Been on my feet since six o'clock this morning. You know what it
is--G.P.'s day."

He smiled grimly in his fatigue.

"It's very good of you to come," said Priam Farll with warm, vivacious
sympathy. He had an astonishing gift for imaginatively putting himself
in the place of other people.

"Not at all!" the doctor muttered. He was quite touched. To hide the
fact that he was touched he struck a second match. "Shall we go
upstairs?"

In the bedroom a candle was burning on a dusty and empty dressing-table.
Dr. Cashmore moved it to the vicinity of the bed, which was like an
oasis of decent arrangement in the desert of comfortless chamber; then
he stooped to examine the sick valet.

"He's shivering!" exclaimed the doctor softly.

Henry Leek's skin was indeed bluish, though, besides blankets, there was
a considerable apparatus of rugs on the bed, and the night was warm. His
ageing face (for he was the third man of fifty in that room) had an
anxious look. But he made no movement, uttered no word, at sight of the
doctor; just stared, dully. His own difficult breathing alone seemed to
interest him.

"Any women up?"

The doctor turned suddenly and fiercely on Priam Farll, who started.