"Has HE done so?" asked Redlaw, glancing after him with the same
uneasy action as before.

"Just exactly that, sir," returned William Swidger, "as I'm told.
He knows a little about medicine, sir, it seems; and having been
wayfaring towards London with my unhappy brother that you see
here," Mr. William passed his coat-sleeve across his eyes, "and
being lodging up stairs for the night--what I say, you see, is that
strange companions come together here sometimes--he looked in to
attend upon him, and came for us at his request. What a mournful
spectacle, sir! But that's where it is. It's enough to kill my
father!"

Redlaw looked up, at these words, and, recalling where he was and
with whom, and the spell he carried with him--which his surprise
had obscured--retired a little, hurriedly, debating with himself
whether to shun the house that moment, or remain.

Yielding to a certain sullen doggedness, which it seemed to be a
part of his condition to struggle with, he argued for remaining.

"Was it only yesterday," he said, "when I observed the memory of
this old man to be a tissue of sorrow and trouble, and shall I be
afraid, to-night, to shake it? Are such remembrances as I can
drive away, so precious to this dying man that I need fear for HIM?
No! I'll stay here."

But he stayed in fear and trembling none the less for these words;
and, shrouded in his black cloak with his face turned from them,