"Right, my dear sir," replied the doctor, "right enough from a non-professional view. But Mr. Schröder, like the gentleman of whom I have heard, but whose name I can't call to mind, has that within which passeth show. I _know_ the exact state of his condition." "This is very interesting," said Mr. Simnel, drawing closer to the doctor on the ottoman; "very interesting, indeed; yours is a wonderful profession, doctor, for gaining insight into men and things. Would it be too much to ask you to tell us a little more about this particular case?" "Well, you know, I don't often talk of these matters; there are men in our profession, my dear sir, who gossip and chatter, and I believe make it pay very well; but they are men of no intellect, mere quacks and charlatans--quacks and charlatans! But with gentlemen like yourselves, men of the world, I don't mind occasionally revealing a few of the secrets of the--the--what d'ye call 'em?--prison-house. The fact is--" and the doctor lowered his voice and looked additionally solemn,--"that Mr. Schröder's life hangs by a thread." Both his listeners started, and Mr. Simnel from between his set teeth said, "The devil!" "By a thread!" repeated the doctor, holding out his finger and thumb as though he actually had the thread between them. "He may go off at any moment; his life is not certain for an hour; he's engaged, as you know, in tremendous transactions, and any sudden fright or passion would be his certain death." "Ah, then his disease is--" "Heart, my dear sir, heart!" said the doctor, tapping himself on the left side of his waistcoat; "his heart's diseased,--one cannot exactly say how far, but I suspect strongly,--and he may go out at any moment like the snuff of a candle." "Have you known this long?" asked Beresford. "Only two days: he came to me two days ago to consult me about a little worrying cough which he described himself as having; and in listening at his chest I heard the death-beat. No mistaking it, my dear sir; when you've once heard that 'click,' you never forget it." "By Jove, how horrible!" said Simnel. "Poor devil! does he know it himself?" asked Beresford. "Know it, my dear sir? Of course not. You don't imagine _I_ told him? Why the shock might have killed him on the spot. Oh, dear, no! I prescribed for his cough, and told him specially to avoid all kind of excitement: that was the only warning I dare give him." As the doctor said this, Mr. Simnel rose. "It's a horrible idea," said he with a shudder--"horrible!" "Very common, my dear sir, very common. If you knew how many men there are whom I meet out at dinner, in society, here and there, whom I know to be as distinctly marked for death as if I saw the plague-spot on their breasts!"