behind him, to see that the door was closed.

"He cannot be moved for three or four days," was the firm reply. "The
chances are that he would collapse on the road. But as soon as ever the
thing is possible you shall be relieved of him. I can easily find
accommodation for him at Pengarth. At present he is suffering from very
severe concussion. I hope there is not actual brain lesion--but there may
be. And, if so, to move him now would be simply to destroy his chance of
recovery."

The two men confronted each other, the unreasonable fury of the one met
by the scientific conscience of the other. Melrose was dumfounded by the
mingled steadiness and audacity of the little doctor. His mad self-will,
his pride of class and wealth, surviving through all his eccentricities,
found it unbearable that Undershaw should show no real compunction
whatever for what he had done, nay, rather, a quiet conviction that, rage
as he might, the owner of Threlfall Tower would have to submit. It was
indeed the suggestion in the doctor's manner, of an unexplained
compulsion behind--ethical or humanitarian--not to be explained, but
simply to be taken for granted, which perhaps infuriated Melrose more
than anything else.

Nevertheless, as he still glared at his enemy, Melrose suddenly realized
that the man was right. He would have to submit. For many reasons, he
could not--at this moment in particular--excite any fresh hue and cry
which might bring the whole countryside on his back. Unless the doctor
were lying, and he could get another of the craft to certify it, he would
have to put up--for the very minimum of time--with the intolerable plague
of this invasion.