"
"Sit down, Sir Charles," said Harley with quiet geniality.
"Officially, my working day is ended; but if nothing comes of
your visit beyond a chat it will have been very welcome.
Calcutta, was it not, where we last met?"
"It was," replied Sir Charles, placing his hat and cane upon the
table and sitting down rather wearily in a big leather armchair
which Harley had pushed forward. "If I presume upon so slight an
acquaintance, I am sorry, but I must confess that only the fact
of having met you socially encouraged me to make this visit."
He raised his eyes to Harley's face and gazed at him with that
peculiarly searching look which belongs to members of his
profession; but mingled with it was an expression of almost
pathetic appeal, of appeal for understanding, for sympathy of
some kind.
"Go on, Sir Charles," said Harley. He pushed forward a box of
cigars. "Will you smoke?"
"Thanks, no," was the answer.
Sir Charles evidently was oppressed by some secret trouble, thus
Harley mused silently, as, taking out a tin of tobacco from a
cabinet beside him, he began in leisurely manner to load a briar.
In this he desired to convey that he treated the visit as that of
a friend, and also, since business was over, that Sir Charles
might without scruple speak at length and at leisure of whatever
matters had brought him there.
"Very well, then," began the surgeon; "I am painfully conscious
that the facts which I am in a position to lay before you are
very scanty and unsatisfactory.
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