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iday.
‘I’ve got a rotten nature,’ he said to himself. ‘I look for-
ward to things awfully, and then when they come I’m always
disappointed.’
He reached Blackstable early in the afternoon. Mrs. Fos-
ter met him at the door, and her face told him that his uncle
was not yet dead.
‘He’s a little better today,’ she said. ‘He’s got a wonderful
constitution.’
She led him into the bed-room where Mr. Carey lay on
his back. He gave Philip a slight smile, in which was a trace
of satisfied cunning at having circumvented his enemy once
more.
‘I thought it was all up with me yesterday,’ he said, in an
exhausted voice. ‘They’d all given me up, hadn’t you, Mrs.
Foster?’
‘You’ve got a wonderful constitution, there’s no denying
that.’
‘There’s life in the old dog yet.’
Mrs. Foster said that the Vicar must not talk, it would
tire him; she treated him like a child, with kindly despotism;
and there was something childish in the old man’s satisfac-
tion at having cheated all their expectations. It struck him
at once that Philip had been sent for, and he was amused
that he had been brought on a fool’s errand. If he could only
avoid another of his heart attacks he would get well enough
in a week or two; and he had had the attacks several times
before; he always felt as if he were going to die, but he nev-
er did. They all talked of his constitution, but they none of

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