‘I see you are tempted to make light of the matter,’ said the doctor. ‘All I can say is, that if you go on as you are doing now, you will not be alive this day twelve months. You had better get one or two of your relations to take a trip to Ventnor with you. Don’t go alone. Good-afternoon.’ Alec was startled by what he was told; and yet, so deep was his melancholy that he was conscious of a certain satisfaction in being able to think of his death as an event that was possibly not far off. He had left the house and had gone some little distance before he noticed that he had taken a wrong turning, and would be forced to retrace his steps. He had gone back nearly as far as the doctor’s house, when he met the young couple whom he had noticed in the waiting-room. Alec was startled by the fierce look in the husband’s face. It was the face of a desperate man. He was striding on, apparently without thinking where he was going, dragging his child carelessly by the hand, while his staring eyes and clenched teeth told of the storm that was raging within. His wife trudged on by his side in silence, pale to the lips, with a scared look in her face. Moved by some impulse, Alec stopped right in front of them, and, without any formal apology, asked at once: ‘What did the doctor say?’ ‘What did he say? Death. That’s what he said. It may be in a year, or it may be in three months. My God!’ The humble City clerk was transformed by misery into something like a madman. He gripped his wife by the arm, as if he would defy Death himself to tear her from his side. ‘She’s all I have, and I can’t live without her. I can’t, and I won’t.’ Alec shuddered, but he could not meet the man’s eyes, and dropped his own before them. ‘And the children; what is to become of them?’ ‘Come, Tom; come home with me,’ said his wife gently, as she tried to release her husband’s tightening grasp. But he did not hear her. ‘Ay; and the doctor says, if she could go to Egypt for a time, or the south of France, her life would be spared. Egypt! Or the south of France! For a year, he says. Oh yes, it would save her life. That’s the good of being rich, you see. You can buy your wife’s life.’ ‘What is your name? Where do you live?’ said Alec. ‘What have you to do with that?’ ‘Hush, Tom!’ put in the girl at his side. ‘And do let go my arm, you hold me so tight. Tell the gentleman where we live. He won’t do us any harm.’ But the man, suddenly dropping his wife’s arm, strode on without saying another word. ‘Tell me the name of your husband’s employers; he said he was a clerk in the City,’ said Alec to the girl, walking on by her side. ‘Cole and Fletcher, sir. They’re tea merchants in Devizes Street.’ ‘And your name is?’ ‘Hardy, sir.’ ‘Thank you. Good-day.’