Had Dr.West not been a family doctor, the scandal might have been allowed to die out: as it was, Deerham kept up the ball, and rolled it.

The chief motive for this, the one that influenced Deerham above all others, was unsatisfied curiosity.
Could Deerham have gratified this to the full, it would have been content to subside into quietness.
Whether it was true, or whether it was false, there was no denying that it had happened at an unfortunate moment for Dr.West.A man always in debt--and what he did with his money Deerham could not make out, for his practice was a lucrative one--he had latterly become actually embarrassed.

Deerham was good-natured enough to say that a handsome sum had found its way to Chalk Cottage, in the shape of silence-money, or something of the sort; but Deerham did not know.

Dr.West was at his wits' end where to turn to for a shilling--had been so, for some weeks past; so that he had no particular need of anything worse coming down upon him.

Perhaps what gave a greater colour to the scandal than anything else was the fact that, simultaneously with its rise, Dr.
West's visits to Chalk Cottage had suddenly ceased.
Only one had been bold enough to speak upon the subject personally to Dr.West, and that was the proud old baronet, Sir Rufus Hautley.