As for the doctor, he climbed up into his dog-cart and took the reins from the benumbed hands of Jim, who was one mass of whiteness now instead of the black form sprinkled over with flakes of white which he had appeared at the Cliff. It was a difficult thing to drive home between the hedges, which were no longer visible, and with the big snow-flakes melting into his eyes and confusing the atmosphere, and he had no time to think as long as he was still out in the open country, without even the lights of Sliplin to guide him. It was very cold, and his hands soon became as benumbed as Jim’s, with the reins not sensible at all through his big gloves to his chilled fingers. “I think we should turn to the left, here?” he said to Jim, who answered “Yessir,” with his teeth chattering, “or do you think it should perhaps be to the right?” Jim said “Yessir,” again, dull to all proprieties. If Jim had been by himself he would probably have gone to sleep, and allowed the mare to find her own way home, which very likely she would have done; but Dr. Burnet could not trust to such a chance. To think much of what had been said to him was scarcely possible in these circumstances. But when the vague and confused glimmer of the Sliplin lights through the snow put his mind at rest, it cannot but be said that Dr. Burnet found a great many thoughts waiting to seize hold upon him. He was not perhaps surprised that Lady Jane should have divined his secret. He had no particular desire to conceal it, and though he did not receive Lady Jane’s offer with enthusiasm, he could not but feel that her friendship and assistance would be of great use to him--in fact, if not with Katherine, at least with other things. It would be good for him professionally, even this one visit, and the prescription for Lady Jane, not for Mrs. Cole, which must be made up at the chemist’s, would do him good. A man who held the position of medical attendant at Steephill received a kind of warrant of skill from the fact, which would bring other patients of distinction. When Dr. Burnet got home, and got into dry and comfortable clothes, and found no impatient messenger awaiting him, it was with a grateful sense of ease that he gave himself up to the study of this subject by the cheerful fire. His mind glanced over the different suggestions of Lady Jane, tabulating and classifying them as if they had been scientific facts. There was that hint about the old sick man, which she had herself blushed for before it was fully uttered, and at which Dr. Burnet now grinned in mingled wrath and ridicule. To take advantage of an old sick man--as being that old man’s medical attendant and desirous of marrying his daughter--was a suggestion at which Burnet could afford to laugh, though fiercely, and with an exclamation not complimentary to the intentions of Lady Jane. But there were other things which required more careful consideration.