‘Not well!’ he exclaimed vehemently, ‘that’s what you’re always cramming down my throat nowadays. What is there about me that is not well? I suppose you want to get rid of me, and hope, by always dinning the lie, that I’m not well, into my ears, that you’ll frighten me into dying. But you’re mistaken! I’ll live in spite of you! And is this the reason,’ he continued, turning fiercely upon Arthur, ‘that you brought this man to my house? You know I hate doctors. I told you yesterday that I don’t believe in them. Why is he here? Tell me the truth at once!’ ‘There is nothing to tell, Henry,’ replied his brother, in a tone of vexation, ‘except that, since you choose to behave so unlike a gentleman, it will be the last time my friends ever intrude on you. I thought, in bringing Doctor Govan to my brother’s house, that I was ensuring him the treatment due to his name and profession, but I see I was mistaken. We will not stay to be affronted any longer, so I will bid you good-night.’ He was turning away, wounded and unhappy, as he spoke, when a yell from little Wally arrested his footsteps. Henry, in his excitement, had dropped the child heedlessly on the carpet, where it lay screaming, whilst its father rubbed his hand in a bewildered manner through his hair. Hannah rushed to her baby and picked it up. ‘That is always the way,’ she said, indignantly, as she soothed the boy. ‘He pretends to be so fond and proud of Wally, and yet, at the slightest provocation, he hurts or frightens him. That is why I did not wish to have him down, Arthur,’ she whispered to her brother-in-law; ‘I never bring him in contact with his father, if I can help it.’ ‘I am so sorry. I did not know,’ said Arthur, with a look of commiseration. ‘Come, Doctor Govan, I think we have been here long enough.’ ‘Yes, my object is effected,’ returned the doctor, as he followed him out of the room. Hannah ran off, at the same moment, with her child to the nursery, and Henry Hindes was left standing in the library alone. Captain Hindes did not speak until they were clear of The Old Hall and its surroundings, and then, as he and the doctor were finding their way back to the railway station, his tongue was loosed. ‘Well, doctor?’ he said, interrogatively, ‘I suppose, after what has happened, that you have no doubt of the case.’ ‘Not the slightest, my dear sir! Your brother is no more mad than you are!’ Arthur turned round short, and regarded him with astonishment. ‘Not mad?’ he ejaculated. ‘Then what makes him behave in so extraordinary a manner?’