This divided impulse was a torture, and as the weeks
went on he ate less and less and slept scarcely at all. He had been
for a long time past in delicate health owing to the weakness of his
heart, and now he began to look strange indeed, with his bright
gaunt face with its prominent cheek-bones, his eyes straining to see
beyond his actual vision, his flowing white beard. His doctor, a
cheerful, commonplace little man, a member of the Chapel, although
not a Saint, tried to do his best with him, but his visits only led
to scenes of irritation, and Warlock obeyed none of his commands.
After a visit on the afternoon of Christmas Eve he took Amy aside:
"Look here," he said, "unless you keep a stricter eye on your father
than you have been doing he'll be leaving you altogether."
She looked up at him with that odd dark impassivity that seemed to
remove her so deliberately from her fellow-beings.
"It's very well to talk like that," she said. "But how is any one to
have any control over him? He listens to nothing that we say, and if
we insist he's in a frenzy of irritation."
"Can your mother do nothing?" the doctor asked.
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