"Certainly, John. Thursday the twenty-fourth, and--" "I must go," said John Claxton hoarsely, after he had found his note-book and looked into it; "I must go to London at once." "To London, John?" "Yes, at once; particular appointment with Mr. Calverley for to-day. I cannot think how I have forgotten it; but I must go." "You are not well enough to go, John; you must not." "I tell you I must and will!" said John Claxton fiercely. "I shall come back to-night; or, if I have to go off out of town, I will tell you where to send my portmanteau. Don't be angry, dear. I didn't mean to be cross--I didn't indeed; but business--most important business." He spoke thickly and hurriedly, his veins were swollen, and his eyes seemed starting out of his head. "Won't you wait for Davis's coach, John?" said Alice softly. "It will start in half an hour." "No, no; let it pick me up on the road. Tell Davis to look out for me; a little walk will do me good. Give me my hat and coat; and now, God bless you, my darling. You are not angry with me? Let me hear that before I start." "I never was angry with you, John. I never could be angry with you so long as I live." He wound his arms around her and held her to his heart; then with rapid shambling steps he started off down the high-road. He walked on and on; he must have gone, he thought, at least two miles; would the coach never come? The excitement which sustained him at first now began to fail him; he felt his legs tottering under him; then suddenly the blindness and the deafness came on him again, the singing in his ears, the surging in his brain; and he fell by the roadside, helpless and senseless. The delightfully-interesting case of Mr. Piggott of the Rookery had brought together Doctor Haughton and Mr. Broadbent, after a separation of many years, and led them to renew the old friendship, which had been interrupted since their student days at St. George's. Nature was not doing much for Mr. Piggott, and the case was likely to be pleasantly protracted; so that on this very day Doctor Haughton had asked Mr. Broadbent to come and dine and sleep at his house in Saville-row, where he would meet with some old friends and several distinguished members of the profession; and the pair were rolling easily into town in Doctor Haughton's carriage, with the black bag, containing Mr. Broadbent's evening dress, carefully placed under the coachman's legs. "What is this? A knot of people gathered by the roadside, all craning forward eagerly, and looking at something on the ground. The coachman's practised eye detects an accident instantly, and he whips up his horses and stops them just abreast of the crowd. "What is it?" cried the coachman. "Man in a fit," cried one of the crowd. "That be blowed," said another; "he won't have any more of such fits as them, I reckon. The man's dead; that's what he is."