"There you go again!" cried the doctor, bristling up once more. "The old story! I suppose you think I want to keep her ill, so as to swell the bill, with `One draught at bed-time,' and `The mixture as before.' Ugh! It's a pity, Sir Murray Gernon, you have not a dozen people about you who are like me--not in the least afraid of you. What are you going to do now?" "Going back," said Sir Murray, who had just risen. "Going back, indeed!" said the doctor, impatiently. "Better stay--stay, and see how she is when she wakes. Let's have Norton in and Mrs Norton, and perhaps their son will join: he's none the worse--used to water--salt, fresh, or marshy. A tumbler of punch and a rubber at whist would pass the time away comfortably. There, hang it, man, twenty years ought to be long enough to heal up these old wounds. They'll have to be healed up when you journey to the great abroad. Take my advice--advice I shan't charge you anything for. Norton's boy has saved your girl's life. Let this unlucky accident be the means of bringing you together-- good out of evil, you know. Hold out the right hand of fellowship, and--trust me--I know Norton; it will be taken in a hearty grasp. Make friends at once, Gernon; you'll be obliged to do it in heaven. Oh! there, then, I've done. Advice gratis is never valued at its true worth." "Let me know, Challen, how all goes on when you leave here," said Sir Murray, sternly, as he strode towards the door; and five minutes after the doctor shrugged his shoulders and took another glass of port to console himself for the rejection of his good offices, as he listened to the wheels of the departing carriage. "I'm afraid," he said aloud, "contact with all sorts of people has robbed me of this refined sensibility--this keen appreciation of injury. I fancy if any one had done me a wrong, that I could forgive it in less than twenty years." "But there never was any wrong, Doctor," said a low, sweet voice, when, turning, Dr Challen became aware that Mrs Norton had entered unperceived. Book 2, Chapter X. MOTHER AND SON.