The doctor stared at him. He had always been summoned to the General's house; not half a dozen times had his patient come to him. "What's up?" he inquired tersely. "The heart not troubling you more than usual, I hope?" To look at General Clandon, as he stood in the surgery, a fine upstanding figure of a man, you would have said he was free from all human ailments. Nobody could have guessed that he carried in that stalwart frame the seeds of a mortal disease that, at any moment, might lay him low. "No, no more than usual. But yes, I think the palpitations are a little more frequent the last week or two." "Let me run the rule over you." Doctor Jones produced his stethoscope. "Why didn't you send for me before?" "Just a moment, my good old friend, before you begin. Isobel particularly wants to go to Spain for reasons you can guess--her fiance's there. I can't let her go without me, unless I could lay my hands upon a suitable chaperon. I want you to tell me if you will give me permission to go with her myself. I should take the journey in easy stages, of course." There was a very wistful look in the old man's eyes as he uttered the last words; it seemed as if he were pleading for permission to gratify his daughter's wish. "Isobel, of course, won't hear of it, after what you have told me; she did not know I was coming here. But if you could give your sanction, it would make us both very happy," he added hastily, as he began to unbutton his coat. Jones had been an army doctor, and he was very sympathetic. It was very pathetic, this poor old father with almost two feet in the grave, begging a little further respite from death. "I will see what we can do, as soon as I have examined you," he said kindly. "If it is humanly possible for you to go, I will let you go, for Isobel's sake." The examination was a searching and lengthy one. When it was finished, Doctor Jones laid down his stethoscope with a little sigh. "My dear General, it is impossible. You are a brave man, you have faced death more than once on the battlefield, and you have always asked me to tell you the truth. If you undertake that voyage, you are committing suicide." "You don't give me very long then?" asked the General quietly. The doctor shrugged his shoulders and turned his head away. He could not quite put it in words. "You have had some extra excitement lately? Great inroads have been made since I last examined you." "Yes," answered General Clandon quietly, "there has been a good deal of excitement lately." It was true. The uncertain position of Isobel as regards her engagement, the hurried visit to Ticehurst Park, the danger overhanging Guy Rossett had agitated him very much. He returned home very crestfallen. He had hoped against hope for the doctor's favourable verdict. He had longed to be able to say to her: "It is all right, I will take you to Spain myself."