"I was in your room, sir, speaking to Mr. Cray," was the man's answer: and in his low, respectful tones, his superior accent, there was really a sound of refinement pleasant to the ear. That refinement of voice and manner that may be caught from associating with the educated; not the refinement springing from the mind where it is innate. "Has anybody been here?" "Lady Oswald, sir. She apologised for coming when it was not your day for receiving town-patients, but she said she particularly wished to see you. I think she scarcely believed me, sir, when I said you were out." Dr. Davenal took his gold repeater from his pocket, where it lay loose, unattached to any chain, and glanced at it. A valuable watch: the grateful present of a rich man years ago, who believed that he owed his life, humanly speaking, to Richard Davenal's care and skill. "Scarcely believed you! Why, she knows I am never home much before three o'clock. It wants two minutes now. Mr. Cray, if he is here, might have seen her." "Mr. Cray has but just come, sir. I was showing him in when your carriage drove to the door. Lady Oswald said she would call again later, sir." Two minutes more, when three o'clock should strike, and Dr. Davenal's door would be beset by patients. By country patients today; on Tuesdays he would be very busy with them, and the townspeople did not intrude unnecessarily upon him on that day; all the rest of the week-days were for them. They would come, these patients, and lay down their fee of a guinea to the surgeon, as they laid it down for a physician. Dr. Davenal would see them twice for that; sometimes more--several times more; he was not a covetous man, and he distinguished between those who could well afford to pay him, and those who could not. When these last would timidly put down the sovereign and shilling, rarely in paper, he would push it back to them. "No, you paid me last time or so; you don't owe me anything yet."