a somewhat demoralised household."

His voice was agitated, his step uneven as he crossed the room and
passed into the hall.

Molyneaux followed him with a conventional glance of sympathy; then his
eyes turned again to the pictures with the gratified glance of a
dilettante.

"Do you happen to know if this is a Reynolds?" he said to Gallagher,
rising and crossing the room.

CHAPTER IV

To the last day of his life, that evening, with its horde of harassing
and unfamiliar sensations, remained stamped upon Milbanke's mind; and
not least among the unpleasant recollections was the visit of
Molyneaux, and the dinner at which he himself unwillingly played host.

It may have been that his usually placid susceptibilities had undergone
a strain that rendered him over sensitive; but whatever the cause, the
atmosphere diffused by the great man jarred upon him. In his eyes, it
seemed little short of callous that one who had just passed sentence of
death upon his patient could so far remain unmoved as to partake with
relish of the dinner set before him, and comment with affable
appreciation upon the quality of the patient's wines.

Milbanke spoke little during the course of that meal. Try as he might
to enact the part entrusted to him, his thoughts persistently wandered
to the room upstairs, with its doomed sufferer and its anxious
watchers, as yet mercifully ignorant of the verdict that had been
pronounced. But if the host was silent, the guests made conversation.
Gallagher was assiduous in his attentions to the man who, in his eyes,
stood for the attainment of all ambition; and Molyneaux--under the
unlooked-for stimulus of good, if homely food and wines that even as an
epicure he admitted to be remarkable--was graciously pleased to accept
the homage of his humble colleague, and to display a suave glimpse of
the polished wit for which he was noted in society.

His expressions of regret were perfectly genuine when at last the sound
of wheels on the gravel of the drive broke in upon his discourse, and
Gallagher deprecatingly drew out his watch.

"The way of the world, Mr. Milbanke!" he murmured as he rose. "Our
pleasantest acquaintances end the soonest. I must wish you
good-bye--with many thanks for your delightful hospitality. So far as
our poor friend is concerned," he added, in a correctly altered tone,
"Doctor Gallagher may be relied upon to do everything. In a case like
this, where physical pain is recurrent an