assure you--a case of life and death."

Melrose made an effort to control himself, but the situation was too much
for him.

He burst out, storming:

"I wonder, sir, that you have the audacity to present yourself to me at
all. Who or what authorized you, I should like to know, to take
possession of my house, and install this young man here? What have I to
do with him? He has no claim on me--not the hundredth part of a farthing!
My servant tells me he offered to help you carry him to the farm, which
is only a quarter of a mile distant. That of course would have been the
reasonable, the gentlemanly thing to do, but just in order to insult me,
to break into the privacy of a man who, you know, has always endeavoured
to protect himself and his life from vulgar tongues and eyes, you must
needs browbeat my servants, and break open my house. I tell you, sir,
this is a matter for the lawyers! It shan't end here. I've sent for an
ambulance, and I'll thank you to make arrangements at once to remove this
young man to some neighbouring hospital, where, I understand, he will
have every attention."

Melrose, even at seventy, was over six feet, and as he stood towering
above the little doctor, his fine gray hair flowing back from strong
aquiline features, inflamed with a passion of wrath, he made a
sufficiently magnificent appearance. Undershaw grew a little pale, but he
fronted his accuser quietly.

"If you wish him removed, Mr. Melrose, you must take the responsibility
yourself, I shall have nothing to do with it--nor will the nurses."