Rosamond had opened the drawing-room door, and
now came forward anxiously. Lydgate apologized for Mr. Wrench, said
that the symptoms yesterday might have been disguising, and that this
form of fever was very equivocal in its beginnings: he would go
immediately to the druggist's and have a prescription made up in order
to lose no time, but he would write to Mr. Wrench and tell him what had
been done.

"But you must come again--you must go on attending Fred. I can't have
my boy left to anybody who may come or not. I bear nobody ill-will,
thank God, and Mr. Wrench saved me in the pleurisy, but he'd better
have let me die--if--if--"

"I will meet Mr. Wrench here, then, shall I?" said Lydgate, really
believing that Wrench was not well prepared to deal wisely with a case
of this kind.

"Pray make that arrangement, Mr. Lydgate," said Rosamond, coming to her
mother's aid, and supporting her arm to lead her away.

When Mr. Vincy came home he was very angry with Wrench, and did not
care if he never came into his house again. Lydgate should go on now,
whether Wrench liked it or not. It was no joke to have fever in the
house. Everybody must be sent to now, not to come to dinner on
Thursday. And Pritchard needn't get up any wine: brandy was the best
thing against infection. "I shall drink brandy," added Mr. Vincy,
emphatically--as much as to say, this was not an occasion for firing
with blank-cartridges. "He's an uncommonly unfortunate lad, is Fred.
He'd need have--some luck by-and-by to make up for all this--else I
don't know who'd have an eldest son."

"Don't say so, Vincy," said the mother, with a quivering lip, "if you
don't want him to be taken from me."

"It will worret you to death, Lucy; _that_ I can see," said Mr. Vincy,
more mildly. "However, Wrench shall know what I think of the matter."
(What Mr. Vincy thought confusedly was, that the fever might somehow
have been hindered if Wrench had shown the proper solicitude about
his--the Mayor's--family.) "I'm the last man to give in to the cry
about new doctors, or new parsons either--whether they're Bulstrode's
men or not. But Wrench shall know what I think, take it as he will."

Wrench did not take it at all well. Lydgate was as polite as he could
be in his offhand way, but politeness in a man who has placed you at a
disadvantage is only an additional exasperation, especially if he
happens to have been an object of dislike beforehand. Country
practitioner