"The man," Mr. Godby, principal surgical lecturer and demonstrator at St. Vitus's Hospital, was coming as fast as the mail-train could bring him. Unlike most of his brethren, he was essentially a man of the world, fond of studying all sorts and conditions of men, and with all his enormous practice finding time for society, theatres, music, and literature of all kinds. He was engaged out to dinner that day--to a very pleasant little dinner, where he was to have met the private secretary of a Cabinet minister, a newspaper editor, a portrait-painter, a duke, and a clerk in an insurance office, who gave wonderful imitations. The hostess was a French actress, and the cooking would have been perfect. So Mr. Godby shook his head very mournfully over the Helmingham telegram, and had he not held his old friend Osborne in great respect, and wished to do him a service, he would have refused to obey its mandate. As it was, he resigned himself to his fate, and arrived, chilled to the bone, but bright-eyed and ready-witted, at Woolgreaves at two in the morning. He shook his head when he saw the patient, and expressed to Dr. Osborne his doubt of the efficacy of trepanning, but he proposed to operate at once. "It's all over, mother," said Marian to Mrs. Ashurst, the next morning. "Mr. Godby was right; poor Tom never rallied, and sank at seven this morning." "God help his poor father!" said the old lady, through her tears; "he has nothing left him now." "Nothing!" said Marian; then added, half unconsciously--"except his money! except his money!" CHAPTER XIII. LIFE AT WESTHOPE. "Tea, my lady!" "Very well. Tell Lady Caroline---- Oh, here you are! I was just sending to tell you that tea was ready. I saw you come in from your ride before the curtains were drawn." "Did you? Then you must have seen a pretty draggletailed spectacle. I've caked my habit with mud and torn it into shreds, and generally distinguished myself." "Did Mr. Biscoe blush?" "Not a bit of it. Mr. Biscoe's a good specimen of a hard-riding parson, and seemed to like me the better the muddier and more torn I became. By the way, his wife is coming to dinner, isn't she? so I must drop my flirtation with the rector, and be on my best behaviour." "Caroline, you are too absurd; the idea of flirting with a man like that!" "Well, then, why don't you provide some one better for me? I declare, Margaret, you are ignorant of the simplest duties of hospitality! I can't flirt with West, because he's my brother, for one reason, and because you mightn't like it, perhaps, and because I mightn't care about it myself much. And there's no one else in the house who---- Oh, by the way, I'll speak about that just now--who else is coming to dinner?"