t, which struck the circle of listeners, Sir Patrick included,
with a momentary chill.

In the midst of the silence a sixth guest appeared on the lawn, and
stepped into the library--a silent, resolute, unassuming, elderly man
who had arrived the day before on a visit to Windygates, and who
was well known, in and out of London, as one of the first consulting
surgeons of his time.

"A discussion going on?" he asked. "Am I in the way?"

"There's no discussion--we are all agreed," cried Geoffrey, answering
boisterously for the rest. "The more the merrier, Sir!"

After a glance at Geoffrey, the surgeon suddenly checked himself on the
point of advancing to the inner part of the room, and remained standing
at the window.

"I beg your pardon," said Sir Patrick, addressing himself to Geoffrey,
with a grave dignity which was quite new in Arnold's experience of him.
"We are not all agreed. I decline, Mr. Delamayn, to allow you to connect
me with such an expression of feeling on your part as we have just
heard. The language you have used leaves me no alternative but to meet
your statement of what you suppose me to have said by my statement
of what I really did say. It is not my fault if the discussion in the
garden is revived before another audience in this room--it is yours."

He looked as he spoke to Arnold and Blanche, and from them to the
surgeon standing at the window.

The surgeon had found an occupation for himself which completely
isolated him among the rest of the guests. Keeping his own face in
shadow, he was studying Geoffrey's face, in the full flood of light
that fell on it, with a steady attention which must have been generally
remarked, if all eyes had not been turned toward Sir Patrick at the
time.

It was not an easy face to investigate at that moment.

While Sir Patrick had been speaking Geoffrey had seated himself near the
window, doggedly impenetrable to the reproof of which he was the object.
In his impatience to consult the one authority competent to decide
the question of Arnold's position toward Anne, he had sided with Sir
Patrick, as a means of ridding himself of the unwelcome presence of his
friends--and he had defeated his own purpose, thanks to his own brutish
incapability of bridling himself in the pursuit of it. Whether he was
now discouraged under these circumstances, or whether he was simply
resigned to bide his time till his time came, it was impossible, judging
by outward appearances, to