When I spoke of going home, the doctor took a tone of authority, and vowed he would detain me, by force, if need were, until he had satisfied himself I ran no more danger of losing my arm. I made no stout resistance, but despatched Luke to Temple to set my father's mind at ease, and bring me a change of clothing and other matters of which I stood in need, and settled myself down in the doctor's household most contentedly. A marvellous change had come over me, which may have been due to the removal of the venom from my blood, as the doctor affirmed, or to my being under the same roof with Anna, as I inclined to believe. No one seemed to apprehend further trouble from Vliet, and I began to doubt whether my experience of the previous evening had been real or only a nightmare. Doctor Goel sat in his own room, pipe in mouth, over leaves and roots and such like rubbish, now and then coming out to ask me questions, giving as his reason for so doing that I had a quick eye, and a habit of observation remarkable in one unskilled in the sciences, but I thought his true intent was to hinder my being alone with his daughter, albeit there was small chance of that, for Anna had housewifely duties (or made them), which caused her to be going and coming continually. Now it was to make up medicine for her father's patients; now to confer with Martha about kitchen matters; now to look out old clothing for some of the poorer sort among the settlers; always something to break off our converse as I approached the topic nearest my heart. So, despairing of a talk with her for the present, I made bold to interrupt the doctor in his curious pastime. He bore the interruption courteously, though he sighed as he put down his glass and ceased to pore over the stuff on the table. I asked him whether Vliet had abandoned his drunken freak at Mistress Goel's intercession. "Freak? That is joke, is it not?" he replied. "It was no joke, Mr. Vavasour. Sebastian was enraged by the mischief done on the previous night, and he would have hanged you, but for my daughter's intervention. Oh yes. Perhaps he would have endangered his own neck. I know not. The law appears to be in abeyance in this part of England. But Sebastian would have taken his chance of that. It was inconvenient for you at the time, but what says your proverb? 'All's well that ends well.' My daughter was at hand to save your life. I was at hand to save your arm. I have the satisfaction to be of some service to a gentleman who has laid me under obligation. And there is now an end to a misunderstanding between my daughter and her affianced husband. She has consented to marriage within three months, and I have some hope of being permitted to return to my own country by that time. So 'all's well,'" the doctor concluded, smiling.