"When I was obliged to be. I'm getting old now, and my son has taken to the patients. Well, and who is it that is in urgent need of me? Your blooming self?" "My blooming self is in no need of medical aid just now," replied Mr. Chandos, something constrained in his voice. "Will you take anything at once, doctor?" "I'll see my patient first. It is my lady, I suppose?" Mr. Chandos nodded. "Ah," said the doctor, following him from the parlour, "I said, you may remember, that the time might come when you'd be glad of me at Chandos. No skill in these remote parts; a set of muffs, all; known to be." Mr. Chandos echoed his laugh; and leading the way to his study, shut himself in with the doctor. Afterwards he took him up to the west wing. Why should Mr. Chandos have denied that he was ill?—as by implication he certainly did—was the question that I kept asking myself. Later, when he came to the oak-parlour, I asked it of him. "One patient is enough in a house," was all his answer. He had come down from the west wing grave, grave even to sadness. "But—to imply that you were well—when you know what the other doctor said!" "Hush! Don't allude to that. It was a painful episode, one that I like to be silent upon. The—the danger, as I thought it, passed with the day, you know." "But are you really better?" "I am well enough, now," he answered, the gloom on his face breaking. "At least, I should be if—I mean that I am as well as I can expect to be." "Oh, Mr. Chandos! I think you are only saying this to satisfy me." "Anne—I must call you 'Anne;' I did so last night, you know, and I cannot go back to the formality of 'Miss Hereford'——" "Yes, yes, please call me it," I interrupted all too earnestly. He touched the tip of my shoulder, looking down with a sad sweet smile into my eyes and my blushing face. "Anne, whether I am ill or well, you must not make it of moment to you. I wish it might be otherwise." I felt fit to strike myself. Had I so betrayed my own feelings? The soft blush of love turned to the glowing red of shame, and I could but look down, in hope of hiding it. "My little friend! my dear little friend!" he softly whispered, as if to atone for the former words, "in saying I wish it might be otherwise—and perhaps I owe it to you to say as much—the subject must close. You and I may be the best friends living, Anne; and that is all I can be to you, or to any one." Quitting the parlour rather hastily, he encountered Dr. Laken in the hall, who had just come down from the west wing. Mr. Chandos said something in a low tone; I presume, by the answer, it was an inquiry as to what he thought of his patient. "Emaciated, and as obstinate as——" Mr. Chandos checked the loud voice; and the doctor, turning into the parlour, caught sight of me. "I never was famous for civility you know, Mr. Harry, but I confess I ought not to abuse Lady Chandos before this young lady: I was going to say 'obstinate as a mule.' Your mother _is_ obstinate."