Dr. Jago did as he was requested, and then sat down and waited. Turning on him with startling suddenness, the sick man seized him by the wrist with a grip of iron, to pull him closer, and spoke with a grim earnestness. "Look here, Jago, it's not of any use your telling me, or a thousand other doctors, that I shall not live to see April. I must and will live till then, and you must see that I do: you must keep me in life. Man! you stare as if I were asking you to kill me, instead of to cure me." Dr. Jago tried to smile. He evidently doubted whether he had to deal with a lunatic. "Pardon me, Mr. Denison," he said, "but in your condition you must avoid excitement. Perfect quiet is your greatest safeguard." The sick man shrugged his shoulders. "Well, well, you are perhaps right. You know my young secretary--Hubert Stone?" "A little." "And I dare say you think him a shrewd, clever young fellow, eh! But he is more clever than you think for, and has dabbled in many a curious science; medicine for one. He--listen, Mr. Physician--he has suggested a mode of treatment by which he believes I may be kept alive. Come now." Dr. Jago's face expressed a mixture of surprise and incredulity not unmingled with sarcasm. Mr. Hubert Stone would indeed be a very clever gentleman if he could keep life in a dying man. "_I_ do not know of any such treatment, Mr. Denison." "Possibly not. But I suppose you are open to learn it?" "If it can be taught me." "Well, you go into the next room. Hubert is there, I believe, and will explain it to you better than I can. I never bothered my head about physics. When the conference is over come back to me." Half an hour had elapsed--quite that--and the Squire was growing impatient, when Dr. Jago returned. He was looking, very grave. "Will the treatment answer?" he cried out impatiently, before the Doctor could speak. "It might answer, Mr. Denison; I do not say it would not. But--it is dangerous." "And what if it is dangerous? I am willing to risk it--and I shall pay you well. What! you hesitate? Why, I have heard say that dangerous remedies are not unknown to you; that with you it is sometimes kill or cure." "In a desperate case possibly. Not otherwise." "And have you not just told me mine is desperate?" "True." "Then you will take me in hand. Bodikins!--if I were telling you to give me a dose of prussic acid as you stand there, you could but look as you are looking. See here. Listen. I will have these--these remedies tried, young man, and by you. I know your skill. I will give you five hundred pounds at once; and I will make it up to two thousand if you carry me over to the twenty-fifth of April."