This having been done, the doctor again proceeded to take his leave; but when he got to the door he was called back. 'Thorne! Thorne! About that money for Mr. Gresham; do what you like, do just what you like. Ten thousand, is it? Well, he shall have it. I'll make Winterbones write about it at once. Five per cent., isn't it? No, four and a half. Well, he shall have ten thousand more.'
'Thank you, Scatcherd, thank you, I am really very much obliged to you, I am indeed. I wouldn't ask it if I were not sure your money is safe. Good-bye, old fellow, and get rid of that bedfellow of yours,' and again he was at the door.
'Thorne,' said Sir Roger, once more. 'Thorne, just come back for a minute. You wouldn't let me send a present, would you,—fifty pounds or so,—just to buy a few flounces?'
The doctor contrived to escape without giving a definite answer to this question; and then, having paid his compliments to Lady Scatcherd, remounted his cob and rode back to Greshamsbury.
CHAPTER XIV.
SENTENCE OF EXILE.
Dr. Thorne did not at once go home to his own house. When he reached the Greshamsbury gates, he sent his horse to its own stable by one of the people at the lodge, and then walked on to the mansion. He had to see the squire on the subject of the forthcoming loan, and he had also to see Lady Arabella. The Lady Arabella, though she was not personally attached to the doctor with quite so much warmth as some others of her family, still had reasons of her own for not dispensing with his visits to the house. She was one of his patients, and a patient fearful of the disease with which she was threatened. Though she thought the doctor to be arrogant, deficient as to properly-submissive demeanour towards herself, an instigator to marital parsimony in her lord, as one altogether opposed to herself and her interests in Greshamsbury politics, nevertheless, she did feel trust in him as a medical man. She had no wish to be rescued out of his hands by any Dr. Fillgrave, as regarded that complaint of hers, much as she may have desired, and did desire, to sever him from all Greshamsbury councils in all matters not touching the healing art.
Now the complaint of which the Lady Arabella was afraid,
