in a
low voice, "will you step into the library; and the doctor will see you
immediately."

On the first landing of the staircase two gentlemen were speaking to Mr.
Jansenius, who hastily moved out of sight, not before a glimpse of his
air of grief 174 and discomfiture had given Trefusis a strange twinge,
succeeded by a sensation of having been twenty years a widower. He
smiled unconcernedly as he followed the girl into the library, and asked
her how she did. She murmured some reply and hurried away, thinking that
the poor young man would alter his tone presently.

He was joined at once by a gray whiskered gentleman, scrupulously
dressed and mannered. Trefusis introduced himself, and the physician
looked at him with some interest. Then he said:

"You have arrived too late, Mr. Trefusis. All is over, I am sorry to
say."

"Was the long railway journey she took in this cold weather the cause of
her death?"

Some bitter words that the physician had heard upstairs made him aware
that this was a delicate question. But he said quietly: "The proximate
cause, doubtless. The proximate cause."

"She received some unwelcome and quite unlooked-for intelligence before
she started. Had that anything to do with her death, do you think?"

"It may have produced an unfavorable effect," said the physician,
growing restive and taking up his gloves. "The habit of referring such
events to such causes is carried too far, as a rule."

"No doubt. I am curious because the event is novel in my experience. I
suppose it is a commonplace in yours. Pardon me. The loss of a lady so
young and so favorably circumstanced is not a commonplace either in my
experience or in my opinion." The physician held up his head as he
spoke, in protest against any assumption that his sympathies had been
blunted by his profession.

"Did she suffer?"

"For some hours, yes. We were able to do a little to alleviate her
pain--poor thing!" He almost forgot Trefusis as he added the apostrophe.

"Hours of pain! Can you conceive any good purpose that those hours may
have served?"

The physician shook his head, leaving it doubtful whether he meant to
reply in the negative or to deplore considerations of that nature.
He also made a movement to depart, being uneasy in conversation with
Trefusis, who would, he felt sure, presently ask questions or make
remarks with which he could hardly deal without committing himself in
some direction. His conscience was not quite