet fever.  In certain emergencies my mind is remarkably soon made up.  I instantly determined to get rid of him.

“You will kindly excuse an invalid,” I said—­“but long conferences of any kind invariably upset me.  May I beg to know exactly what the object is to which I am indebted for the honour of your visit?”

I fervently hoped that this remarkably broad hint would throw him off his balance—­confuse him—­reduce him to polite apologies—­in short, get him out of the room.  On the contrary, it only settled him in his chair.  He became additionally solemn, and dignified, and confidential.  He held up two of his horrid fingers and gave me another of his unpleasantly penetrating looks.  What was I to do?  I was not strong enough to quarrel with him.  Conceive my situation, if you please.  Is language adequate to describe it?  I think not.

“The objects of my visit,” he went on, quite irrepressibly, “are numbered on my fingers.  They are two.  First, I come to bear my testimony, with profound sorrow, to the lamentable disagreements between Sir Percival and Lady Glyde.  I am Sir Percival’s oldest friend—­I am related to Lady Glyde by marriage—­I am an eye-witness of all that has happened at Blackwater Park.  In those three capacities I speak with authority, with confidence, with honourable regret.  Sir, I inform you, as the head of Lady Glyde’s family, that Miss Halcombe has exaggerated nothing in the letter which she wrote to your address.  I affirm that the remedy which that admirable lady has proposed is the only remedy that will spare you the horrors of public scandal.  A temporary separation between husband and wife is the one peaceable solution of this difficulty.  Part them for the present, and when all causes of irritation are removed, I, who have now the honour of addressing you—­I will undertake to bring Sir Percival to reason.  Lady Glyde is innocent, Lady Glyde is injured, but—­follow my thought here!—­ she is, on that very account (I say it with shame), the cause of irritation while she remains under her husband’s roof.  No other house can receive her with propriety but yours.  I invite you to open it.”