The doctor's professional visit to Hintock House was promptly repeated the next day and the next.

He always found Mrs.Charmond reclining on a sofa, and behaving generally as became a patient who was in no great hurry to lose that title.

On each occasion he looked gravely at the little scratch on her arm, as if it had been a serious wound.
He had also, to his further satisfaction, found a slight scar on her temple, and it was very convenient to put a piece of black plaster on this conspicuous part of her person in preference to gold-beater's skin, so that it might catch the eyes of the servants, and make his presence appear decidedly necessary, in case there should be any doubt of the fact.
"Oh--you hurt me!" she exclaimed one day.
He was peeling off the bit of plaster on her arm, under which the scrape had turned the color of an unripe blackberry previous to vanishing altogether.

"Wait a moment, then--I'll damp it," said Fitzpiers.

He put his lips to the place and kept them there till the plaster came off easily.