Dr. Armytage, despite Lady Oxted\'s round and uncompromising definition of him as a dexterous surgeon of sinister repute, proved himself during the next day or two to be far more intimately acquainted with the vital structure of the animal called man than is at all necessary for one who only concerns himself with dissection of artery and muscle, and the severing of bones. Under his wise and beneficent care Mr. Francis rapidly rose again to his accustomed surface, and, no less testimony to his skill, Harry once more looked the world squarely and courageously in the face. These inner and spiritual lesions require for their healing not only a skilful diagnosis, but a mind of delicate and certain touch, and of his two patients the doctor was inclined to think that Harry made the more flattering recovery. During these days he kept uncle and nephew studiously apart; he would allow no visits to the sick room, and communication was limited to messages passed to and fro by the doctor himself. Mr. Francis, on the one hand, was bidden to keep his bed for three days, and quiet was insisted on; quiet, on the other hand, was sternly forbidden to[Pg 336] Harry. For him the prescription was to go out as much as possible, and busy himself with any employment—all were good—which he found congenial, and when indoors to apply himself slavishly to all the businesses which Mr. Francis had hitherto managed for him.

"Oh, you have plenty to do," said the doctor to this harassed young gentleman; "go and do some of it."

But among these things which had to be done was an affair of difficulty, the letter which must be written to Geoffrey. This, when he put his hand to it, Harry found to be a black, bitter business, and sheet after sheet was begun and abandoned. Had he realized it, he was attempting the impossible, for he had set himself to write a letter which should at once be thoroughly friendly, and yet spit on the allegations which his friend had made. The writer alone did not see that such a letter could not be written even by Solomon, Shakespeare, and the original serpent in conjunction. Thus, for a couple of hours one evening Harry wrote and tore, reducing wooden penholders to match wood, and quires of fair white paper to grist for the housemaid in her fire-lighting, yet still the envelope was no nearer to its postage stamp; and the dressing bell indeed showed him only a brimming waste-paper basket. He could not write this letter; here was the flat truth.

At this juncture the doctor entered the smoking room, which Harry had chosen to be the[Pg 337] arena of these futile endeavours, and a glance at his clouded face seemed enough for him.

"It is difficult, I admit," he said. "Ah, you must not be offended with me, Lord Vail. I have guessed right. I know: we doctors have to be thought-readers. You have been making"—and his eye fell on the paper-basket—"many unsuccessful attempts to write to your friend. Perhaps I ought to have saved you that trouble."

Harry turned a dark face on him.

"I\'m sure there is no secret about it," he said. "As like as not I should have told you. I can\'t write this letter, I just can\'t write it. Yet I must. But when I begin to tell Geoff the truth, that he has done a dastardly thing, and that I can never see him again, and that I love him just as much as ever—well—the whole thing becomes unreal at once."

"Yes, those are hard words to a friend," said the doctor.

"I know, and I\'m not hard. I love that chap, I tell you. You don\'t know him; so much the worse for you, for you don\'t know the best old fool God ever made. I\'m just hungry to see him, and I\'ve got to tell him that he is a base cad. Oh, confound the whole round world! By the way, you said you should have spared me this trouble. What do you mean?"

Dr. Armytage took a chair close to the table where Harry was failing to write.

"Three days ago, Lord Vail, when I first arrived," he said, "I offered you a sleeping-draught,[Pg 338] which you refused. I suggested that you refused it because you distrusted me. Tell me now, was I right in suggesting that?"

Harry looked straight, as his wont was, at the dark, secret face he had once thought so sinister. To him now it appeared only sad.

"What has that got to do with it?" he asked.

"Was that suggestion right?" repeated the doctor.

"Yes, quite," said the other frankly.

"Just so. Eventually you did trust me, or, at any rate, behaved as if you did, and you found your confidence not misplaced. You awoke, in fact, after a good night\'s rest. And now, if you grant that, you owe me the benefit of a doubt."

"Well?"

"I ask you to trust me again," said the doctor, "for the fact is I have already written to your friend myself, telling him not to expect a letter from you yet. I knew, I was completely certain, that you would find it impossible to write to him, and it seemed to me that if I wrote at once, as I did, it would save him some anxious hours. That is my confession."

Again Harry tried to feel what he told himself was a just resentment, but the sentiment that he raised in his mind was but a phantom. He ought, so he considered, to feel that his liberty was being tampered with, but this curiously self-possessed man appeared to have the gift of impeccable meddling. Then he laughed outright.

"I simply do not know what to say to you,"[Pg 339] he said. "You take it upon yourself to interfere with affairs of mine that do not in the least concern you, and yet I don\'t really resent it."

"In that you are quite wise," remarked the doctor.

Harry threw down his pen.

"And not content with that, you patronize me, and pat me on the back," he said. "I am not at all sure that I intend to stand it. Pray, if I may so far interfere in your concerns, what did you say to Geoffrey?" he asked, with a show of spirit.

"I told him not to expect a letter from you yet," said the doctor. "I told him not to be impatient and wish for knots to be cut as long as there was the faintest hope of their being unravelled."

"Ah, there is not the faintest," broke in Harry.

"You too, then, acquiesce in the cutting. I hope your friend is more reasonable; less he can not be. You have no right to say, while the thing is yet so recent, that a reconciliation of your friend with Mr. Francis is impossible. And if that were possible it would comprehend, I take it, a reconciliation with you."

"Oh, you don\'t know Geoff, I tell you," said Harry. "He will never apologize. He is not given to rush at conclusions; but when he has concluded, he is more obstinate than all the beasts that perish. You waste your trouble if you expect him to recant."

[Pg 340]

The doctor rose.

"I repeat, it is too early to expect anything," he said. "A difficult situation takes time. If it does not take time, it is not difficult. Be sure of that. One thing alone I was certain of: that any letter from you, believing as you do so utterly in your uncle\'s absolute innocence—if I could put your feelings more strongly I would—could not tend to mend matters. It would only accentuate your estrangement—temporary, I hope—with your friend. And now have I your pardon for doing what I have done?"

"Not yet," said Harry. "What else did you say?"

"I said that you were as safe here as in the Bank of England. I asked him to be reasonable. Supposing his wild surmise was true, and that you had a very bitter enemy of your own blood in this house, how could he be so foolhardy as to make another attempt on you just now, when three had so conspicuously miscarried, and such suspicious circumstances were in Mr. Langham\'s knowledge? For the circumstances," he said, looking gravely at Harry, "were suspicious."

"I know they were," said Harry. "Poor old Geoff! Well, I couldn\'t have written that letter if I had tried till midnight."

He got up also, as the dinner gong sounded.

"That\'s dinner, and we are not yet dressed," he said. "But you were quite right to do it for me, Dr. Armytage," and frankness became him infinitely better than reserve. "And you might[Pg 341] have added that I have a very good friend here, who looks after both my uncle and myself."

Dr. Armytage smiled rather grimly.

"I came to the conclusion that such a statement would not have increased his confidence," he said, "either in me or in your safety. There is no sense in gushing, particularly if one gushes about one\'s self."

That night, when the doctor made his last visit to Mr. Francis, he brought him as usual some small, affectionate message from Harry, and Mr. Francis yawned, for he was sleepy, and made no immediate reply. But in a moment or two he roused himself.

"My love, my very best love," he said, "and any convincing tenderness you please. By the way, how do you and he get on together? Is it very trying? I am afraid so. But it is of the utmost importance that you should gain Harry\'s confidence, that you should make him trust you."

"So you told me, and, without boasting, I think I may say that I have been fairly successful. I made a good beginning, you know, the first night I was here."

"Ah, yes, that sleeping-draught," said Mr. Francis appreciatively. "A little bromide of potassium you told me; quite simple and harmless. A charming drug, and an ingenious idea. Yes, Harry\'s consenting to take a sleeping-draught from your hands certainly showed that if he was disposed not to trust you, he was fighting[Pg 342] that inclination. And you have improved your advantage, dear Godfrey?"

"Yes, we are on excellent terms. And, to tell you the truth, I do not find it trying at all. Your nephew is both amiable and intelligent."

"Poor Harry!" said Mr. Francis softly. "Yes, his very simplicity has a certain charm, has it not? It is also a very convenient quality. Well, I am to go to sleep I suppose: I sleep so well now! And you intend to take me to London at the end of the week?"

"That was the proposal," said the doctor.

"And you, being an autocrat—for, indeed, doctors are the only autocrats we have left—insist on it. I assure you it will be the best plan. That young cub who left the other day has wits of a kind; he is rather sharp. It will quiet his outrageous suspicions, I think, if I leave Vail soon. I hope Harry will not be very dull alone," he added.

"He may not choose to stop here," said the doctor.

"It does not matter," said Mr. Francis. "He is certain to come back here before his marriage, to see that the house is quite ready to receive them after their honeymoon—\'honeymoon! honeymoon!\'" he repeated. "I count on that. By the way, do you call him Harry yet?"

"No."

"Dear Godfrey, how short and glum you are! I do not suppose I have had a monosyllabic reply[Pg 343] for ten years: they are so unnecessarily curt. But try to call him by his Christian name: it produces an admirable effect, and so cheaply. Practise saying, \'Harry, Harry,\' when you are alone. You will find it makes it easier. Ah, well, I must go to sleep. Good-night, my dear man."

It was therefore definitely settled and announced to Harry that Mr. Francis and the doctor would leave for London at the end of the week. He would be the better, so said the doctor, for a change, for the very dark and autumnal weather which had settled down on Vail during the last day or two was a depressing influence, and he strongly recommended a week in London, where the little arrangements and excitements incident to settling into the flat would keep him agreeably occupied.

Mr. Francis dined downstairs on the last night before he left, and seemed his buoyant self again. During the afternoon incessant bubblings from the flute had come from his room, and that sound had been to Harry like the voice of some familiar friend returned. His uncle indeed had playfully prefaced his own entry into the hall, after the gong had sounded, with the tune of "See, the conquering Hero comes," a little thin on this solo instrument, but he had marched in time to it with an incomparable gaiety, with foot high-lifted and a pointed toe.

"And you, dear Harry," he asked, as they had seated themselves, after Mr. Francis had said grace, "what are your plans? I was half inclined[Pg 344] to rebel when our dear autocrat gave me my marching orders, and I heard that you, perhaps, would be left here alone, but my disaffection was quelled by a look. Has Godfrey given you any of his quelling looks, I wonder? But how long do you stop here?"

"Three or four days only, now," said Harry. "Then I go to the Oxteds\' for a week, and come back here again by the beginning of November for ten days. After that, London till the 15th."

"Dear fellow, so near as that, so near as that, is it?" said Mr. Francis. "Ah, Harry!"—and he held out his hand to him. Then, seeing that the serious note was slightly embarrassing to the young man:

"Ah! good Templeton has given us the Luck again!" he cried, changing the subject abruptly. "Upon my word, the thing seems to grow brighter and more dazzling each time I see it.—This nephew of mine, I must tell you, my dear Godfrey, is a very foolish fellow in some ways. He almost—I may say almost, Harry—believes in that old legend. Really, a remarkable survival of superstition among the educated classes. I shall write to the Psychical Research about it. That amiable society collects nightmares and superstitions, I am told. A quaint hobby."

"I have drunk obediently to the Luck, night after night, have I not, Harry?" said the doctor.

"Of course. It is a rule of the house. By the way, let us set that point at rest. Dr. Armytage told me that you believed in the Luck, Uncle[Pg 345] Francis. I simply couldn\'t credit it. You have always ridiculed me for even pretending to."

Mr. Francis laughed.

"Harry, that medical man can not keep a secret," he said. "No, my dear boy, I am only joking, but it is quite true that I have found myself wondering, after your extraordinary series of accidents early in this year, whether it were possible that there could be anything in it."

He paused a moment, and then went on quite naturally. "And these last three horrible escapes of yours," he said. "How strange! The ice house, frost; the gun, fire; the sluice, rain. There are more things in heaven and earth— Well, well!"

Here was proof, at any rate, that Mr. Francis knew how entirely Harry trusted him, and though at the thought of that awful scene between Geoffrey and his uncle the lad was startled for the moment at so direct a mention of that which had caused it, it was something of a relief to know that the subject did not cause Mr. Francis pain.

"Yes, taken all round, it would be sufficient to convince the most hardened sceptic," he said. "Poor old Luck! What an abominably futile business it has made of it all!"

Mr. Francis suddenly covered his face with his hand.

"Ah! it won\'t do to jest about," he said. "I spoke lightly, without thinking, but I find I can not quite stand it, dear Harry. It is too recent, too terrible!"

[Pg 346]

At this the talk veered to less intimate subjects, ............