“It is quite natural you should take her part, Jack. She’s a fine woman still of her years, though a good bit older than you would think. How old were you, Madam, when I married you? Oh, old enough for a great deal to have happened--eight-and-twenty or thereabouts--just on the edge of being _passée_ then, the more fool I! Jove! what a fool I was, thrusting my head into the bag. I don’t excuse myself. I posed myself in those days as a fellow that had seen life, and wasn’t to be taken in. But you were too many for me. Never trust to a woman, John, especially a woman that has a history and that sort of thing. You are never up to their tricks. However knowing you may be, take my word for it, they know a thing or two more than you.” “If you mean to do nothing but insult your wife, Reginald--” “John, for Heaven’s sake! What does it matter? You will think no worse of me for what he says, and no better. Let him talk!” cried Madam, under her breath. “What is she saying to you--that I am getting weak in my mind and don’t know what I am saying? Ah! that’s clever. I have always expected something of the sort. Look here, Madam! sit down at once and write to Charley Blake, do you hear? Charley--not the old fellow. Ask him to come here from Saturday to Monday, I want to have a talk with him. You are not fond of Charley Blake. And tell him to bring all his tools with him. He will know”--with a significant laugh--“what I mean.” She went to the writing-table without a word, and wrote the note. “Will you look at it, Reginald, to see if it is what you wish.” The patient snarled at her with his laugh. “I can trust you,” he said, “and you shall see when Blake comes.” “What do you want with Blake, Reginald? Why should you trouble yourself with business in your present state of health? You must have done all that is necessary long ago, I wish you would keep quiet and give yourself a chance.” “A chance! that’s Beaton’s opinion, I suppose--that I have more than a chance. That’s why you all gather round me like a set of crows, ready to pounce upon the carcass. And Madam, Madam here, can scarcely hold herself in, thinking how soon she will be free.” He pushed back his chair, and gazed from one to another with fiery eyes which seemed ready to burst from their sockets. “A chance! that’s all I’ve got, is it? You needn’t wait for it, John; there’s not a penny for you.” “Reginald, what the doctor says is that you must be calm, that nothing must be done to bring on those spasms that shake you so. Never mind what John says; he does not know.”