His object in wishing to act with this affected delicacy was, that Alfred might refuse to allow the body to be opened; as such conduct, under the circumstances, would look suspicious, and he felt certain, knowing as he did Alfred's wish to repress the suicide, that so requested he would of course refuse, while, if he were informed that suspicions already existed, it was to be supposed that he would for his own sake instantly consent. The Doctor, however, still objected to attend unsummoned. As soon, therefore, as Geoffery returned to Arden, he despatched a servant on horseback with a verbal message, requesting that Doctor Harman and two surgeons would attend prepared to open the body of Sir Willoughby. This succeeded in taking in the honest-hearted Doctor, to whom it did not occur to inquire who had given the message to a servant who was one of Sir Alfred's household. On the arrival of the medical gentlemen, Geoffery, who was determined that every point unfavourable to his cousin should admit of proof by other witnesses than himself, sent a servant up to Sir Alfred with a message purporting to be from Doctor Harman to say, that if Sir Alfred had no objection, the Doctor was very desirous of being permitted to open the body of the deceased, for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not his view of the case were correct, in supposing that the sudden death of Sir Willoughby had been occasioned by a fit of apoplexy. Alfred, surprised at the officious impertinence of such an interference to which he had no idea of sacrificing the solemn injunctions of his dying brother, sent back an immediate and positive refusal; on which Geoffery with a face of solemn sorrow, dismissed the medical gentlemen, adding many flourishes and innuendoes, and confessing that he certainly had ventured to send for them himself, in the hope that Sir Alfred might have been induced to permit an examination, for which the circumstances of the case so loudly called. This might be thought officious in him, but his motive was, to combine delicacy with a step he felt it his duty to take.