Enforced idleness is, to an active mind, the greatest misery conceivable. Harold Inglis had in him a vast capacity for work, and therefore found it doubly bitter to have to spend his days lounging about, waiting for the patients who never came. He was afraid to go out lest he should miss a summons, and unable to sit down to read or write, so continually did he find himself listening for a ring at the bell and Ann's voice announcing a patient. He could not even tranquillise himself with tobacco, for he had given up smoking on account of the expense.

He returned from an errand one afternoon to find an elderly manservant waiting with the intimation that Sir Edward Vane, of The Towers, was ill, and would like to see him. He knew Sir Edward by name as a wealthy and eccentric recluse, who lived alone in a big house just outside the town, and was liberal in doctors' fees. Not a little flattered, he promised to come immediately, and was about to turn in at the lodge gate at The Towers, when he encountered Dr. Selwyn, another local medical man, with whom he was acquainted.

"Been sent for by Sir Edward, eh?" asked Selwyn, with a broad grin.

"Yes."

"Wish you joy. You may not know it, but he's already tried every doctor in Beachbourne, and quarrelled with them all in succession. I wouldn't attend him again for any money. Good-bye, and good luck to you!"

In some trepidation, Harold knocked, and was admitted through a handsome hall into a spacious sitting-room, littered with almost every conceivable object. On a sofa reclined a grey-haired man about sixty, whose tanned face, speaking of long residence in the tropics, was disfigured by a look of fretful ill-health. A retired Anglo-Indian, distinguished in the Civil Service, Sir Edward had seen more of the world than most men.

"You're not in partnership with anybody here, are you?" he asked, when Harold had examined him carefully.

"No."

"All the better. A more wretched lot of impostors than the Beachbourne doctors I never came across. For years they've been tinkering at me, and, after all, I'm worse, instead of better. What are doctors for, if they can't cure one?"

Harold was discreetly silent. Sir Edward had a complication of maladies, beyond any medical skill to remedy.

"My father lived to be ninety," continued the invalid. "And why can't I?"

"I don't think, for my part, I should wish to be so old as that," diffidently returned Harold. "It must be so sad to outlive all one's friends."

"I have no friends," was the grim reply. "Only some greedy relations, eager for my money. I've a good deal to leave," he added, looking keenly at Harold. "And when I take a fancy to people, I'm liberal——They say here that I'm always quarrelling with my doctors; but it's the doctors who quarrel with me, and will air their own particular fads, instead of trying to cure me. Are you married?" he asked abruptly.

"No."

"A good thing, too; you've more time to attend to your patients. Hewett used to bore me talking by the hour about that ugly wife of his. Do you understand fossils, and such things? My room's in an awful mess, as you see, and I should like to have the specimens arranged a bit; but I can't trust the servants."

The place was indeed crammed with all sorts of curios, many exceedingly valuable. By continually asking for one possession after another, Sir Edward had ended by accumulating all his treasures in this one room, which he never left, save for his bedchamber adjoining. A most untidy place it was; the curiosities being heaped on chairs, shelves, and the floor, without any method.

"I am very fond of fossils; and if you wish them arranged, it would give me great pleasure to help."

"Hewett wanted me to make a clean sweep of them; interfered with the flow of his precious fresh air. Like his ignorance! Did he think I wanted to sit and stare at an ugly wall-paper all day when I was tired of reading?"

"Do you read much?"

"Yes; chiefly Sanskrit. In my day, Indian officials had to be not only gentlemen but scholars. Well," as Harold rose to go, "I'll have your prescription made up, and shall expect you again to-morrow."

"I will come, and hope the pain will be easier then." He detailed the treatment he desired, and was giving a few final directions when the manservant opened the door. "Miss Geare has called, sir. Will you see her?"

"Oh dear!" pettishly exclaimed Sir Edward. "She'll stay an hour, prosing about her dogs. For mercy's sake, don't go!" detaining Harold. "Help me to entertain her, and get her away soon! She was to have been my sister-in-law, having been engaged to my brother Adrian years ago; and since in an evil hour I settled at Beachbourne, I've been fairly persecuted by her."

In another minute the little lady tripped smilingly in.

"Well, Edward dear, how are you now? I heard you were not well, so I just came to inquire."

"I'm better now, thank you," returned Sir Edward gruffly. "I've given Hewett the sack, and this is my new doctor—Dr. Inglis. Do you know him?"

"Oh, yes, he has been attending me. I'm sure he has done me good, and I hope you'll benefit also, Edward. You can't think how kind Dr. Inglis was to my darling Bijou when he broke his leg!"

"Having attended Bijou, it, of course, follows that Dr. Inglis will cure me," sneered Sir Edward. "How is the amiable Miss Pepper?"

"She's waiting outside with the dogs, as you said you wouldn't have her here. She's a faithful creature; I wish you liked her a little better, Edward dear."

"I never was fond of vinegar, Catherine."

"Oh, don't be so sarcastic, Edward! I never was clever; but you make me feel like a little girl again, when my governess scolded me."

There were tears in the watery blue eyes; but they did not seem to touch Sir Edward. "The remedy, my dear Catherine, is exceedingly simple," he blandly rejoined. "I know I'm a curmudgeon, unfit to associate with such an angel as you. Why then should you inflict upon yourself the unpleasantness of coming here? Why not stay away, to enjoy the more congenial society of Miss Pepper and the dogs?"

"So you don't want me, Edward? I think you're very unkind," returned Miss Geare, evidently wounded, but with a patient dignity Harold had not expected. He noticed that ever since she entered her gaze had wandered, at intervals, to an oil-painting of a fine-looking young man in uniform which hung over the mantelpiece. "But I know better than to take you at your word. You are all I have left—my dear Adrian's brother—and——" She broke down, and wiped the slow tears of age from her eyes.

Sir Edward gave an impatient sigh, and Harold interposed. "Allow me to remind you, Miss Geare, that my patient has had a very severe attack, and the quieter he is the better. Everything depends on that. I must go home now; and may I request the pleasure of your company to the gate, if you are ready?"

"Yes, do go home to Bijou!" fretfully murmured the invalid. And Miss Geare, after bestowing an affectionate farewell on the unresponsive Sir Edward, allowed Harold to politely conduct her to the lodge gate.

"Poor Edward!" she began, as they went down the drive, "he allows illness to sour his temper, and it's such a pity! But I take no notice—he's my dear Adrian's only brother, and I can't bear to stay away from the house. Did you see the portrait over the mantelpiece?—that was my Adrian. I was young, and pretty too, in those days, though you mayn't believe it——"

"I quite believe it," said Harold kindly, touched by the spectacle of this forlorn old age.

"Adrian was so proud of Edward. He was so much thought of in India, and is very, very clever—but not equal to my Adrian—oh, no; nobody ever could be as handsome and noble as he was! When I heard he was killed in the Mutiny, I thought I should die too; I think it must have killed something inside me, for I've never been the same since. I get confused, and I can't remember things——Yes, I'm coming. Very sorry to have kept you waiting."

The humble apology was to Miss Pepper, who, with a most unamiable countenance, was standing just outside the gate. Miss Geare hastily said farewell, and Harold could hear her companion scolding her vigorously as they went down the road. But, as he thought of the faded, antique love story which had ended so tragically, he could not but feel sorry for poor little eccentric Miss Geare—it was so evident that the best part of her had been buried in her lover's grave. Her eyes must have been rather like May's, he thought, before sorrow had given them that vacant expression; and then he wondered, for the hundredth time, what Mrs. Burnside was doing in London, and whether she thought of him as often as he did of her.