"He declares it will come down upon us
and cleave us, like 'the sword of the Lord and of Gideon.'"
"Well; can I do anything else?" asked he.
"The doctor says the tree ought to be cut down."
"Oh--you've had the doctor?"
"I didn't send for him Mrs. Charmond, before she left, heard that
father was ill, and told him to attend him at her expense."
"That was very good of her. And he says it ought to be cut down.
We mustn't cut it down without her knowledge, I suppose."
He went up-stairs. There the old man sat, staring at the now
gaunt tree as if his gaze were frozen on to its trunk. Unluckily
the tree waved afresh by this time, a wind having sprung up and
blown the fog away, and his eyes turned with its wavings.
They heard footsteps--a man's, but of a lighter type than usual.
"There is Doctor Fitzpiers again," she said, and descended.
Presently his tread was heard on the naked stairs.
Mr. Fitzpiers entered the sick-chamber just as a doctor is more or
less wont to do on such occasions, and pre-eminently when the room
is that of a humble cottager, looking round towards the patient
with that preoccupied gaze which so plainly reveals that he has
wellnigh forgotten all about the case and the whole circumstances
since he dismissed them from his mind at his last exit from the
same apartment.
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