"Gad, they were, and not without reason too. The poor child was awfully bad; and indeed, if it had not been for Wilmot, I much doubt whether she would have pulled through." "Hadn't been for Wilmot? Wilmot! O, yes, the London doctor who was staying somewhere, near, and who was telegraphed for. Tell me about Dr. Wilmot--a clever man, isn't he?" "Clever! He's wonderful! Keen, clear-headed fellow; sees his way through a brick wall in a minute. Not that at Kilsyth he did not do as much by his devotion to his patient as by his skill." "Devotion? O, he was devoted to his patient, eh?" said Ronald, biting his nails. "Never saw such a thing in all your life. Went in a regular perisher," said Duncan Forbes, dropping his hands to emphasise his words. "Put himself in regular quarantine; cut himself off from all communication with anybody else, and shut himself up in the room with his patient for days together. It's the sort of thing you read of in poems, and that kind of thing, don't you know, but very seldom meet with in real life. If Wilmot had been a young man, and your sister had had any chance of making him like her, I should have said it was a case of smite. But Wilmot is an old married man; and these doctors don't indulge much in being captivated, specially by patients in fevers, I should think!" "No; of course not, of course not. Now, this Wilmot--what's he like?" "Well, he's rather a striking-looking man; looks very earnest, and speaks with a very effectively modulated voice." "Ah! And he's gentlemanly, eh?" "O, perfectly gentlemanly. No mistake in that." "And he was wonderfully devoted to Madeleine, eh? Very kind of him, I'm sure. Shut himself up in her room, and--What did Lady Muriel think of him, by the way?" "I scarcely know. I never heard her say; and yet I gathered somehow that Lady Muriel was not so much impressed in the doctor's favour as the rest of us." "That's curious, for there are few keener readers of character than Lady Muriel. And the doctor was not a favourite of hers?" "Well, no; I should say not. But the rest of the party were so strongly in his favour that we looked with some suspicion on all who did not shout as loudly as ourselves." "And Madeleine, was she equally enthusiastic?" "Poor Miss Kilsyth, she was not well enough to have much enthusiasm on any subject, even on her doctor. Gratitude is, I imagine, the strongest sentiment one is capable of after a long and severe illness." "Exactly--yes--I should suppose so. And what aged man is Dr. Wilmot?" "O, what we should have called some years ago very old, but what we now look upon as the commencement of middle age--just approaching forty, I should think." "He is married, you say?" "Yes; so we all understood. O yes, I heard him once mention his wife to Lady Muriel.--I say, Ronald, what an unconscionable lot of questions you are asking about Wilmot; one would think that--"