"What do you mean, sir? You get yourself and me into this d----d hobble,
and then you refuse to take the only decent way out of it! I request
you--I command you--as soon as the Whitebeck ambulance comes, to remove
your patient _at once_, and the two women who are looking after him."

Undershaw slipped his hands into his pockets. The coolness of the gesture
was not lost on Melrose.

"I regret that for a few days to come I cannot sanction anything of the
kind. My business, Mr. Melrose, as a doctor, is not to kill people, but,
if I can, to cure them."

"Don't talk such nonsense to me, sir! Every one knows that any serious
case can be safely removed in a proper ambulance. The whole thing is
monstrous! By G--d, sir, what law obliges me to give up my house to a man
I know nothing about, and a whole tribe of hangers-on, besides?"

And, fairly beside himself, Melrose struck a carved chest, standing
within reach, a blow which made the china and glass objects huddled upon
it ring again.

"Well," said Undershaw slowly, "there is such a thing as--a law of
humanity. But I imagine if you turn out that man against my advice, and
he dies on the road to hospital, that some other kind of law might have
something to say to it."

"You refuse!"

The shout made the little doctor, always mindful of his patient, look