“No!” said he, shaking his head, and looking with a sidelong glance at his master, who seemed to shrivel up and to shrink away at the bare suggestion.  “Doctors can do nought, I’m afeard.  All that a doctor could do, I take it, would be to open a vein, and that I could do along with the best of them, if I had but my fleam here.”  He fumbled in his pockets as he spoke, and, as chance would it, the “fleam” (or cattle lancet) was somewhere about his dress.  He drew it out, smoothed and tried it on his finger.  Ellinor tried to bare the arm, but turned sick as she did so.  Her father started eagerly forwards, and did what was necessary with hurried trembling hands.  If they had cared less about the result, they might have been more afraid of the consequences of the operation in the hands of one so ignorant as Dixon.  But, vein or artery, it signified little; no living blood gushed out; only a little watery moisture followed the cut of the fleam.  They laid him back on his strange sad death-couch.  Dixon spoke next.

“Master Ned!” said he—­for he had known Mr. Wilkins in his days of bright careless boyhood, and almost was carried back to them by the sense of charge and protection which the servant’s presence of mind and sharpened senses gave him over his master on this dreary night—­“Master Ned! we must do summut.”

No one spoke.  What was to be done?

“Did any folk see him come here?” Dixon asked, after a time.  Ellinor looked up to hear her father’s answer, a wild hope coming into her mind that all might be concealed somehow; she did not know how, nor did she think of any consequences except saving her father from the vague dread, trouble, and punishment that she was aware would await him if all were known.

Mr. Wilkins did not seem to hear; in fact, he did not hear anything but the unspoken echo of his own last words, that went booming through his heart:  “An hour ago I was innocent of this man’s blood!  Only an hour ago!”

Dixon got up and poured out half a tumblerful of raw spirit from the brandy-bottle that stood on the table.

“Drink this, Master Ned!” putting it to his master’s lips.  “Nay”—­to Ellinor—­“it will do him no harm; only bring back his senses, which, poor gentleman, are scared away.  We shall need all our wits.  Now, sir, please answer my question.  Did anyone see Measter Dunster come here?”

“I don’t know,” said Mr. Wilkins, recovering his speech.  “It all seems in a mist.  He offered to walk home with me; I did not want him.  I was almost rude to him to keep him off.  I did not want to talk of business; I had taken too much wine to be very clear and some things at the office were not quite in order, and he had found it out.  If anyone heard our conversation, they must know I did not want him to come with me.  Oh! why would he come?  He was as obstinate—­he would come—­and here it has been his death!”