midday on Tuesday
It was quite impossible , so they said , to find him . With his experience of the country , St. John thought it unlikely that a telegram would either be sent or received ; but having reduced the distance of the hill town , in which he was staying , from a hundred miles to thirty miles , and having hired a carriage and horses , he started at once to fetch the doctor himself . He succeeded in finding him , and eventually forced the unwilling man to leave his young wife and return forthwith . They reached the villa at midday on Tuesday . Terence came out to receive them , and St. John was struck by the fact that he had grown perceptibly thinner in the interval ; he was white too ; his eyes looked strange . But the curt speech and the sulky masterful manner of Dr. Lesage impressed them both favourably , although at the same time it was obvious that he was very much annoyed at the whole affair . Coming downstairs he gave his directions emphatically , but it never occurred to him to give an opinion either because of the presence of Rodriguez who was now obsequious as well as malicious , or because he took it for granted that they knew already what was to be known .