Had the woman left an infection of wickedness in the house, and had he caught it?
What devil had possessed him to degrade himself in the eyes of his own servant?
He had behaved infamously--he had asked an honest man, a man who had served him faithfully for years, to turn spy! Stung by the bare thought of it, he ran out into the hall again, and opened the door.
The servant had disappeared; it was too late to call him back.

But one refuge from his contempt for himself was now open to him--the refuge of work.

He got into his carriage and went his rounds among his patients.
If the famous physician could have shaken his own reputation, he would have done it that afternoon.

Never before had he made himself so little welcome at the bedside.

Never before had he put off until to-morrow the prescription which ought to have been written, the opinion which ought to have been given, to-day.