Then Mabel Wilmot told her friend intelligence which surprised her very much, and they stayed together until late; and when they parted Mrs. Prendergast looked very thoughtful and serious. "This will make things either better or worse," she said to herself that night. "If he returns soon, and receives the news well, all may go on well afterwards; but if he stays away for this girl's sake much longer, I don't think even the child will do any good." Many times within the next few days, in thinking of her friend, Mrs. Prendergast said, "There's a desperation about her that I never saw before, and that I don't like." The days passed over, and Wilmot's patients were obliged either to content themselves with the attendance of the insinuating Whittaker, or to exercise their own judgment and call in some other physician of their own choice. There was no doubt that the delay was injuring Wilmot. He might have had his week's holiday, and passed it with Sir Saville Rowe, and welcome; but he was not at Sir Saville's, and the week had long been over. As for Mr. Foljambe, his indignation was extreme. "Hang it!" he observed, "if Chudleigh can't come back when he might, why does he pretend to keep up a London practice? And to send me Whittaker too; a fellow I hate like--like colchicum. I suppose I can choose my doctor for myself, can't I?" Thus the worthy and irascible old gentleman, who was more attached to Chudleigh Wilmot than to any other living being, would discourse to droppers-in concerning his absent favourite; and as the droppers-in to the invalid room of the rich banker were numerous, and of the class to whom Wilmot was especially well known, the old gentleman's talk led to somewhat wide and varied speculation on the causes and inducements of his absence. Mr. Foljambe had ascertained all the particulars which Wilmot had given his wife; and Kilsyth of Kilsyth was soon a familiar phrase in connection with the rising man. Everybody knew where he was, and "all about it;" and when the unctuous and deprecating Whittaker talked of the "specially interesting case" which was detaining Wilmot, glances of unequivocal intelligence, but of somewhat equivocal meaning, were interchanged among his hearers; and guesses were made that Miss Kilsyth was a "doosed nice" girl, or her stepmother Lady Muriel,--"young enough to be Kilsyth's daughter, you know, and never lets him forget it, by Jove,"--was a "doosed fine" woman. "The Kilsyths" began to be famous among Wilmot's clientèle and the old banker's familiars; the _Peerage_, lying on his bookshelves, and hitherto serenely undisturbed, with its covering of dust, was frequently in demand; and young Lothbury, of Lombard, Lothbury, & Co., made quite a sensation when he informed a select circle of Mr. Foljambe's visitors that he knew Ronald Kilsyth very well--was in his club in fact.