"Bertie, my boy, I am sorry you are in pain to-day."
"Who said I was in pain?" retorted Bertie, ungraciously, his voice as squeaky as a penny trumpet.
"Why, Bertie, you know you are in great pain: it was I who told Dr. Knox so," interposed the father.
"Then you had no business to tell him so," shrieked Bertie, with a hideous grin of resentment. "What is it to him?--or to you?--or to anybody?"
"Oh, Bertie, Bertie!" whispered Miss Tamlyn. "Oh, my boy, you should not give way like this."
"You just give your tongue a holiday, Aunt Bessy," fired Bertie. "I can't be bothered by you all in this way."
Dr. Knox, looking down at him, saw something wrong in the position he was lying in. He stooped, lifted him quietly in his strong arms, and altered it.
"No, I'm not better, and why d'you interfere?" retorted Bertie in his temper, and burst out crying. It was weary work, waiting on that lad; the house had a daily benefit of it. He had always been given way to: his whims were studied, his tempers went unreproved, and no patience was taught him.
Dr. Knox drove to Mrs. Stephenson's. He dismissed the carriage when he came out; for he had some patients to see on his own score amongst the poor, and went on to them. They were at tea at Mr. Tamlyn's when he got back. He looked very ill, and sat down at once.
"Are you tired, Arnold?" asked the surgeon.
"Not very; but I feel out of sorts. My throat is rather painful."
"Not much, I dare say. A little ulcerated perhaps."
"I'll have a look at it presently. Bessy, give Dr. Knox a cup of tea."
"Thank you, I shall be glad of it," interposed the doctor. It was not often he took a meal in the house, not liking to intrude on them. When he went up this evening he had thought tea was over.
"We are later than usual," said Miss Tamlyn, in answer to some remark he made. "Bertie dropped asleep."
Bertie was awake, and eating relays of bread-and-butter as he lay, speaking to no one. The handsome sitting-rooms downstairs were nearly deserted: Mr. Tamlyn could not bear even to take his meals away from Bertie.
It was growing dusk when Dr. Knox went home. Mr. Tamlyn told him to take a cooling draught and to go to bed early. Mrs. Knox was out for the evening. Janet Carey sat at the old piano in the schoolroom, singing songs to the children to keep them quiet. They were crowding round her, and no one saw him enter the room.