The quarrel was too deep for any reconciliation. The old nobleman advanced no olive branches. Instead, with a “Fare you well, gentlemen! If this goes much further in England there’ll be hangings and beheadings!” he rose from his cushioned chair and stalked from the hall. Sir Richard offered food and canary, but the two Carthews misliked his suavity, and the younger, at least, meant to keep no terms of any kind. They refused entertainment. They must needs at once return to Hawthorn. “As you please, gentlemen!—I am glad to know that the sickness has not touched your neighbourhood.” The physician now came forward; they all stood about the great table in the hall. “You are lucky if it reaches you not,” said the London doctor. “I understand that you are not more than six miles away. But in great cities I have seen it skip one parish and slay its hundreds all around. For some reason the folk just there were more resistive.” A servant entering with a message from the old nobleman, he turned aside to receive it. “Nay,” said the younger Carthew with sternness, “the plague falls where God would have it fall, and falls not where he is willing to spare. He saith to his Angel, ‘Smite here!’ or He saith, ‘Pass me by this door!’—and where is the resistance of man that you prate of? As well might the worm resist the master of the vineyard’s treading foot!” Sir Richard looked at him curiously. “Of course! of course! Poor worm!” There fell a silence, then the last speaker, unthinkingly, merely to make talk to the great door before which stood the visitors’ horses, brought forward Aderhold’s presence in the town. “Hawthorn hath played the Samaritan in one person—though, I believe, indeed, that he lives beyond the village. You’ve given a good leech. I saw him yesterday morning in the town, going from sick to sick.” The squire spoke. “You mean one Gilbert Aderhold? Yes, he is a leech. But Hawthorn sent him not—” The London physician, returning at the moment, caught the name, “Gilbert Aderhold!—What! I’ve wondered more than once what became of the man—if, indeed, you speak of the same—” “A tall, quiet man,” said Sir Richard. “A thinker who has travelled—”