He spoke now with a feverish energy, the long hands twitching and jerking as he motioned me away.

“Contagious by touch, Watson — that’s it, by touch. Keep your distance and all is well.”

“Good heavens, Holmes! Do you suppose that such a consideration weighs with me for an instant? It would not affect me in the case of a stranger. Do you imagine it would prevent me from doing my duty to so old a friend?”

Again I advanced, but he repulsed me with a look of furious anger.

“If you will stand there I will talk. If you do not you must leave the room.”

I have so deep a respect for the extraordinary qualities of Holmes that I have always deferred to his wishes, even when I least understood them. But now all my professional instincts were aroused. Let him be my master elsewhere, I at least was his in a sick room.

“Holmes,” said I, “you are not yourself. A sick man is but a child, and so I will treat you. Whether you like it or not, I will examine your symptoms and treat you for them.”

He looked at me with venomous eyes.

“If I am to have a doctor whether whether I will or not, let me at least have someone in whom I have confidence,” said he.

“Then you have none in me?”

“In your friendship, certainly. But facts are facts, Watson, and, after all, you are only a general practitioner with very limited experience and mediocre qualifications. It is painful to have to say these things, but you leave me no choice.”

I was bitterly hurt.

“Such a remark is unworthy of you, Holmes. It shows me very clearly the state of your own nerves. But if you have no confidence in me I would not intrude my services. Let me bring Sir Jasper Meek or Penrose Fisher, or any of the best men in London. But someone you must have, and that is final. If you think that I am going to stand here and see you die without either helping you myself or bringing anyone else to help you, then you have mistaken your man.”

“You mean well, Watson,” said the sick man with something between a sob and a groan. “Shall I demonstrate your own ignorance? What do you know, pray, of Tapanuli fever? What do you know of the black Formosa corruption?”

“I have never heard of either.”

“There are many problems of disease, many strange pathological possibilities, in the East, Watson.” He paused after each sentence to collect his failing strength. “I have learned so much during some recent researches which have a medico-criminal aspect. It was in the course of them that I contracted this complaint. You can do nothing.”

“Possibly not. But I happen to know that Dr. Ainstree, the greatest living authority upon tropical disease, is now in London. All remonstrance is useless, Holmes, I am going this instant to fetch him.” I turned resolutely to the door.

Never have I had such a shock! In an instant, with a tiger-spring, the dying man had intercepted me. I heard the sharp snap of a twisted key. The next moment he had staggered back to his bed, exhausted and panting after his one tremendous outflame of energy.

They passed the narrow track to the hut. Thank heaven it was not wide enough for the chair: hardly wide enough for one person. The chair reached the bottom of the slope, and swerved round, to disappear. And Connie heard a low whistle behind her. She glanced sharply round: the keeper was striding downhill towards her, his dog keeping behind him.

‘Is Sir Clifford going to the cottage?’ he asked, looking into her eyes.

‘No, only to the well.’

‘Ah! Good! Then I can keep out of sight. But I shall see you tonight. I shall wait for you at the park–gate about ten.’

He looked again direct into her eyes.

‘Yes,’ she faltered.

They heard the Papp! Papp! of Clifford’s horn, tooting for Connie. She ‘Coo–eed!’ in reply. The keeper’s face flickered with a little grimace, and with his hand he softly brushed her breast upwards, from underneath. She looked at him, frightened, and started running down the hill, calling Coo–ee! again to Clifford. The man above watched her, then turned, grinning faintly, back into his path.

She found Clifford slowly mounting to the spring, which was halfway up the slope of the dark larch–wood. He was there by the time she caught him up.

‘She did that all right,’ he said, referring to the chair.

Connie looked at the great grey leaves of burdock that grew out ghostly from the edge of the larch–wood. The people call it Robin Hood’s Rhubarb. How silent and gloomy it seemed by the well! Yet the water bubbled so bright, wonderful! And there were bits of eye–bright and strong blue bugle...And there, under the bank, the yellow earth was moving. A mole! It emerged, rowing its pink hands, and waving its blind gimlet of a face, with the tiny pink nose–tip uplifted.

‘It seems to see with the end of its nose,’ said Connie.

‘Better than with its eyes!’ he said. ‘Will you drink?’

‘Will you?’

She took an enamel mug from a twig on a tree, and stooped to fill it for him. He drank in sips. Then she stooped again, and drank a little herself.

‘So icy!’ she said gasping.

‘Good, isn’t it! Did you wish?’

‘Did you?’

‘Yes, I wished. But I won’t tell.’

She was aware of the rapping of a woodpecker, then of the wind, soft and eerie through the larches. She looked up. White clouds were crossing the blue.

‘Clouds!’ she said.

‘White lambs only,’ he replied.

A shadow crossed the little clearing. The mole had swum out on to the soft yellow earth.

‘Unpleasant little beast, we ought to kill him,’ said Clifford.

‘Look! he’s like a parson in a pulpit,’ she said.

She gathered some sprigs of woodruff and brought them to him.

‘New–mown hay!’ he said. ‘Doesn’t it smell like the romantic ladies of the last century, who had their heads screwed on the right way after all!’