He returned from an errand one afternoon to find an elderly manservant waiting with the intimation that Sir Edward Vane, of The Towers, was ill, and would like to see him. He knew Sir Edward by name as a wealthy and eccentric recluse, who lived alone in a big house just outside the town, and was liberal in doctors' fees. Not a little flattered, he promised to come immediately, and was about to turn in at the lodge gate at The Towers, when he encountered Dr. Selwyn, another local medical man, with whom he was acquainted. "Been sent for by Sir Edward, eh?" asked Selwyn, with a broad grin. "Yes." "Wish you joy. You may not know it, but he's already tried every doctor in Beachbourne, and quarrelled with them all in succession. I wouldn't attend him again for any money. Good-bye, and good luck to you!" In some trepidation, Harold knocked, and was admitted through a handsome hall into a spacious sitting-room, littered with almost every conceivable object. On a sofa reclined a grey-haired man about sixty, whose tanned face, speaking of long residence in the tropics, was disfigured by a look of fretful ill-health. A retired Anglo-Indian, distinguished in the Civil Service, Sir Edward had seen more of the world than most men. "You're not in partnership with anybody here, are you?" he asked, when Harold had examined him carefully. "No." "All the better. A more wretched lot of impostors than the Beachbourne doctors I never came across. For years they've been tinkering at me, and, after all, I'm worse, instead of better. What are doctors for, if they can't cure one?" Harold was discreetly silent. Sir Edward had a complication of maladies, beyond any medical skill to remedy. "My father lived to be ninety," continued the invalid. "And why can't I?" "I don't think, for my part, I should wish to be so old as that," diffidently returned Harold. "It must be so sad to outlive all one's friends." "I have no friends," was the grim reply. "Only some greedy relations, eager for my money. I've a good deal to leave," he added, looking keenly at Harold. "And when I take a fancy to people, I'm liberal----They say here that I'm always quarrelling with my doctors; but it's the doctors who quarrel with me, and will air their own particular fads, instead of trying to cure me. Are you married?" he asked abruptly. "No." "A good thing, too; you've more time to attend to your patients. Hewett used to bore me talking by the hour about that ugly wife of his. Do you understand fossils, and such things? My room's in an awful mess, as you see, and I should like to have the specimens arranged a bit; but I can't trust the servants."