Some thought they knew that business.

(At this there was a responsive titter throughout the major portion of the room, and Gordon Keith was furious with himself for finding that he suddenly turned hot and red.) He himself, the speaker said, didn't pretend to know anything about it, but he wanted to say that if Mr.Keith didn't find the business as profitable as he expected, the trustees had determined to hold the place open for him for one year, and had elected a successor temporarily to hold it in case he should want to come back.
At this there was a round of approval, as near general applause as that stolid folk ever indulged in.
Keith spent the next day in taking leave of his friends.
His last visit that evening was to Dr.Balsam.He had not been to the village often in the evening since Mrs.Yorke and her daughter had left the place.

Now, as he passed up the walk, the summer moonlight was falling full on the white front of the little hotel.

The slanting moonlight fell on the corner of the verandah where he had talked so often to Alice Yorke as she lay reclining on her lounge, and where he had had that last conversation with Mrs.Yorke, and Keith saw a young man leaning over some one enveloped in white, half reclining in an arm-chair.

He wondered if the same talk were going on that had gone on there before that evening when Mrs.Yorke had made him look nakedly at Life.
When Keith stated his errand, the Doctor looked almost as grave as he could have done had one of his cherished patients refused to respond to his most careful treatment.
"One thing I want to say to you," he said presently "You have been eating your heart out of late about something, and it is telling on you.
Give it up.