Geoffrey Trethick's slumbers were very short and disturbed, and, after tossing about for some time, he got up to think out his position. The events of the past night seemed dream-like now, and there were times when he was ready to treat them as hallucinations; but the sea-soaked suit of clothes thrown over a chair were proof positive of the reality of poor Madge Mullion's attempted suicide, and his brow contracted as he thought of the wretched girl's state. "Poor lass!" he muttered; and by the light of the doctor's charge he read a score of trifles which had been sealed to him before. "I'll go straight down to him, and have it out as soon as he's up. An idiot! What the deuce does he mean? However, I'll soon put that right." He looked at his watch and found it was only seven, so that it would be of no use to go down yet to Rumsey's. He could not sleep, and he did not feel disposed to read, so he determined to go for a walk till breakfast-time, and then he would have a talk to Mrs Mullion and Uncle Paul. But he had no sooner made up his mind to speak to them on the poor girl's behalf than he began to realise the delicacy of his position. Suppose they took the same view of the case as Dr Rumsey? "Confound it all!" he cried. "How absurd, to be sure." He finished dressing, opened door and window, and went down, meeting the servant girl looking red-eyed and dishevelled, as if she had not been to bed all night. He had seen that Uncle Paul's bedroom door was wide open, but did not note that the bed had been unoccupied; and he was, therefore, not surprised to hear the old man's cough as he entered his own room. "Trethick! Trethick!" he called, and Geoffrey crossed the passage, meeting Mrs Mullion, who ran out with her handkerchief to her eyes, and her face averted. "Ashamed of being so hard on her child," thought Geoffrey; and then he started, shocked at the old man's aspect, as, with his hat on, he sat there, looking yellow, wrinkled, sunken of eye and cheek, with all his quick, sharp ways gone, and with generally the aspect of one just recovering from some terrible shock. "Good heavens, Mr Paul, how ill you look!" cried Geoffrey, anxiously, as the thought struck him that he had not been to bed all night. "Yes," said the old man, "I feel ill." "Let me run down and fetch Rumsey. Stop, I'll get you a little, brandy first." "No, no. I don't want brandy," said the old man, gazing at him wildly, and with his face now cadaverous in the extreme. "Rumsey can't help me. Help me yourself." "Yes. What shall I do for you?" "Sit down, Trethick." He took a chair, looking intently at the speaker. "Trethick, will you smoke a cheroot?" "No, not now." "Not now? Well, another time, then," said the old man, whose voice seemed quite changed. "I'm afraid, Trethick, I have got a dreadful temper." "Horrible--sometimes," said Geoffrey, smiling. "But my bark is worse than my bite. I'm not so bad as I seem."