Mr. Halliburton welcomed the children. He kissed some, he talked to others, just as if he had not that terrible vulture, care, within him. They saw nothing amiss; neither did Jane. He took his seat, and drank his tea; all, as it were, mechanically. It did not seem to be himself; he thought it must be some one else. In the last hour, his whole identity appeared to have changed. Bread and butter was handed to him. He took a slice and left it. Jane put some cake on to his plate: he left that also. Eat! with that awful fiat racking his senses! No, it was not possible.
Ho looked round on his children. His. William, a gentle boy, with his mother's calm, good face and her earnest eyes; Jane, a lovely child, with fair curls flowing and a bright colour, consciously vain this evening in her white birthday robes and her white ribbons; Frank, a slim, dark-eyed boy, always in mischief, his features handsome and clearly cut as were his father's; Gar, a delicate little chap, with fair curls like his sister Jane's. Must he leave those children?—abandon them to the mercies of a cold and cruel world?—bequeath them no place in it; no means of support? "Oh, God! Oh, God!" broke from his bitter heart, "if it be Thy will to take me, mayst Thou shelter them!"
"Edgar!"
He started palpably; so far in thought was he away. Yet it was only his wife who spoke to him.
"Edgar, have you been up to Dr. Carrington's?" she whispered, bending towards him.
In his confusion he muttered some unintelligible words, which she interpreted into a denial; there was a great deal of buzzing just then from the young voices around. Two of the gentlemen, Frank being one, were in hot contention touching a third gentleman's rabbits. Mrs. Halliburton called Frank to order, and said no more to her husband for the present.
"We are to dance after tea," said Jane. "I have been learning one quadrille to play. It is very easy, and mamma says I play it very well."
"Oh, we don't want dancing," grumbled one of the boys. "We'd rather have blindman's-buff."
Opinions were divided again. The girls wanted dancing, the boys blindman's-buff. Mrs. Halliburton was appealed to.
"I think it must be dancing first and blindman's-buff afterwards," said she.
Tea over, the furniture was pushed aside to clear a space for the dancers. Mr. Halliburton, his back against the wall, stood looking at them. Looking at them as was supposed; but had they been keen observers, they would have known that his eyes in reality saw not: they, like his thoughts, were far away.
His wife did presently notice that he seemed particularly abstracted. She came up to him; he was standing with his arms folded, his head bent. "Edgar, are you well?"
"Well? Oh yes, dear," he replied, making an effort to rouse himself.
"I hope you have no more teaching to-night?"
"I ought to go to young Finchley. I put him off until seven o'clock."
"Then"—was her quick rejoinder—"if you put off young Finchley, how was it you could not get to Savile-row?"
"I have been occupied all the afternoon, Jane," he said. Wanting the courage to say how the matter really stood, he evaded the question.
But, to go to young Finchley or to any other pupil that night, Mr. Halliburton felt himself physically unequal. Teach! Explain abstruse Greek and Latin rules, with his mind in its present state! It seemed to him that it mattered little—if he was to be taken from them so soon—whether he ever taught again. He was in the very depths of depression.
Suddenly, as he stood looking on, a thought came flashing over him as a ray of light. As a ray of light? Nay, as a whole flood of it. What if Dr. Carrington were wrong?—if it should prove that, in reality, nothing was the matter with him? Doctors—and very clever ones—were, he knew, sometimes mistaken. Perhaps Dr. Carrington had been so!
It was scarcely likely, he went on to reason, that a mortal disease should be upon him, and he have lived in ignorance of it! Why, he seemed to have had very little the matter with him; nothing to talk of, nothing to lie up for; comparatively speaking, he had been a healthy man—was in health then. Yes, the belief did present itself that Dr. Carrington was deceived. He, in the interests of the insurance office, might be unnecessarily cautious.
Mr. Halliburton left the wall, and grew cheerful and gay, and talked freely to the children. One little lady asked if he would dance with her. He laughed, and felt half inclined to do so.
Which was the true mood—that sombre one, or this? Was there nothing false about this one—was there no secret consciousness that it did not accord with his mind's actual belief; that he was only forcing it? Be it as it would, it did not last; in the very middle of a laughing sentence to his own little Janey, the old agony, the fear, returned—returned with terrific violence, as a torrent that has burst its bounds.
"I cannot bear this uncertainty!" he murmured to himself. And he went out of the room and took up his hat. Mrs. Halliburton, who at that moment happened to be crossing from another room, saw him open the hall-door.
"Are you going to young Finchley, Edgar?"
"No. I shall give him holiday for to-night. I shall be in soon, Jane."
He went straight to their own family doctor; a Mr. Allen, who lived close by. They were personal friends.
To the inquiry as to whether Mr. Allen was at home, the servant was about to usher him into the family sitting-room, but Mr. Halliburton stepped into the dusky surgery. He was in no mood for ladies' company. "I will wait here," he said. "Tell your master I wish to say a word to him."
The surgeon came immediately, a lighted candle in his hand. He was a dark man with a thin face. "Why won't you come in?" he asked. "There's only Mrs. Allen and the girls there. Is anything the matter?"
"Yes, Allen, something is the matter," was
Mr. Halliburton's reply. "I want a friend to-night: one who will deal with me candidly and openly: and I have come to you. Sit down."
They both sat down; and Mr. Halliburton gave him the history of the past four and twenty hours: commencing with the fainting-fit, and ending with his racking doubts as to whether Dr. Carrington's opinion was borne out by facts, or whether he might have been deceived. "Allen," he concluded, "you must see what you can make out of my state: and you must report to me without disguise, as you would report to your own soul."
The surgeon looked grave. "Carrington is a clever man," he said. "One whom it would be difficult to deceive."
"I know his reputation. But these clever men are not infallible. Put his opinion out of your mind: examine me yourself, and tell me what you think."
Mr. Allen proceeded to do so. He first of all asked Mr. Halliburton a few general questions as to his present state of health, as he would have done by any other patient, and then he sounded his lungs.
"Now then—the truth," said Mr. Halliburton.
"The truth is—so far as I can judge—that you are in no present danger whatever."
"Neither did Dr. Carrington say I was—in present danger," hastily replied Mr. Halliburton. "Are my lungs sound?"
"They are not sound: but neither do I think they are extensively diseased. You may live for many years, with care."
"Would any insurance office take me?"
"No. I do not think it would."
"It is just my death-knell, Allen."
"If you look at it in that light I shall be very sorry to have given you my opinion," observed the surgeon. "I repeat that, by taking care of yourself, you may stave off disease and live many years. I would not say this unless I thought it."
"And would your opinion be the same as the doctor's—that I must leave London for the country?"
"I think you would have a far better chance of getting well in the country than you have here. You have told me over and over again, you know, that you were sure London air was bad for you."
"Ay,