“You mean to tell me that I am speaking to Everard Dominey?” the doctor interposed. “Without a doubt!” The doctor shook hands coolly. His was certainly not the enthusiastic welcome of an old family attendant to the representative of a great family. “I should certainly never have recognised you,” he confessed. “My presence here is nevertheless indisputable,” Dominey continued. “Still attracted by your old pastime, I see, Doctor?” “I have only taken up fly fishing,” the other replied drily, “since I gave up shooting.” There was another somewhat awkward pause, which the younger man endeavoured to bridge over. “Fishing, shooting, golf,” he said; “I really don't know what we poor medical practitioners would do in the country without sport.” “I shall remind you of that later,” Dominey observed. “I am told that the shooting is one of the only glories that has not passed away from Dominey.” “I shall look forward to the reminder,” was the prompt response. His uncle, who had been bending once more over the case of flies, turned abruptly around. “Arthur,” he said, addressing his nephew, “you had better start on your round. I dare say Sir Everard would like to speak to me privately.” “I wish to speak to you certainly,” Dominey admitted, “but only professionally. There is no necessity--” “I am late already, if you will excuse me,” Doctor Stillwell interrupted. “I will be getting on. You must excuse my uncle, Sir Everard,” he added in a lower tone, drawing him a little towards the door, “if his manners are a little gruff. He is devoted to Lady Dominey, and I sometimes think that he broods over her case too much.” Dominey nodded and turned back into the room to find the doctor, his hands in his old-fashioned breeches pockets, eyeing him steadfastly. “I find it very hard to believe,” he said a little curtly, “that you are really Everard Dominey.” “I am afraid you will have to accept me as a fact, nevertheless.” “Your present appearance,” the old man continued, eyeing him appraisingly, “does not in any way bear out the description I had of you some years ago. I was told that you had become a broken-down drunkard.” “The world is full of liars,” Dominey said equably. “You appear to have met with one, at least.” “You have not even,” the doctor persisted, “the appearance of a man who has been used to excesses of any sort.” “Good old stock, ours,” his visitor observed carelessly. “Plenty of two-bottle men behind my generation.” “You have also gained courage since the days when you fled from England. You slept at the Hall last night?” “Where else? I also, if you want to know, occupied my own bedchamber--with results,” Dominey added, throwing his head a little back, to display the scar on his throat, “altogether insignificant.” “That's just your luck,” the doctor declared. “You've no right to have gone there without seeing me; no right, after all that has passed, to have even approached your wife.”