"Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation."—Bible.
"Don't be so hard on yourself, Nellie. I am sure it can be no great wrong you have done. Girls like you are too apt to be morbid. No doubt we all do it, whatever it is. I'm sure I shall not blame you when you tell me. Perhaps I shall say you are quite right—that is, if there is any right and wrong to it, and provided I know which is which, after I hear the whole story—as most likely I shall not. Right—"
And here the elder woman smiled a little satirically, and looked out of the window with a far-away gaze, as if she were retravelling through vast spaces of time and experience far beyond anything her friend could comprehend.
The evening shadows had gathered, and cast, as they will, a spell of gravity and exchange of confidences over the two.
Presently the older woman began speaking again:
"Do you know, Nell, I was always a little surprised that Lord Byron, of all people, should have put it that way:
"I know the right, and I approve it too;Condemn the wrong—and yet the wrong pursue.
"Theright '—why, it is like a woman to say that. As if there were but one 'right,' and it were dressed in purple and fine linen, and seated on a throne in sight of the assembled multitude! 'The right.' indeed! Yes, it sounds like a woman—and a very young woman at that, Nellie."
The girl looked with large, troubled, passionate eyes at her friend, and then broke out into hot, indignant words—words that would have offended many a woman; but Florence Campbell only laughed, a light, queer little peal; tipped her chair a trifle farther back, put her daintily slippered feet on the satin cushion of the low window-seat, and looked at her friend, through the gathering darkness, from under half-closed eyelids.
Presently—this woman was always deliberate in her conversation; long silences were a part of her power in interesting and keeping the full attention of her listeners—presently she said:
"Of course you think so. Why shouldn't you? So did I—once. And do you know, Nellie, that sort of sentiment dies hard—veryhard—in a woman. At your age—" Florence Campbell always spoke as if she were very old, although to look at her one would say that she was not twenty-eight.
These delicately formed Dresden-china women often carry their age with such an easy grace—it sits upon them so lightly—in spite of ill-health, mental storms, and moral defeats, that while their more robust sisters grow haggard and worn, and hard of feature and tone, under weights less terrible and with feelings less intense, they keep their grace and gentleness of tone in the teeth of every blast.
"At your age, dear, I would have scorned a woman who talked as I do now; and more than that, I would have suspected her, as you do not suspect me, of being a very dangerous and not unlikely a very bad person indeed—simply from choice. While you—you generous little soul—think that I am better than I talk."
She laughed again, and shifted her position as if she were not wholly comfortable under the troubled gaze of the great eyes she knew were fastened upon her.
"You think I am better than my opinions. I know exactly what you tell yourself about me when you are having it out with yourself upstairs. Oh, I know! You excuse me for saying this on the theory that it was not deliberate—was an oversight. You account for that by the belief that I am not well—my nerves are shaken. You are perfectly certain thatIam all right, no matter what I do, or say, or think." She took her little friend's soft hand as it twisted nervously a ribbon in her lap, and held the back of it against her cheek, as she often did. "But just suppose it were some one else—some other woman, Nellie, you would suspect her (no doubt quite unfairly) of all the crimes in the statute-books. Oh, I know, I know, child! I did—at your age—and, sad to relate,Ihad no Florence Campbell to soften my judgments on even one of my sex."
She had grown serious as she talked, and her voice almost trembled. The instant she recognized this herself, she laughed again, and said gayly:
"Oh, I was a very severe judge—once—I do assure you, though you may not think so now." She dropped her voice to a tone of mocking solemnity, not uncommon with her, and added: "If you won't tell on me, I'll make a little confession to you, dear;" and she took both of the girl's hands firmly in her own and waited until the promise was given.
"I wouldn't have it get out for the world, but the fact is, Nell, I sometimes strongly suspect that, at your age, I was—a most unmitigated, self-righteous little prig."
Nellie's hands gave a disappointed little jerk: but her friend held them firmly, laughed gayly at her discomfiture—for she recognized fully that the girl was attuned to tragedy—buried her face in them! for an instant, and then deliberately kissed in turn each pink little palm—not omitting her own. Then she dropped those of her friend, and leaned back against her cushions and sighed.
Nellie was puzzled and annoyed. She was on the verge of tears.
"Florence, darling," she said presently, "if I did not know you to be the best woman in the world, I shouldn't know what to make of your dark hints, and of—and of you. You are always a riddle to me—a beautiful riddle, with a good answer, if only I could guess it. You talk like a fiend, sometimes, and you act like—an angel, always."
"Give me up. You can't guess me. Fact is, I haven't got any answer," laughed Florence.
But the girl went steadily on without seeming to hear her: "Do you know, there are times when I wonder if it would be possible to be insane and vicious, mentally andverbally, as it were, and perfectly sane and exaltedly good morally."
Florence Campbell threw herself back on her cushions and laughed gayly, albeit a trifle hysterically. "Photograph taken by an experienced artist!" she exclaimed. "You've hit me! Oh, you've hit me, Nell." Then sitting suddenly bolt-upright, she looked the girl searchingly in the face, and said slowly: "Do you know, Nellie, that I am sometimes tempted to tell the truth? About myself, I mean—and toyou. Never on any other subject, nor to anybody else, of course," she added dryly, in comedy tones, strangely contrasting with the almost tragic accents as she went on. "But I can't. 'Thetruth!' Why, it is liketheright; I'm sure I don't know what it is; and it has been so long—oh, so cruelly long—since I told it, by word or action, that I have lost its very likeness from my mind. I have told lies and acted lies so long—" Her friend's eyes grew indignant and she began to protest, but Florence ran on: "I have evaded facts—not only to others, but to myself, until—until I'd have to swear out a search-warrant and have it served on my mental belongings to find out myself what Idothink or feel or want on any given subject."
It was characteristic of the woman to use this flippant method of expression, even in her most intense moments.
"I change so, Nell; sometimes suddenly—all in a flash."
There was a long silence. Then she began again, quite seriously:
"There is a theory, you know, that we inherit traits and conditions from our remote ancestors as well as from our immediate ones. I sometimes fancy that they descend to some people with a Time Lock attachment. A child is born"—she held out her hands as if a baby lay on them—"he is like his mother, we will say, gentle, sweet, kind, truthful, for years—let us say seven. Suddenly the Time Lock turns, and the traits of his father (modified, of course, by the acquired habits of seven years) show themselves strongly—take possession, in fact. Another seven years, and the priggishness of a great-uncle, the stinginess of an aunt, or the dullness, in books, of a rural grandfather. Then, in keeping with the next two turns of the Lock, he falls in love with every new face he sees, marries early and indulges himself recklessly in a large family. He is an exemplary husband and father, as men go, an ideal business man, and a general favorite in society."
She was running on now as if her words had the whip-hand of her.
"Everybody remarks upon the favorable change since his stupid, priggish college days. All this time, through every change, he has been honorable and upright in his dealings with his fellows. Suddenly the Time Lock of a Thievish Ancestor is turned on; he finds temptation too strong for even that greatly under-estimated power—the force of habit of a lifetime—and the trust funds in his keeping disappear with him to Canada. Everybody is surprised, shocked, pained—and he, no doubt, more so than any one else. Emotional insanity is offered as a possible explanation by the charitable; longheaded, calculating, intentional rascality, by the severe or self-righteous. And he? Well, he is wholly unable to account for it at all. Heknowsthat he had not lived all these years as a conscious, self-controlled thief. Heknowsthat the temptations of his past life had never before taken that particular form. Heknowsthat the impulse was sudden, blinding, overwhelming; but he does not know why and how. It was like an awful dream. He seemed to be powerless to overcome it. The Time Lock had turned without his knowledge, and in spite of himself. The unknown, unheard-of Thievish Ancestor took possession, as it were, through force of superior strength and ability—and then it was his hour. The hereditary shadow on the dial had come around to him. The great-uncle's hour was past.He, no doubt, was 'turned on' to some other dazed automaton—in Maine or Texas—who had fallen heir to a drop too much of his blood, and she, poor thing, if it happened to be a girl this time, forthwith proceeded to fall in love with her friend's husband—seeing he was the only man at hand at the time; while the Thievish Ancestor left—in shame and contrition—a small but light-fingered boy in Georgia, to keep his engagement with our respectable, highly honored, and heretofore highly honorable man of affairs in Wall street. The Time Lock of heredity had been set for this hour, and the machinery of circumstances oiled the wheels and silently moved the dial." There was absolute silence when Florence Camp-bell's voice ceased. The heavy curtains made the shadows in the struggling moonlight deep and solemn. Two great eyes looked out into the darkness and a shudder passed over her frame. She thought her little friend had fallen asleep, she lay so still and quiet on the rug at her feet. Florence sighed, and thought how quickly youth forgot its troubles and how lightly Care sat on her throne. Then suddenly a passionate sobbing broke the silence, and two arms, covered with lace and jewels, flung themselves around the older woman's knees.
"O my God! Florence; O my God! is there no way to stop the wheels? Must they go blindly on? Can weneverknow who or what we shall be to-morrow? It is awful, Florence, awful; and—it—istrue!O God! it istrue!"
Florence Campbell had been very serious when she stopped her little harangue. There had been a quality in her voice which, while it was not wholly new to her friend,wouldhave been unknown to many who thought they knew her well. To them she was a beautiful, fashionable, rather light woman, with a gay nature, who either did not know, or did not care to investigate too closely, the career of her husband, to whom she was devotedly attached.
She had been quite serious, I say, when she stopped her little philosophical speculation; but she was greatly surprised at the storm she had raised in the breast of her little friend.
Florence bent down quickly, and putting her arms about the girl tried to raise her up; but she only sobbed the harder, and clung to her friend's knees as a desperate, frightened creature might cling to its only refuge.
"Why, Nellie, little kitten," said the older woman, using a term of endearment common with her in talking with the girl—"why, Nellie, little kitten, what in the world is the matter? Did I scare the life out of you with my Time Locks and my gruesome ancestors?" and she tried to laugh a little; but the sound of her voice was not altogether pleasant to the ear. "I'll ring for a light. I had no business to talk such stuff to you when you were blue and in the dark too. I guess, Nell, that the Time Lock ofmyremote ancestor, who was a fool, must have been turned on me shortly after sundown to-day, don't you think?" And this time her laugh lacked the note of bitterness it had held before.
She ran on, still caressing the weeping girl at her feet:
"Yes, undoubtedly, my Remote Ancestor—the fool—has now moved in. Do you think you can stand seven years of him, kitten, if you live with me that long? But you won't. You'll go and marry some horrid man, and I shall be so jealous that my hair will curl at sight of him."
But the girl would not laugh. She refused to be cheered, nor would she have a light. She raised herself until her head rested on her friend's bosom, and clung to her, sobbing as if her heart would break. Florence stroked her hair and sat silent for a while, wondering just what had so shaken the child. She knew full well that it wasnotwhat she had hinted of the darkness and her gruesome story. Presently Nellie drew her friend's face down, and whispered between her sobs:
"Darling, I must have had some dreadful ancestor, a wicked—wickedwoman. I—"
Florence Campbell shrieked with laughter. She felt relieved of—she did not know what. She had blamed herself for even unconsciously touching the secret spring of sorrow in the girl's heart. It was a strange sight, the two women clinging to each other, the one sobbing, the other laughing, each trying in vain to check the other.
At last Nellie said, still almost in a whisper: "But, Florence, you do not know. You do not understand. You are too good to know. It is you who will scorn and hate me when I tell you. O Florence, Florence, I can neverdareto tell you!" Her friend, still laughing, made little ejaculations of satirical import as the girl grew more and more hysterical.
"O thou wicked wretch!" laughed she. "No doubt you've killed your man, as they say out West. Oh, dear—oh, dear! Nell, this is really quite delicious! Did it step on a bug? Or was it a great big spider? And does it think it ought to be hanged for the crime? A peal of laughter from the one, a shudder from the other, was the only reply to these efforts to break the force of the girl's self-reproach. Florence clinched her small fist in mock heroics and began again:
"Your crimes have found you out! And mine—mine—has been the avenging hand! Really, this is too good, kitten. I shall tell, let me see—I shall tell—Tom!"
The girl was on her feet in a flash.
"Not that!not that, Florence! Anything but that! I will tell you myself first—heshall not?" Florence grew suddenly silent and grave. The girl slipped down at her knees again, and clasping her hand, went hoarsely on:
"O Florence, darling, I did not mean to wrong you! Truly, truly, I did not—and I do not believehedid—not at—first. We—oh, it was—" she sank on the floor, at the feet of her astonished friend, and with upstretched arms in the darkness whispered: "Florence, Florence—O my God! Icannottell you! I must go away!I must go away!" The older woman did not touch the outstretched hands and they sank to the floor, and on them rested a tear-stained, wretched face.
A moment later Tom Campbell entered the room. To eyes unaccustomed to the darkness nothing was visible. He did not see his wife, who arose as he entered, and stood with bated breath over the form of the girl on the floor.
"By Jove!" he muttered, "this room is as dark as Egypt, and then some—Wonder where Florence is. Those damned servants ought to be shot! Whole house like a confounded coal-pit! Didn't expect me for hours yet, I suppose! That's no reason for living like a lot of damned bats! 'Fraid of musquitoes, I suppose. Where are those matches?Florence!She's evidently gone out—or to bed. Wonder where her little 'kitten' is? Umm—wonder how much longer Florence means to keep her here? Don't see how the thing's going to go on much longer this way, with a girl with a conscience like that. Perfectly abnormal! Perfectly ridiculous! Umm—no more tact than—"
Nellie moaned aloud. Florence had held her breath, hoping he would go. He had almost reached the door leading to the hall, after his vain search for matches.
"Hello! what was that?" said Campbell, turning again into the room.
His wife knew that escape was not now possible. "Nothing, Tom," she said, in a voice that trembled a little. "Go upstairs. I will come up soon."
"Why, hello, Florence, that you? What are you sitting here in the dark for, all alone? Why didn't you speak to me when I came in? What did you let me—"
Nellie sat up, and in doing so overturned a chair.
Tom's eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. He saw the two women outlined before him, and he saw that Nellie had been on the floor, and that his wife stood over her.
"What's the matter?" he demanded. "What's up?"
He came toward them. Nellie sprang to her feet, with flashing eyes and outstretched, imploring hands to wave him back. She was about to rush into a painful explanation. Florence stepped toward her, put both arms about her, and drew her onto the cushioned window-seat at their side. She knew she must cover the girl's agitation from her husband, and somehow gain time to think.
"Sit down, dear," she said softly. "Sit down here by me. You have been asleep. He frightened you coming in so suddenly. You have been dreaming; you talked in your sleep—but it was all nonsense—about an ancestor, whom you blamed very bitterly."
The girl began to speak impulsively, but Florence checked her.
"Yes, I know. You told me. It was all the greatest stuff. But the part that was true—I doubt if she was to blame. I think, from all I know of—of her, and of the gentleman you mentioned, the one she—seemed to care for—that—oh, no, kitten! I amsure shewas not to blame."
Nellie was trembling violently, clinging to her friend in shame and remorse. Tom stood perfectly quiet in the deeper darkness, back from the window, with a smile on his cheerful face and a puzzled light in his handsome eyes.
"Go upstairs, Tom," said Florence again, this time in a steadier tone. "Nellie's head aches; you waked her up too suddenly. We don't want more light—do we, Nellie? Not just now. We have quite light enough for the present. I assure you we are better off just now in the dark. You would think so yourself if you could see us as we see ourselves. We are quite battered and out at elbow, I assure you, and not at all fit for fastidious masculine eyes."
She was pulling herself up well. "To-morrow we will spruce up our bangs, put on fresh gowns, and not know ourselves for the wretches we are tonight. Until then, Sir Knight, no masculine eye shall rest upon our dilapidation. Go!"
Tom Campbell had seen his wife in this mood before. He went.
All the way upstairs he wondered what had happened. "Never could make women out anyway," he muttered; "least of all, Florence. Women are a queer lot. More you live with 'em, more you don't know what they'll do next. Wonder what in thunder's up. 'Kitten' never said a word; but I'm damned if I did't hear her groan! Guess the little goose feels kind of—queer—with me and the old lady both present. Wonder—whew!—wonder how much I said aloud, and how much they heard when I first went in! Confounded habit, talking aloud to myself! Got to stop it, old boy; must be done—get you into trouble yet!"
Then he turned off the gas, and was sleeping as peacefully as an infant before the two women below stairs had parted for the night.
When Tom left the room, Nellie began to sob again, and Florence stroked her hair with her icy hands and waited for the girl to speak—or grow calm. And for herself—she hardly knew what she waited for in herself; but she felt that she needed time.
After a long silence she said, quite gently; "Nellie, little girl, we will go upstairs now; you will go to bed. If you ever feel like it, after you take time to think it over, and your nerves are quiet—if you ever feel like it, you may tell just what trick your troublesome ancestor has tried to play you; but I want to say now, dear, don't feel that youmusttell me, nor that I do not know perfectly well that my little kitten is all right, ancestors or no ancestors, and that we, together can somehow find the combination to that Time Lock that so distresses you, and turn it off again. Meantime, little girlno oneshall harm you. You shall be let alone; you are all right! Besureof that. I am. Now, good-night;" and she kissed the still sobbing girl on the forehead and hands, in spite, of her protests and self-accusations.
Suddenly Nellie sank on her knees again, and grasped Florence's dress as she had turned to go:
"O Florence! O Florence! are you human? Howcanyou? You are not like other women! O my God! if I could only be like you; but you frighten me! You are so calm. How cold your hands are! oh—"
"Are they? I did not notice. Oh well, no matter; it is an old trick of theirs, you know."
Florence Campbell's voice was very steady now. Her words were slow and deliberate—they sounded as if she was very tired; and her step, as she climbed the stairs, had lost its spring and lightness.
The next morning Nellie's breakfast was carried to her room, with a message from Florence not to get up until she came to her at their usual hour for reading together.
About noon, as the girl lay thinking for the hundredth time that she must get up and face life again—that she must somehow stop this blinding headache, and go away—that she must die—Florence swept into the room, trailing her soft, long gown behind her, and gently closed the door. She had put on a gay pink tea-gown, with masses of white lace and smart little bows in unexpected places.
"Feel better, dear?" she asked, gayly. "Griggs told me your head ached, and that you had not slept well. I confess I did not either—not very. Tom and I talked rather late; you know he sails for Liverpool at noon. Sure enough, you didn't know. Well, no matter. The vessel is just about sailing now. Yes, it israthersudden. We talked so much of it last night that it seems quite an old story to me to-day, though. You know he was to go in two weeks, anyway. It seemed best to go earlier, so I helped him pack, and saw him to the steamer two hours ago. You know a man doesn't have to take anything but a tooth-brush and a smoking-cap. We thought it would be best for his health to go at once. Tom has not seemed quite himself of late." She did not look at her friend as she talked and her white face was turned from the light. She talked so fast, it seemed as if she had rehearsed and was repeating a part with a desire to have it over as soon as might be. "His Travelling Ancestor, the one who wants change—change—change in all things, has had hold of him of late. I'm sure you have noticed how restless he was."
The girl sat up and listened with wide eyes and flushed cheeks. She had known many unexpected and unexplained things to be done in the house of this friend, who had given her a home and a warm welcome a year before, when she had left school, an orphan and homeless. But this sudden departure she had not heard even mentioned before. She thought she understood it.
"O Florence! Florence!" she cried, passionately. "It ismyfault! I have separated you! I have brought sorrow to you! You, who are so good,so good;and I—oh, howcanyou be so kind to me?Hateme!Hate me!Thrust me from your house, and tell the world I tried to steal your husband! Tell that I am vile and wicked! Tell—and now I have sent him away from you, who love him—whom he loves! Why do you not blame me? Why do you never blame anyone? Why—"
There was a pause; the girl sobbed bitterly, while the older woman seemed afraid to trust her voice. After a while in a tired, solemn tone, Nellie went on:
"Do you think you can believe a word I say, Florence? Is there any use for me to tell you the truth?"
Her friend nodded slowly, looking her steadily in the eyes. Her lips were tightly drawn together, and her hands were cold and trembling.
"Then, Florence, I will tell you, truly—truly—truly, as I hope for—" She was going to say "your forgiveness," but it seemed too cruel to ask for that just now. "I did not understand, not at first, either him or myself. I thought he was like you"—she felt Florence shudder—"and loved me, as he said, as you did. I was so glad and proud, until—until—O Florence! how can I tell you that I let himbegme to go away with him! After I understood what he meant, my heartdidleap, even in its utter self-abasement and wretchedness. I let him beg me twice, and kiss me,afterI understood! It must have been my fault; he said it was"—Florence took her friend's hand in hers—"and he said that no one else had ever taken his thoughts away from you."
The girl thought she saw the drawn lips before her curl; but she must free her whole heart now, and lay bare her very soul.
"He said that he had always been true to you, Florence, even in thought, until I—O Florence! I must be worse than anyone one earth. I—he said—"
Florence Campbell sprang to her feet. "Yes, I know, I know!" she exclaimed, breathlessly, "and youbelievedhim! Poor little fool! Women do. Sometimes a second time, but not a third time, dear—not a third time! Do not blame yourself any more." She stopped, then hurried on as one will do when danger threatens from within. "If it had not been you, it would, it might—my God! it might have been worse! Some poor girl—"
She stopped again as if choking. The two women looked at each other; the younger one gave a long, shuddering moan, and buried her face in her hands.
Presently Florence said slowly: "All ancestors were not thieves. Some were simply fickle, and light, and faithless."
Nellie raised a face full of passionate suffering: "Florence! Florence! how can you excuse either of us? Howcan—"
Suddenly, with a great sob, Florence Campbell threw herself into the girl's outstretched arms, and with a wail of utter desolation cried: "Hush, Nellie, hush! Never speak of it again, never! Onlyloveme,love me—love me!I need it so! Andnoone—no one in all the world has ever loved me truly!" It was the only time Nellie ever saw Florence Campbell lose her self-control.
"'Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss; in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakably meant for his ear...."
"Every man has a history worth knowing, if he could tell it, or if we could draw it from him."—Ralph Waldo Emerson.
I was sitting in my office, with my head in my hands, and with both elbows resting on my desk. I was tired in every nerve of my body; more than that, I was greatly puzzled over the strange conduct of my predecessor in the college, whose assistant I had been, and whose place I was appointed to fill during the unexpired term for which he had been elected lecturer on anatomy.
That morning he was to introduce me to the class formally as his successor, deliver his last lecture, and then retire from active connection with anatomical instruction.
Everything appeared to be perfectly arranged, and, indeed, some of the younger men—under my direction—had taken special pains to provide our outgoing and much admired professor with rather unusual facilities for a brilliant close to his career as our instructor.
I was feeling particularly pleased with the arrangements, when, after a neat little speech on his part, commendatory of me, and when we supposed him to be about to begin his lecture, he suddenly turned to me and said, bluntly: "You will be so good as to take the class to-day. Young gentlemen, I bid you good morning," and abruptly took up his hat and left. I sat facing an expectant and surprised class of shrewd young fellows, and I was quite unprepared to proceed.
I had intended my first lecture to be a great success. It was ready for the following day; but my notes were at home, and my position can, therefore, be better imagined than described.
I was thinking over this and the strange behavior of my generally punctilious predecessor, when he entered my office, unannounced, and, after the ordinary salutations and apologies for having placed me in so undesirable a position in the morning, he told me the following episode from his history. I will give it in his own words, omitting, as far as possible, all comment made by me at the time, thus endeavoring to leave you alone with him and his story, as I was that night. This will better enable me to impart the effect to you as it was conveyed to me at the time. It greatly interested me then, but the more I think it over, the less am I able to decide, in my own mind, all of the psychological questions which it aroused then and which it has since called up. This is the story.
I am, as you know, not a young man, and in the practice of my profession, which has extended over a period of nearly thirty years, I have learned to diagnose the cases that come under my care very slowly and by degrees. Every year has taught me, what you will undoubtedly learn—for I have great hopes for your future career—that physical symptoms are often the results of mental ailments, and that, while cordials and powders are sometimes very useful aids, the first and all-important thing is to understand fully thetruehistory of my patient.
I have laid stress upon the word true, simply because whileahistory is easy enough to get, about the most difficult matter in this world to secure isthehistory of one who comes to a physician ailing in body or in mind. It is easy enough to treat a broken leg, a gunshot wound, or even that ghastliest of physical foes, diphtheria, if it is one of these and nothing more.
But if it is a broken leg as to outward sign, and a broken heart as an inward fact, then the case is quite another matter, and the treatment involves skill of a different kind.
If the bullet that tore its way through the body was poisoned with the bitterness of disappointment, anxiety, terror, or remorse, something more is needed than bandages and beef-tea.
If diphtheria was contracted solely from a defective sewage-pipe, it will, no doubt, yield to remedies and pure air. But if long years of nervous and mental prostration have made ready its reception, the work to be done is of a much more serious nature.
So when I was first called to see Florence Campbell, the message conveyed to me threw no light on the case, beyond what the most ordinary observer would have detected at a glance.
The note read thus:
"Dr. H. Hamilton.
"Dear Sir: Although I have been in your city for several months, it is the first time since I came that I have myself felt that I needed medical attention. I have, therefore, not sent you the enclosed note (the history of which you no doubt know) until now. If you will read it, it will explain that the time has now come when, if you will come to me, I need your care.
"Yours respectfully,
"Florence Campbell."
"Parlor 13, F——— Ave. Hotel."
The note enclosed was from a physician in Chicago whom I had known intimately many years before, but with whom, contrary to the hint given by the lady, I had held no communication for a long time past. It said:
"My Dear Doctor: One of my patients is about to visit your city. The length of her stay is uncertain, and, as she is often ailing, she has asked me to give her a note to one whom I believe to be skilful and to possess the qualities which she requires in a physician. In thinking over the list of those known to me in New York, I have decided to give her this note to you. I need not commend her to you; she will do that for herself. You will see at a glance that she is a charming woman, and you will learn in five minutes' conversation with her, that she is a brilliant one. She is also one of those rare patients to whom you can afford to tell the unvarnished truth—an old hobby of yours, I remember—and from whom you can expect it. She has had no serious illness recently, but is rather subject to slight colds and sick headache. I give her sulph. 12. She always responds to that in time.
"Yours, as ever,
"Thomas C. Griswold."
I folded the note and laid it on my desk and took up a pen. Then, on second thought, I turned to the messenger and said, "Say to Miss Campbell that I will call at four o'clock this afternoon."
Before I had finished the sentence he was gone, and I laid down the pen and sat thinking.
How like Tom Griswold that was—the old Tom of college days—to write such a note as that and give it to a patient! "Sulph. 12"—and then I laughed outright at his interpretation of my desire for veracious relations between patient and practitioner, and re-read his note from end to end.
Then I read hers again. Neither of them indicated the slightest need of haste on my part.
I pictured a pretty little blonde—I knew Tom's taste. He had been betrothed to three different girls during the old days, and they had all been of that type; small, blue-eyed, Dresden-china sort of girls, who had each pouted—and married someone else in due time, after a "misunderstanding" with Tom.
One of these misunderstandings had been over some roses, I remember. They did not "match" her dress in color, and she was wretched. She told him he should have known better than to get that shade, when he knew very well that she never wore anything that would "go with" it.
He had naturally felt a little hurt, since he had bought the finest and highest-priced roses to be had, and expected ecstatic praise of his taste and extravagance. The "misunderstanding" was final, and, after a wretched evening and several days of tragic grief, five tinted notes of sorrow, reproach, and pride, they each began to flirt with some one else and to talk of the inconstancy of the other sex. They vowed, of course, that they would never marry anybody on earth, and finally engaged themselves to marry some one else, who perhaps, had just passed through a similar harrowing experience and was yearning to be consoled.
I remember that Tom smoked a great deal during this tragic period, that he looked gloomy, wore only black neckties, and allowed a cold to run on until it became thoroughly settled and had to be nursed all the rest of the winter.
He knew that smoking injured him, and he doubtless had an idea that he would end his misery by means of this cold, supplemented by nicotine poison. How near he might have approached to success it would be difficult to tell, if he had not met my sister Nellie at Christmas-time, and, after having told his woes to her, promised her, "as a friend," not to smoke again for three days and then to report to her. The report was satisfactory, and she then confessed that she had forsworn bonbons for the same length of time, as a sort of companionship in sacrifice.
This, of course, impressed Tom as a truly remarkable test of friendship and sympathy, and,—well, what is the use to tell the rest?
You will know it. It had no new features, so far as I can now recall, and I believe that they had been betrothed six months before Nellie met grave old Professor Menlo and began the study of Greek roots and mythology.
I think that, perhaps, Tom would have been all right if it had not been for the mythology. But Nellie was romantic, and the professor was an enthusiast in this branch of knowledge, and so, by and by, Tom, poor devil, took to smoking again—this time it was a pipe—and local papers were filled with notices of the romantic marriage of "Wisdom and Beauty," and poor little Nellie wrote a pathetic note to Tom, and sent it by me, with frantic directions not to allow him to kill himself because she had not understood her own heart; but that she loved him truly—as a friend—still, and he must come to see her andherprofessor in their new home on the hill. And, dear, dear, what a time I had with Tom! It is funny enough now; but even I felt sorry for him then, and shielded him from the least unnecessary pain by telling the boys that they absolutely must not congratulate me on my sister's marriage, nor mention it in any way whatever, when Tom was present, unless they wanted to have trouble with me personally.
And to think that Tom married Kittie Johnson before he had fairly finished his first year in the hospital service; and had to take her home for his father to support! Since then I had seen him from time to time, and heard of his large practice, his numerous children, and his elegant home; but he never talked of his wife, although I believed him to be perfectly satisfied with her. He seemed content, was prosperous beyond expectation, and had grown fat and gouty, when I last saw him at a medical convention. He attributed his too great flesh and his gout to the climate of his Western home, and was constantly threatening to retire from practice, and said that he should ultimately come to New York to live.
Yes, undoubtedly Florence Campbell is a petite blonde, with little white teeth and a roseleaf cheek, thought I, and I laughed, and rang for my carriage.
I do not know that I ever entered a more delicately perfumed room—and I am very sensitive to perfumes—than the one in which Florence Campbell sat.
She arose from her deep arm-chair as I entered, and, extending her hand, grasped mine with a vigor unusual in a woman, even when she is well.
"This is Dr. Hamilton?" she said, in a clear voice, which told nothing of pain, and was wholly free from the usually querulous note struck by women who are ill, or who think that they are. "This is Dr. Hamilton? I am very glad to see you, doctor. I am Florence Campbell. You received a note from your friend, Dr. Griswold, of Chicago, and one telling how I came to send it to you—how I came into possession of it." Direct of speech, clear of voice, hand feverish, but firm in grasp, I commented mentally, as she spoke.
This is not what I had expected. This is not the limp little blonde that I had pictured, on a lounge, in tears, with the light fluffy hair in disorder, and a tone of voice which plead for sympathy. This is not the figure I had expected to see.
She stood with her back to the light, very erect and well poised.
"Come to the window," I said. "Does your head ache?" That is always a safe question to ask, you know.
She laughed. "Oh, I don't know that it does—not particularly. I fancy there is not enough inside of it to ache much. Mere bone and vacuity could not do a great deal in that line, could it, doctor?" Then she laughed again. She looked me in the eyes, and I fancied she was diagnosingme.
Her eyes were deep, large, and brown, or a dark gray; her complexion was dark and clear—almost too transparent; her cheeks were flushed a little; and the light in her eyes was unnaturally intense.
She was evidently trying to gain time—to take my measure.
"It is always a rather trying thing to get a new doctor; don't you think so?" she asked, with another little laugh. "I always feel so foolish to think I have called him to come for so trifling a matter as my ailments are. I am never really ill, you know," she said with nervous haste; "but I am not very strong, and so I often feel—rather—under the weather, and I always fancy that a doctor can prevent, or cure it; but I suppose he cannot. I shall really not expect a great deal of you, in that line, doctor. I cannot expect you to furnish me with robust ancestors, can I? Just so you keep me out of bed"—and here, for the first time, I noticed a slight tremor in her voice—"just keep me so that I can read, and—so that I shall not need to sit alone, and—think—I shall be quite satisfied—quite." She had turned her face away, as she said the last; but I saw that she was having a hard struggle to keep back the tears, notwithstanding the little laugh that followed.
I had felt her pulse; it was hardly perceptible, and fluttered rather than beat; and I had watched her closely as she spoke; but whenever she came near the verge of showing deeper than the surface she broke in with that non-committal little laugh, or turned her face, or half closed her great eyes, and I was foiled. Her pulse and the faint blue veins told me one story; she tried to tell me quite another.
"How are you suffering to-day," I asked.
She looked steadily at me a moment, then lowered her eyes, raised her left hand (upon which I remember noticing there was a handsome ring), looked at its palm a moment, held her lips tightly closed, and then, with a sudden glance at me, again as if on the defensive said:
"I hardly know; I am only a little under the weather; I am weak. I am losing my—grip—on myself; I am—losing my grip—on my—nerves. I cannot afford to do that." The last was said with more emotion than she cared to display. So she arose, walked swiftly to the dressing-case, took up a lace handkerchief, glanced at herself in the mirror, moved a picture (I noticed that it was a likeness of an old gentleman, perhaps her father), and returned to a chair which stood in the shadow, and then, with a merry little peal of laughter, said: "Well, I don't wonder, doctor, that you are unable to diagnose that case. It would require a barometer to do that I fancy, from the amount of weather I got into it. But really, now, how amIto know what is the matter with me? That is for you to say; I am not the doctor. If you tell me it is malaria, as all of you do, I shall be perfectly satisfied—and take your powders with the docility of an infant in arms. I suppose itismalaria, don't you?"
I wanted to gain time—to study her a little. I saw that she was, or had been really ill; ill, that is, in mind if not in body. I fancied that she had succeeded in deceiving Griswold into treating her for some physical trouble which she did not have, or, if she had it, only as a result of a much graver malady.
The right branch may have been found and nipped off from time time when it grew uncomfortably long, but the root, I believed, had not been touched, and, I thought, had not been even suspected by her former physician.
We of the profession, as you very well know, do not always possess that abiding faith in the knowledge and skill of our brethren that we demand and expect from outsiders.
We claim our right to guess over after our associates, and not always to guess the same thing.
I believed that Griswold had not fully understood his former patient. "Sulph. 12," indeed! Then I smiled, and said aloud:
"Dr. Griswold writes me that in such cases as yours he advises sulph. 12—that it has given relief. Do you call yourself a sulphur patient?" I watched her narrowly, and if she did not smile in a satirical way, I was deceived. "Are you out of that remedy? and do you want more of it?" I asked with a serious face.
She did not reply at once. There seemed to be a struggle in her mind as to how much she would let me know. Then she looked at me attentively for a moment, with a puzzled expression, I thought; an unutterably weary look crossed her face. She said, slowly, deliberately: "I have no doubt sulphur will do as well as anything else. Oh! yes—I am decidedly a sulphur patient, no doubt I suppose I have taken several pints of that innocent remedy in my time. A number of physicians have given it to me from time to time. Your friend is not its only devotee. Sulphur and nux—nux and sulphur! I believe they cure anything short of a broken heart, or actual imbecility, do they not, doctor?" She laughed, not altogether pleasantly.
How far would she go and how far would she let me go, with this humbuggery? I looked gravely into her eyes, and said, "Certainly they will do all that, and more. They sometimes hold a patient until a doctor can decide which of those two interesting complaints is the particular one to be treated. Inyourcase I am inclined to suspect—the—that it is—notimbecility. I shall therefore begin by asking you to be good enough to tell me what it is that affects your heart."
I had taken her wrist in my hand, as I began to speak. My finger was on her pulse. It gave a great bound, and then beat rapidly; and although her face grew a shade paler and her eyes wavered as they tried to look into mine, I knew that I had both surprised and impressed her.
She recovered herself instantly, and made up her mind to hedge still further. "If there is anything the matter with my heart, you are the first to suspect it. My father, however, died of heart disease, and I have—always—hoped that I should—die as suddenly. But I shall not! I shall not! I am so—wiry—so all-enduring. I recover! I always recover!"
She said this passionately, and as if it were a grave misfortune—as if she were very old. I pretended to take it humorously.
"Perhaps at your advanced age your father might have said the same."
She laughed. She saw a loophole, and immediately took it. "Oh, you think I am very young, doctor, but I am not. People always think me younger than I am—at first. I look older when you get used to me. I am nearly thirty."
I was surprised; I had taken her to be about twenty-three.
"In years or in experience?" I said. "Which way do you count your age?"
She got up suddenly again and walked to the dressing-case, then to the window. In doing so she raised her hand to her eyes. It was the hand with the lace handkerchief in it.
"Experience!" she exclaimed; and then, checking herself. "No, people never think me so old—not at first," she said, returning to her chair. "But I suppose I am not too old to be cured with sulph. 12, am I?" Then she laughed her little nervous, quick laugh, and added: "Dear old Dr. Griswold, what faith he must have in 'sulph. 12.' and in his patients. He seems to think that they were made for each other, as it were; and—of course, I am not a doctor—how do I know they were not?"
"Miss Campbell," I said, stepping quickly to her side and surprising her, "you do not need sulphur. You need to be relieved of this strain on your nerves. Make up your mind to tell me your history to-morrow morning—to tell it all; I do not want some fairy-tale. Until then, take these drops to quiet your nerves."
There were tears in her eyes. She did not attempt to hide them. They ran down her cheeks, and she simply closed the lids and let them flow. I took her lace handkerchief and wiped her cheeks. Then I dropped it in her lap, placed the phial on her stand, took up my hat, and left.