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Dr. Horace Selby was a large, portly man with an
imposing presence. His nose and chin were bold and
pronounced, yet his features were puffy, a
combination which would blend more freely with the
wig and cravat of the early Georges than with the
close-cropped hair and black frock-coat of the end of
the nineteenth century. He was clean shaven, for his
mouth was too good to cover--large, flexible, and
sensitive, with a kindly human softening at either
corner which with his brown sympathetic eyes had
drawn out many a shame-struck sinner's secret. Two
masterful little bushy side-whiskers bristled out
from under his ears spindling away upwards to merge
in the thick curves of his brindled hair. To his
patients there was something reassuring in the mere
bulk and dignity of the man. A high and easy bearing
in medicine as in war bears with it a hint of
victories in the past, and a promise of others to
come. Dr. Horace Selby's face was a consolation, and
so too were the large, white, soothing hands, one of
which he held out to his visitor.
"I am sorry to have kept you waiting. It is a
conflict of duties, you perceive--a host's to his
guests and an adviser's to his patient. But now I am
entirely at your disposal, Sir Francis. But dear me,
you are very cold."
"Yes, I am cold."
"And you are trembling all over. Tut, tut, this
will never do! This miserable night has chilled you.
Perhaps some little stimulant----"
"No, thank you. I would really rather not. And
it is not the night which has chilled me. I am
frightened, doctor."
The doctor half-turned in his chair, and he
patted the arch of the young man's knee, as he might
the neck of a restless horse.
"What then?" he asked, looking over his shoulder
at the pale face with the startled eyes.
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