The only two persons who seemed to retain their senses were Captain Springfield and Lady Bolivick. The former suggested that in all probability it was a sudden attack resulting from the life he had led in India, and also suggesting that a doctor should be sent for at once, while Lady Bolivick summoned the servants to carry him to bed immediately. Both of these suggestions were immediately acted on. A groom was dispatched to the nearest doctor, who lived at South Petherwin village, while a few minutes later Edgecumbe lay in bed with a look of death upon his face. The whole happening had been so sudden, that I was unable to view it calmly. That morning he had looked more than usually well, so well that I could not help reflecting how much younger he appeared than on the day when I had first seen him. He had taken a long walk, too, and showed not the slightest sign of fatigue on his return. He had eaten sparingly, and had drunk nothing but water with his lunch, and a cup of tea at four o'clock. Yet at half-past six he had the stamp of death upon his face, he breathed with difficulty, and his features were drawn and haggard. As I sat by his side, watching him until the doctor came, I remembered that for perhaps an hour before his attack he was very silent, and had moved around as though he were lacking in energy, but I had thought little of it at the time. Now, however, his condition told its own tale. To all appearances, he was dying, and we were all powerless to help him. Of course dinner, as far as I was concerned, was out of the question, although, as I was afterwards informed, Captain Springfield made an excellent meal. It was nearly eight o'clock when the doctor arrived, and never surely was a man greeted with more eagerness than I greeted him. For, as I have already said, I had grown to love Edgecumbe with a great love; why it was, I will not pretend to explain, but no man ever loved a brother more than I loved him, and the thought of his death was simply horrible. Perhaps the suddenness of everything accounted for my intense feeling; anyhow, my intense anguish cannot be explained in any other way. Dr. Merril did not inspire me with any great hope. He was a middle-aged man of the country practitioner's type. I judged that he could be quite useful in dealing with ordinary ailments, but he did not strike me as a man who looked beneath the surface of things, and who could deal successfully with a case like Edgecumbe's. Evidently no particulars of the case had been given to him, and from the confident way I heard him talking to Sir Thomas, who brought him up to the room, he might have been called in to deal with a child who had a slight attack of measles. When he saw Edgecumbe, however, a change passed over his face. The sight of my friend, gasping for breath, with what looked like death-dews on his agonized face, made him think that he had to deal with a man in his death agony.