see how ugly he looks." This, Philip declared, was his father's form of
farewell. I handed back the letter to Helena. Not a word passed between
us. In sinister silence she opened the door and left me alone in the
room.

That Mrs. Gracedieu and I had met in the bygone time, and--this was the
only serious part of it--had met in secret, would now be made known to
the Minister. Was I to blame for having shrunk from distressing my good
friend, by telling him that his wife had privately consulted me on the
means of removing his adopted child from his house? And, even if I
had been cruel enough to do this, would he have believed my statement
against the positive denial with which the woman whom he loved and
trusted would have certainly met it? No! let the consequences of the
coming disclosure be what they might, I failed to see any valid reason
for regretting my conduct in the past time.

I found Miss Jillgall waiting in the passage to see me come out.

Before I could tell her what had happened, there was a ring at the
house-bell. The visitor proved to be Mr. Wellwood, the doctor. I was
anxious to speak to him on the subject of Mr. Gracedieu's health. Miss
Jillgall introduced me, as an old and dear friend of the Minister, and
left us together in the dining-room.

"What do I think of Mr. Gracedieu?" he said, repeating the first
question that I put. "Well, sir, I think badly of him."

Entering into details, after that ominous reply, Mr. Wellwood did not
hesitate to say that his patient's nerves were completely shattered.
Disease of the brain had, as he feared, been already set up. "As to
the causes which have produced this lamentable break-down," the doctor
continued, "Mr. Gracedieu has been in the habit of preaching extempore
twice a day on Sundays, and sometimes in the week as well--and has
uniformly refused to spare himself when he was in most urgent need of
rest. If you have ever attended his chapel, you have seen a man in a
state of fiery enthusiasm, feeling intensely every word that he utters.
Think of such exhaustion as that implies going on for years together,
and accumulating its wasting influences on a sensitively organized
constitution. Add that he is tormented by personal anxieties, which he
confesses to no one, not even to his own children and the sum of it
all is that a worse case of its kind, I am grieved to say, has never
occurred in my experience."

Before the doctor left me to go to his patient, I asked l