looked more than usually well, so well
that I could not help reflecting how much younger he appeared than on
the day when I had first seen him. He had taken a long walk, too, and
showed not the slightest sign of fatigue on his return. He had eaten
sparingly, and had drunk nothing but water with his lunch, and a cup of
tea at four o'clock. Yet at half-past six he had the stamp of death
upon his face, he breathed with difficulty, and his features were drawn
and haggard.

As I sat by his side, watching him until the doctor came, I remembered
that for perhaps an hour before his attack he was very silent, and had
moved around as though he were lacking in energy, but I had thought
little of it at the time. Now, however, his condition told its own
tale. To all appearances, he was dying, and we were all powerless to
help him.

Of course dinner, as far as I was concerned, was out of the question,
although, as I was afterwards informed, Captain Springfield made an
excellent meal.

It was nearly eight o'clock when the doctor arrived, and never surely
was a man greeted with more eagerness than I greeted him. For, as I
have already said, I had grown to love Edgecumbe with a great love; why
it was, I will not pretend to explain, but no man ever loved a brother
more than I loved him, and the thought of his death was simply horrible.

Perhaps the suddenness of everything accounted for my intense feeling;
anyhow, my intense anguish cannot be explained in any other way.

Dr. Merril did not inspire me with any great hope. He was a
middle-aged man of the country practitioner's type. I judged that he
could be quite useful in dealing with ordinary ailments, but he did not
strike me as a man who looked beneath the surface of things, and who
could deal successfully with a case like Edgecumbe's. Evidently no
particulars of the case had been given to him, and from the confident
way I heard him talking to Sir Thomas, who brought him up to the room,
he might have been called in to deal with a child who had a slight
attack of measles.

When he saw Edgecumbe, however, a change passed over his face. The
sight of my friend, gasping for breath, with what looked like
death-dews on his agonized face, made him think that he had to deal
with a man in his death agony.

A few minutes later I altered my opinion of Dr. Merril. He was not so
commonplace, or so unobservant as I had imagined. He examined
Edgecumbe carefully, and, as I thought