"You live, I presume, in this stifling, foggy, smoky London." "Yes." "Then got away from it. Go where you can have pure air and a clear atmosphere. That's the first and chief thing; and that's most essential. Not for a few weeks or months, you understand me--going out for a change of air, as people call it--you must leave London entirely; go away altogether." "But it will be impossible," urged Mr. Halliburton. "My work lies in London." "Ah!" said the doctor; "too many have been with me with whom it was the same case. But, I assure you that you must leave it; or it will be London _versus_ life. You appear to me to be one who never ought to have come to London----You were not born in it?" he abruptly added. "I never saw it until I was eighteen. I was born and reared in Devonshire." "Just so. I knew it. Those born and reared in London become acclimatized to it, generally speaking, and it does not hurt them. It does not hurt numbers who are strangers: they find London as healthy a spot for them as any on the face of the globe. But there are a few who cannot and ought not to live in London; and I judge you to be one of them." "Has this state of health been coming on long?" "Yes, for some years. Had you remained in Devonshire, you might have been a sound man all your life. My only advice to you is--get away from London. You cannot live long if you remain in it." Mr. Halliburton thanked Dr. Carrington and went out. How things had changed for him! What had gone with the day's beauty?--with the blue sky, the bright sun? The sky was blue still, and the sun shining; but darkness seemed to intervene between his eyes and outward things. Dying? A shiver went through him as he thought of Jane and the children, and a sick feeling of despair settled on his spirit. CHAPTER VII. LATER IN THE DAY. The man was utterly prostrated. He felt that the fiat of death had gone forth, and there settled an undercurrent of conviction in his mind that for him there would be no recovery, take what precaution he would. He could not shake it off. There lay the fact and the fear, as a leaden weight. He bent his steps towards home, walking the whole way; he moved along the streets mechanically. The crowds passed and repassed him, but _he_ seemed far away. Once or twice he lifted his head to them with a yearning gesture. "Oh! that I were like you! bent on business, on pleasure, on social intercourse!" passed through his mind. "I am not as you; and for me you can do nothing. You cannot give me health; you cannot give me life."