There was a stool in the room, and I drew it up and sat at his feet with one arm upon his knee, as I used to sit for hours in the days of old, before my father's death left me solitary; and when the squire placed a caressing hand upon my shoulder I could have thought that, a chapter had been re-opened in the sealed pages of my life. "Who is this Dr. Grey," I inquired, "whose charming little wife met me at the station, and told me you are not going to die for a long time?--for which I love her." He smiled. "Grey is an optimist, my dear, and a downright good fellow, and he has picked up a prize in his wife. They are on their wedding-tour, as anyone quite unversed in that lore can see at a glance; and they ought to have left Zermatt a week ago or more but they have cheerfully stayed on to minister to the physical and mental necessities of an old man and a stranger. Not many would have done it, for they are sacrificing one of the most attractive programmes that Switzerland offers, for my sake." "What a lot of good people there are in the world," I said. "I am going to like Dr. Grey as much as I like his wife. He is a big, strong, well-developed man, of course?" "Why 'of course?'?" he asked. "Husbands of tiny wives invariably are; the infinitely small seems to have a remarkable affinity for the infinitely great." "Well, he is certainly a strapping fellow, and he is devoted to the wee woman he has made his wife. I believe, too, he will get on in his profession." "His wife says he is a very clever man indeed," I remarked. "Does she? An unbiassed opinion of that kind is valuable. All the same, he has done me good, not so much with physic--for I take the Zermatt man's concoctions--as with his cheery outlook. I believe he thinks I am a trickster." "Do you know what I believe, sir?" I asked. "No; tell me," he said. "I believe you are going to get better, and I shall take you back to Windyridge and the moors." He sighed then, and laid a hand fondly upon mine. "Grace, my child, I will say now what it may be more difficult to say later. You have caught me in a good hour, and my weary spirits have been refreshed by the sight of your face and the sound of your voice; but you must be prepared for darker experiences. Sometimes I suffer; often I am terribly weak and depressed. Gottlieb, I know, does not expect me to recover, and my Inner Self (that is your expression, child, and I often think of it) tells me he is right. You are too sensible to be unduly distressed before the time comes, and I want to tell you what I have planned, and to tell you quite calmly and without emotion. Death to me is only a curtain between one room and the next, so that it does not disturb me to explain to you what I wish to be done when it is raised for me to pass through.