n. Without a
word the tutor walked to the bed and bent over the troubled form of his
pupil. Then with face almost as white as that of his enemy, he turned.

"What brings you here?" gasped the captain.

"How long has he been like this?" demanded the tutor.

"Do you hear my question?"

"Do you hear mine?"

The weaker man capitulated, with a malediction, to the stronger.

"Since yesterday. He is being carefully tended."

"By whom--you alone?"

"By a doctor."

"What doctor?"

"When I know your right to catechise me, I will answer," snarled the
captain.

Mr Armstrong rang the bell.

"Light the fire here at once," said he to the maid, "and then send the
messenger up."

In the interval the two men stood eyeing one another, while the patient
from time to time tossed on his pillow and muttered to himself.

Mr Armstrong hurriedly scrawled two notes.

"Take a cab, and leave this note at --- Hospital. Let the nurse I have
asked for come back in the cab at once. Then go on with this note to
Sir William Dove, and bring word from him the earliest moment he can be
here. Don't lose an instant."

"Captain Oliphant," said he, as soon as the messenger had gone, "three
is too many for this room. I am here to relieve guard. You need rest.
Dr Brandram will be here any moment. Bring him up directly he comes."

Captain Oliphant was certainly deserving of a little sympathy. He had
borne the burden and heat of the day, and now another was entering into
his labour. But the tutor's tone had an ugly ring about it, which, for
the moment, cowed the injured gentleman, and constrained him, after
glowering for a moment or two, and trying to articulate a protest,
meekly to withdraw.

"My responsibility ends where yours begins," said he, with his best
sneer. "I grudge none of the trouble I have taken for the dear boy, but
I must decline to remain here as the assistant of Signor Francisco the
music-hall cad."

"I can imagine it might be painful," said Mr Armstrong drily; "but the
immediate thing to be desired is that you should not consume the oxygen
in this room. Explanations will do later."

Captain Oliphant was not at hand that evening to meet the doctors. A
business engagement had summoned him to Maxfield, where he rejoiced the
hearts of his two children by a sudden arrival at breakfast-time.

A curt note from Armstrong the same afternoon apprised him that his
movements had been anticipated.

"Doctors not with