Chapter 17: An Unexpected Visitor

In appearance the doctor had altered but little since we saw him last. He was the same little wizened old man, with the slight stoop, and the sunken eyes which looked out so keenly from under the thick, overhanging thatch of his shaggy eyebrows. When she heard his voice, and saw him, Margaret, running to him--before Harry, before the servant--put her arms about his neck (she could easily do it, since he was the shorter), and, after looking at him fixedly, as if to make sure that he was still the same man, kissed him on the lips.

“Dr. Twelves, to think of your coming to see me after all these years!”

“And whose fault is it that I haven’t come before? whose fault I’d like to know?”

“It certainly isn’t mine.”

“Not yours? when I hadn’t a notion where to look for you, and you took care that I hadn’t? It’s only by the grace of God I’ve chanced upon you now. I was looking in a bit of a magazine, at an illustration which seemed to me to be pretty fair, when I saw your name in the corner--Margaret Wallace--in your own handwriting. I can tell you I jumped--there, in the railway carriage--so that I daresay my fellow-passengers thought that I’d a sudden gouty twinge or, maybe, rheumatism, for none can say that I look like a gouty subject. I went straight to the office where the magazine is published, and I asked them to tell me where you might be found. I believe they thought I’d designs upon your life, or, at least, upon your purse. I had to tell them such a yarn before they’d tell me. Then I took care to follow the girl up the stairs, so that, if you meant to deny yourself, you shouldn’t have a chance.”

“Deny myself?--to you?--doctor! what a notion!--as if I should!” By now the servant had retired; Miss Wallace, who still retained a hand upon her visitor’s shoulder, had brought him into the room. “Harry, this is Dr. Twelves, of whom you have so often heard me speak. Doctor, this is Mr. Talfourd, whose wife I hope one day to be.”

“I trust, young gentleman, that your deserts are equal to your good fortune, and that you’re properly conscious how great that is. I’ve known this lassie since the time she seemed all hair and legs, for those were the parts of her you noticed most, and there hasn’t been a day on which I haven’t wanted her to be my wife.”

“Now, doctor, that’s contrary to the fact; you know you told me more than once that Providence had marked you out to be a bachelor.”

“And wasn’t that self-evident, since you wouldn’t have me? Now, Margaret Wallace, what have you been doing?”