As if to endorse his words, Gartram uttered a deep sigh, and seemed to settle off to sleep. "Breeches pockets full too, I daresay," muttered the doctor; "and shouldn't be surprised if there's a good, hard bunch of keys somewhere in his coat. Doesn't trouble him, though." He rose, and went back to the tray at the side, filled the already primed coffee cup and carried it to the table, wheeled forward an easy chair, selected a cigar, which he lit, and then threw himself back and sipped his coffee and smoked. "Yes, sweet little girl Claude," he thought; "make a man a good wife-- good rich wife, and if--no, no, not the slightest chance for me, and I'll go on as I am, and make the best of it." He had another sip. "Delicious coffee, fine cigar. Worse things than being a doctor. We get as much insight of family matters as the parsons, and are trusted with more secrets." He laughed to himself as he lay back. "Yes, nice little heiress, Claude," he said again. "Wonder who'll get her--Christopher the salmon fisher, or our new yachting friend? I think I should back Glyddyr." He smoked on, and thought seriously for some time about his other patient, and after a time he emitted a cloud of smoke which he had retained in his mouth, as he turned himself with a jerk from one side of his great easy chair to the other. "No," he said, "impossible to have done more. The Royal College of Surgeons couldn't save him." He smoked on in silence, sipping his coffee from time to time, gazing the while at Gartram, upon whom the light shone faintly, just sufficient to show his stern-looking, deeply-marked face. "Yours is a good head, my dear patient," he mused. "Well-cut features, and a look of firm determination in your aspect, even when your eyes are closed. You miss something there, for you have keen, piercing eyes, but for all that you look like what you are, a stubborn, determined Englishman, who will have his own way over everything so long as his works will make him go. When they run down, he comes to me for help, and I am helping him. Yes, you were sure to get on and heap up money, and build grand houses, and slap your pocket-book and say: `I am a rich man,' and `I laugh at and deride the whole world,' and so you do, my dear sir, all but the doctor, who, once he has you, has you all his life, and can do what he likes with you. I have you hard, Norman Gartram, and I am licenced; I have you completely under me, and so greatly am I in possession of you, that I could this night say to you die, and you would die; or I could bid you live, and you would live. A simple giving or a simple taking. A movement with the _tactus eruditus_ of a physician, and then the flag would be down, the King of the Castle would be gone, and a new king would reign in the stead--or queen," he added, with a laugh.