"That's so much arrant humbug, Mrs. Woolper. I suppose you've made your book with Miss Halliday and Miss Halliday's lover, and think you can serve your turn best by sticking to them and throwing me over the bridge. It's only the way of the world. You're genuine Yorkshire, and know how to pack your cards for winning the trick. But suppose I were to spoil your game by turning you out of doors neck and crop? What then?" "I don't think you'll do that, sir." "Why not, pray?" "I don't think you dare do it, in the face of that strange doctor." "You don't? And so Dr. Jedd is the master of this house, is he?" "Yes, sir. Till that poor dear young lady is well again, if ever that day comes, I think Dr. Jedd will be the real master in this house." "By ----! Mrs. Woolper, you're a cool hand, I must say!" He could say no more. Of passionate or declamatory language he had no command. The symbols of thought that obtained in his world were of a limited and primitive range. "You're a cool hand," he repeated, under his breath. And then he turned and left the room, opening and closing the door less cautiously than on his entrance. The door of the opposite room was opened softly as he came out into the corridor, and Diana Paget stood before him, dressed as she had been in the day. "What!" he exclaimed, impatiently, "are you up too?" "Yes, Mr. Sheldon. I cannot sleep while Lotta is so ill." "Humph! I suppose you mean to get yourself on the sick-list, and give us another invalid to nurse." "I will not trouble you to nurse me if I should be ill." "Ah!" growled the stockbroker, as he went to his own room, "you are a pack of silly women altogether; and your fine friend Hawkehurst is more womanish than the silliest of you. Goodnight." He went into his own room, where he found his wife still awake. Her weak lamentings and bewailings were insupportable to him; and at three o'clock he went downstairs, put on his boots and a light overcoat, and went out into the dim regions of Bayswater, whence he saw the sun rise red above the eastern roofs and chimneys, and where he walked until the first clatter of hoofs and roll of wheels began to echo through the empty streets, and, with faint distant cries of sweeps and milk-women, life's chorus recommenced.