Page:Edgar Jepson--the four philanthropists.djvu/223

Rh too, that three of the maids had already fled from the Manor-house to the village, and that each of them remembered at least a score of occasions on which Mrs. Jubb had acted like a mad woman. They were in the full flood of their talk when Marmaduke and Mr. Brodrick returned. They had found Dr. Beach out, but had left a note for him, begging him to come to us as soon as he returned.

We had a private sitting-room, and sat in it while our dinner was being cooked. Talk languished; for that peculiarly human sense of being the hub of the universe was very strong on Mr. Brodrick at the moment, and he sat in a portentous silence looking, or at any rate trying to look, a man of extraordinary power and ability dealing with the crisis of a century.

Dinner was a relief, and we had scarcely begun when Dr. Beach was announced. He was the very type of the old-time, country doctor, wearing the very air of a man whose chief reliance was on calomel and again calomel. Marmaduke invited him to join us, and he joined us with an appetite. Little was said of the business which had brought us together during the meal; at the end of it, on my suggestion, Marmaduke ordered a bottle of port, and when we had closed round it, the lawyer asked the doctor his opinion of Mrs. Jubb.

Dr. Beach shook his head solemnly, and said: