word on the subject of my suggested holidays and on the price of my new pyjamas.
Still, with all her faults, she was a good sort, and as she took all household cares from off my shoulders, I was duly grateful to her for that.
I saw less and less of Hugh Tankerville during all this time. At first, whenever I could, I found my way to the silent and cool Chestnuts, but as often as not Hugh seemed absorbed in thoughts or in work; his mind, evidently, while I chatted and we smoked, seemed so far removed from his surroundings that by-and-by I began to wonder whether my visits were as welcome as they used to be, and I took to spacing them out at longer intervals. Once—I remember I had not been to see him for over two months—I was bidding him good-bye after a very short and silent visit; he placed his hand on my shoulder, and said, with some of his old wonted cordiality:
"I am not as inhospitable as I seem, old chap, and soon, very soon now, you will see me quite myself again. It is always delightful to see you, but the work I am doing now is so great, so absorbing, that I must appear hideously unresponsive to your kindness to me."
"I guessed, old Girlie," I said, with a laugh, "that you must be busy over something terribly scientific. But," I added, noting suddenly how hot his hand felt, and how feverishly his eyes seemed to glow, "it strikes me that you are overworking yourself, and that as a fully qualified medical man I have the right to advise you …"
"Advise nothing just now, old chap," he said, very seriously, "I should not follow it. Give me two years more, and my work will be done. Then …"
"Two years, at this sort of work? Girlie, you'll be a dead man before then at this rate."
