his promise to that lady to find out how the young man was connected:
engrossed as he had been with his strange case, he had almost forgotten
the promise, and he had done nothing to fulfil it but tap ineffectually
for admission to his friend's confidence. He therefore considered with
some anxiety what he should do, for Lady Lefevre could on occasion be
exacting and severe with her son. He concluded nothing could be done
before dinner, but he went prepared to be questioned and perhaps rated.
He was pleased to find that his mother seemed to have forgotten his
promise as much as he had, and to see her in the best of spirits with a
tableful of company.

"Oh, you have come," said she, presenting her cheek to her son; "I
thought that after all you might be detained by that mysterious case you
have at the hospital. Here's Dr. Rippon--and Julius too--dying to hear
all about it;" but she gave no hint of the serious conversation which
she said in her note she desired.

"Not I, Lady Lefevre," Julius protested. "I don't like medical
revelations; they make me feel as if I were sitting at the confessional
of mankind."

Noting by the way that Julius and his sister seemed much taken up with
each other, and that Julius, while as fascinating as ever, and as ready
and apt and intelligent of speech, seemed somewhat more chastened in
manner and less effervescent in health,--like a fire of coal that has
spent its gas and settled into a steady glow of heat,--he turned to Dr
Rippon, a tall, thin old gentleman of over seventy, but who yet had a
keen tongue, and a shrewd, critical eye. He had been an intimate friend
of the elder Lefevre, and the son greeted him with respect and
affection.