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should not be struck off?’
    â€˜I understand your qualms. Yet I believe you should. For Sam, in this case, did everything he could to ensure that Blair was safe. He warned him of the danger, and took every care, to keep him in good health. His instruments were clean, and he told him to rest. If John Blair had followed his surgeon’s sound advice, he would still be well. But he was adamant, quite adamant, that he must be bled. And we must wonder why.’
    â€˜I do wonder it,’ said Giles. ‘It is not common practice in a patient.’
    â€˜In the first place, he did not take heed of his surgeon’s words as keenly as he should. He believed, wrongly, that Sam Sturrock was refusing him the treatment he required because he had encroached upon the surgeon’s trade; therefore, he was well disposed to disregard his sound advice. And, in the second place, he had it on the highest, most impeccable authority that bleeding was the proper course in his state of health. He had it from the mouth of the finest of physicians. Whose opinion, for sure, he valued over Sam’s.’
    â€˜What physician?’ murmured Giles. ‘I understood that none was called.’
    â€˜Nor was there, at the time. But the candlemaker Blair had paid to have a horoscope, that telt to him the details of his disposition. And what was written there he followed to his end.’
    â€˜A horoscope?’ Giles groaned. ‘Dear God, the beadle Blair! I drew up his horoscope! But that was years ago. He came to see me when I first came to the town.’
    â€˜And did you tell him that he should be bled?’
    â€˜I may have done. As I seem to recall, he had the most unbalanced disposition, I have ever come across. There was undoubtedly a superfluity of blood. But Hew, I did not mean to say, whatever was the time, for any kind of ill, I should prescribe phlebotomy, as an essential cure.’
    â€˜Whatever else you meant, he took you at your word. And never had forgotten it.’
    â€˜Dear God. Then I am to blame, quite as much as Sam.’
    â€˜Neither of you caused the candlemaker’s death. And though it may be true the time was out of joint, the season was most pertinent, most poignantly, for him.’
    â€˜Well,’ reflected Giles. ‘I will write that we both did act in honest faith, and that Sam’s actions, surely, did the man no harm, save that they sparked off a sad train of events, which could have taken place at any other time. And yet, I count it strange it came to him at Candlemas. There is a kind of fate we cannot understand, and are powerless to control. Still, this tragic tale could well have been averted, if the surgeons and physicians were on better terms, and more like to trust each other. I will write that too.’
    â€˜I believe it true. Balance in all things,’ said Hew. ‘Is not that the principle, on which your art is based?’
    He returned to Kenly Green, with a light and steady heart, and with Johannes’s candles safely in his hands. The house was strange and dark. ‘Where are you, my love?’ he cried out to the hall. ‘I have brought a gift will light you to a smile.’
    A servant came out from the kitchen, an elderly woman he had thought long retired. ‘Peace to you, sir, do not be alarmed.’ Never had such words impressed on him more violently, the opposite effect.
    â€˜Where is my wife?’
    â€˜Mistress Meg is here, and the midwife too. All is in hand.’
    â€˜What midwife here?’
    â€˜The labour has begun.’
    He stared at her. ‘It cannot have begun. It is far too soon. I must go to Frances.’
    â€˜Whisht, will you sir, you cannot see her now. Leave them to their work. She is in good hands. Come to the kitchen. There is a fire, and a warming drink.’
    â€˜I do not want your fire,’ Hew protested peevishly, ‘I want to see my wife.’ His house rebelled against him, thwarted