He gave up his doctoring, at last, in despair, and folding his arms, looked down at what lay on the table, and tried to convince himself that it was Ormiston.

So absorbed was he in the endeavor, that he heeded not the passing moments, until it struck him with a shock that Hubert might even now be waiting for him at the trysting-place, with news of Leoline.

Love is stronger than friendship, stronger than grief, stronger than death, stronger than every other feeling in the world; so he suddenly seized his hat, turned his back on Ormiston and the apothecary's shop, and strode off to the place he had quitted.
No Hubert was there, but two figures were passing slowly along in the moonlight, and one of them he recognized, with an impulse to spring at him like a tiger and strangle him.

But he had been so shocked and subdued by his recent discovery, that the impulse which, half an hour before, would have been unhesitatingly obeyed, went for nothing, now; and there was more of reproach, even, than anger in his voice, as he went over and laid his hand on the shoulder of one of them.
"Stay!" he said.

"One word with you, Count L'Estrange.