Meantime the journey of the two had been for the most part a silent passage. Each was absorbed in his own thoughts and anxieties: Harry, restless, impatient, eager for the quicker falling behind of wayside stations, while the doctor brooded with half-closed eyelids, intent, it would seem, on the pattern of the carriage mat, his thoughts inconjecturable. Once only, as the train yelled through Slough, did he speak, but then with earnestness.
"Don't let your uncle know I have come, Harry," he said. "It may be that Sanders has unnecessarily alarmed you. So see him first yourself, and if this has been a heart attack like to what he had before, and he seems now to be quietly recuperating, do not let him know I am here. It may only alarm him for his condition."
The doctor looked steadfastly at the carriage mat.
"Medically speaking," he said, "I insist on this. I should also wish that you would guard against all possibility of his knowing I am here. Sanders, I suppose, looks after him. I should therefore not wish Sanders to know."
"Very likely; but I would rather he had no secret to keep. I am not speaking without reason. If, as you fear, and as the telegram seems to indicate, this attack has been unusually severe, I must assure you that it is essential that no agitating influence of any kind should come near him. If he is in real danger, of course I will see him."
"Would it not be likely to reassure him to know you are here?" asked Harry.
"I have told you that I think not," said the doctor, "unless there is absolute need of me. I hope"--and the word did not stick in his throat "that quiet will again restore him."
A trap was waiting for them at the station, driven by Jim, and the doctor had an opportunity of judging how far the likeness between the two might be hoped to deceive one who knew them both. Even now, with the one in livery, the other in ordinary dress, it was extraordinary, not only in superficialities, but somehow essentially, and he felt that it was worth while to have arranged to profit by it, should opportunity occur. The groom had a note for Harry, which he tore open hastily.
"Ah! that is good," he said, and handed it to the doctor.
It was but a matter of a couple of lines, signed by Templeton, saying merely that the severity of the attack was past, and at the time of writing Mr. Francis was sleeping, being looked after by Sanders, who had not left him since the seizure. And to the one reader this account brought an up-springing of hope, to the other the conviction that his estimate of Mr. Francis's illness was correct.