‘I’ll tell you what it is,’ said he, as soon as his guardian entered the room, ‘I’m not going to be made a prisoner of here.’

‘A prisoner! no, surely not.’

’It seems very much like it at present.  Your servant here—­that old woman—­takes it upon her to say she’ll do nothing without your orders.’

‘Well; she’s right there.’

’Right!  I don’t know what you call right; but I won’t stand it.  You are not going to make a child of me, Dr Thorne; so you need not think it.’

And then there was a long quarrel, between them, and but an indifferent reconciliation.  The baronet said that he would go to Boxall Hill, and was vehement in his intention to do so because the doctor opposed it.  He had not, however, as yet ferreted out the squire, or given a bit of his mind to Mr Gazebee, and it behoved him to do this before he took himself off to his own country mansion.  He ended, therefore, by deciding to go on the next day but one.

‘Let it be so, if you are well enough,’ said the doctor.

‘Well enough!’ said the other, with a sneer.  ’There’s nothing to make me ill that I know of.  It certainly won’t be drinking too much here.’

On the next day, Sir Louis was in a different mood, and in one more distressing for the doctor to bear.  His compelled absence from intemperate drinking had, no doubt, been good for him; but his mind had so much sunk under the pain of the privation, that his state was piteous to behold.  He had cried for his servant, as a child cries for its nurse, till at last the doctor, moved to pity, had himself gone out and brought the man in from the public-house.  But when he did come, Joe was of but little service to his master, as he was altogether prevented from bringing him either wine or spirits; and when he searched for the liqueur-case, he found that even that had been carried away.

‘I believe you want me to die,’ he said, as the doctor, sitting by his bedside, was trying, for the hundredth time, to make him understand that he had but one chance of living.

The doctor was not in the least irritated.  It would have been as wise to be irritated by the want of reason in a dog.

‘I am doing what I can to save your life,’ he said calmly; ’but as you said just now, I have no power over you.  As long as you are able to move and remain in my house, you certainly shall not have the means of destroying yourself.  You will be very wise to stay here for a week or ten days:  a week or ten days of healthy living might, perhaps, bring you round.’

Sir Louis again declared that the doctor wished him to die, and spoke of sending for his attorney Finnie, to come to Greshamsbury to look after him.

‘Send for him if you choose,’ said the doctor.  ’His coming will cost you three or four pounds, but can do no other harm.’