The day promised to be as warm as the preceding one. The night and morning mists were gone; the sun shone hot and bright. Summer seemed to have come in before its time.
Two white gothic villas stood side by side just within the neck of Dallory Ham, a few yards of garden and some clustering shrubs between them. They were built alike. The side windows, facing each other over this strip of ground, were large projecting bay-windows, and belonged to the dining-rooms. These houses were originally erected for two maiden sisters. A large and beautiful garden lay at the back, surrounding the two villas, only a slender wire fence, that a child might have stepped over, dividing it. Entering the Ham from the direction of Dallory, these houses stood on the left; in the first of them lived Mrs. Cumberland, the mother of Oliver Rane. She had been married twice: hence the difference in name. The second house was occupied by Dr. Rane himself. They lay back with a strip of grass before them, the entrance-doors being level with the ground.
Let us go into the doctor's: turning the handle of the door without ceremony, as Dr. Rane's more familiar patients are wont to do. The hall is small, narrowing off at the upper end to a passage, and lighted with stained glass. On the left of the entrance is the consulting-room, not much larger than a closet; beyond it is the dining-room, a spacious apartment, with its bay-window, already spoken of, looking to the other house. Opposite the dining-room across the passage is the white-flagged kitchen; and the drawing-room lies in front, on the right of the entrance. Not being furnished it is chiefly kept shut up. A back-door opens to the garden.
Oliver Rane sat in his consulting-room; theWhitborough Journal, damp from the press, in his hand. It was just twelve o'clock and he had to go out, but the newspaper was attracting him. By seven o'clock that morning he had been at the Hall, and learnt that there was no material change in the patient lying there: he had then gone on, early though it was, to see the man, Ketler. The journal gave the details of Mr. North's seizure with tolerable accuracy, and concluded its account in these words: "We have reason to know that a clue has been obtained to the anonymous writer."
"A clue to the writer!" repeated Dr. Rane, his eyes appearing glued to the words. "I wonder if it's true?--No, no; it is not likely," came the quiet, contemptuous decision. "How should any clue----"
He stopped suddenly; rose from the chair, and stood erect and motionless, as if some thought had struck him. A fine man; almost as good-looking at a casual glance as another who was stepping in upon him. The front-door had opened, and this one was lightly tapped at. Dr. Rane paused before he answered it, and a fierce look of inquiry, as if he did not care to be interrupted, shot from his eyes.
"Come in."
A tall, slender, and very handsome man, younger than Dr. Rane, opened the door slowly. There was a peculiar refinement in his proud fair features; a dreamy look in his dark blue eyes. An attractive face at all times and seasons, whose owner it was impossible to mistake for anything but an upright, well-bred gentleman. It was Arthur Bohun; Captain Bohun, as he was very generally called. He was the only son of Mrs. North by her former marriage with Major Bohun, and of course stepson to Mr. North.
"Any admittance, doctor?"
"Always admittance to you," answered the doctor, who could be affable or not, as suited his mood. "Why don't you come in?"
He came in with his pleasant smile; a smile that hid the natural pride of the face. Oliver Rane put down the newspaper.
"Well, is there any change in Edmund North?"
"The very slightest in the world, the doctors think; and for the better," replied Captain Bohun. "Dick told me. I have not been in myself since early morning. I cannot bear to look on extreme suffering."
A ghost of a smile flitted across Dr. Rane's features at the avowal. He could understand a woman disliking to look on suffering, but not a man. And the one before him had been a soldier!
Captain Bohun sat down on an uncomfortable wooden stool as he spoke, gently throwing back his light summer overcoat. He imparted the idea of never being put out over any earthly thing. The movement displayed his cool white waistcoat, across which fell a dainty gold chain with its transparent sapphire seal of rare and costly beauty.
"You have begun summer early!" remarked the doctor, glancing at Captain Bohun's attire.
The clothes were of a delicate shade of grey; looking remarkably cool and nice in conjunction with the white waistcoat. Captain Bohun was always well dressed; it seemed a part of himself. To wear the rude and rough attire that some men affect nowadays, would have been against his instincts.
"Don't sit on that stool of penitence; take the patient's chair," said the doctor, pointing to an elbow-chair opposite the window.
"But I am not a patient."
"No. Or you'd be at the opposition shop over the way."
Arthur Bohun laughed. "It was of the opposition shop I came to speak to you--if I came for anything in particular, Where's Alexander? Is he keeping out of the way; or has he really gone to London as people say?"
"I know nothing about him," returned Dr. Rane. "Look here--I was reading the account they give in the newspaper. Is this last hint true?"--holding out the journal--"that a clue has been obtained to the writer of the letter?"
Arthur Bohun ran his eyes over the sentence to which the doctor's finger pointed.
"No, this has no foundation," he promptly answered. "At least so far as the Hall is concerned. As yet we have not found any clue whatever."
"I thought so. These newsmongers put forth lies by the bushel. Just as we might do, if we had to cater for an insatiably curious public. But I fear I must be going out."
Arthur Bohun brought down the fore-legs of the stool, which he had kept on the tilt, rose, and said a word of apology for having detained him from his patients. His was essentially a courteous nature, sensitively regardful of other people's feelings, as men of great innate refinement are sure to be.
They went into the dining-room, Dr. Rane having left his hat there, and passed out together by the large bay-window. The doctor crossed at once to a door in the wall that bound the premises at the back, and made his exit to the lane beyond, leaving Arthur Bohun in the garden.
A garden that on a summer's day seemed as a very paradise. With its clustering shrubs, its overhanging trees, its leafy glades, its shrubberies, its miniature rocks, its sweet repose, its sweeter flowers. Seated in a remote part of that which belonged to Mrs. Cumberland, was one of the loveliest girls that eye had ever looked upon. She wore a morning dress of light-coloured muslin, with an edging of lace at the neck and wrists. Slight, gentle, charming, with a peculiar look of grace and refinement, a stranger would have been almost startled at her beauty. It was a delightful face; the features clearly cut; the complexion soft, pure, and delicate, paling and flushing with every emotion. In the dark brown eyes there was a singularly sweet expression; the dark brown hair took a lustrously bright tinge in the sunlight.
A natural arbour of trees and branches had been formed overhead: she sat on a garden bench, behind a rustic table. Before her, at a short distance, a falling cascade trickled down the artificial rocks, and thence wound away, a tiny stream, amidst ferns, violets, primroses, and other wild plants. A plot of green grass, smooth and soft as the moss of the rocks, lay immediately at her feet, and glimpses of statelier flowers were caught through the trees. Their rich perfume came wafted in a sudden breeze to the girl's senses, and she looked up gratefully from her work; some small matter of silken embroidery.
And now you could see the singular refinement and delicacy of the face, the pleasant expression of the soft bright eyes. A bird lodged itself on a branch close by, and began a song. Her lips parted with a smile of greeting. By way of rewarding it, off he flew, dipped his beak into the running stream, and soared away out of her sight. As is the case sometimes in life.
On the table lay a handful of violets, picked short off at the blossoms. Almost unconsciously, as it seemed, her thoughts far away, she began toying with them, and fell insensibly into the French schoolgirls' play, telling off the flowers. "M'aime-t-il?" was the first momentous question; and then the pastime, a blossom being told off with every answer. "Oui. Non. Un peu. Beaucoup. Pas du tout. Passionnément." And so the round went on, until the last violet was reached. It came, as chance had it, with the last word, and she, in an access of rapture, her soft cheeks glowing, her sweet lips parting, caught up the flower and pressed it to her lips.
"Il m'aime passionnément!"
Ah, foolish girl! The oracle seemed as true as if it had come direct from heaven. But can we not remember the ecstasy such necromancy once brought to ourselves!
With her blushes deepening as she woke, startling, into reality; with a smile at her own folly; with a sense of maidenly shame for indulging in the pastime, she pushed the violets together, threaded a needleful of green floss silk, and went on soberly with her work. A few minutes, and then either eye or ear was attracted by something ever so far off, and she sat quite still. Quite still outwardly; but oh! the sudden emotion that rose like a lightning flash within! and she knew the footsteps. Every vein was tingling; every pulse throbbing; the pink on her cheeks deepened; the life blood of her heart rushed wildly on, and she pressed her hand upon her bosom to still it.
He was passing on from Dr. Rane's to the other house, when he caught a glimpse of her dress through the trees, and turned aside. Nothing could have been quieter or more undemonstrative than the meeting; and yet a shrewd observer, skilled in secrets, had not failed to read the truth--that both alike loved. Captain Bohun went up, calm as befitted a well-bred man: shaking hands after the fashion of society, and apparently with as little interest: but on his face the flush also shone with all its tell-tale vividness; the hand that touched hers thrilled almost to pain. She had risen to receive him: as calm outwardly as he, but her senses were in wild confusion.
She began to go on with her work again in a hurried, trembling sort of fashion when he sat down. The day, for her, had turned to Eden; all things seemed to discourse sweet music.
True love--passionate, pure love--is not fluent of speech, whatever the world may say, or poets teach. Dr. Rane and Miss North thought they loved each other: and so they did, after a sensible, sober manner: they could have conversed with mutual fluency for ever and a day; but their love was notthislove. It is the custom of modern writers to ignore it: the prevailing fashion is to be matter-of-fact; realistic; people don't talk of love now, and of course don't feel it: the capacity for it has died out; habits have changed. It is false sophistry. We cannot put off human nature as we do a garment.
Captain Bohun was the first to break the silence.Shehad been content to live in it by his side for ever: it was more eloquent, too, than his words were.
"What a lovely day it is, Ellen!"
"Yes. I think summer has come: we shall scarcely have it warmer than this in July. And oh, how charming everything is!"
"Yes. Yesterday I had a ride of ten miles between green hedges in which the May is beginning to blossom. Envious darkness had shut out the world before I reached home again."
"And I sat out here all the afternoon," she answered--and perhaps she unconsciously spoke in pursuance of the thought, that she had sat out waiting and hoping for him. "Where did you go, Arthur?"
"To Bretchley. Some of my old brother officers are quartered there: and I spent the day with them. What's that for?"
He alluded to the piece of work. She smiled as she held it out in her right hand, on the third finger of which was a plain gold ring. A small piece of white canvas with a pink rose and part of a green leaf already worked upon it in bright floss silk.
"Guess."
"Nay, how can I? For a doll's cushion?"
"Oh, Arthur!" came the laughing exclamation. "If I tell you, you must keep counsel, mind that, for it is a secret, and I am working it under difficulties, out of Mrs. Cumberland's sight. Don't you think I have done a great deal? I only began it yesterday."
"Well, what's it for?" he asked, putting his hand underneath it as an excuse, perhaps, for touching the fingers that held it. "A fire-screen for pretty faces?"
The young lady shook her head. "It's for a kettle-holder."
"A kettle-holder! What a prosy ending!"
"It is for Mrs. Cumberland's invalid kettle that she keeps in her bedroom. The handle got hot a day or two ago, and she burnt her hand. I shall put it on some morning to surprise her."
A silence ensued. Half their intercourse was made up of pauses: the eloquent language of true love. Captain Bohun, thinking how sweet-natured was the girl by his side, played abstractedly with the blossoms lying on the table.
"What have you been doing with all these violets, Ellen?"
"Nothing," she replied; and down went the scissors. But that she stooped at once, Captain Bohun might have seen the sudden flush on the delicate face, and wondered at it: a flush of remembrance.Il m'aime passionnément. Well, so he did.
"Please don't entangle my silk, Captain Bohun."
He laughed as he put down the bright gold skein. "Shall I help you to wind it, Ellen?"
"Thank you, but we don't wind floss silk. It would deaden its beauty. Arthur! do you know that the swallows have come?"
"The swallows! Then this summer weather will stay with us, for those birds have a sure instinct. It is early for them to be here."
"I saw one this morning. It may be only an avant-courier, come to report on the weather to the rest."
She laughed lightly at her own words, and there ensued another pause. Captain Bohun broke it.
"What a shocking thing this is about Edmund North!"
"What is a shocking thing?" she asked, with indifference, going on with her work as she spoke. Arthur Bohun, who was busy again with the pale blue violets, scarcely as blue as his own eyes, lifted his face and looked at her.
"I mean altogether. The illness; the letter; the grief at home. It is all shocking."
"Is Edmund North ill? I did not know it."
"Ellen!"
Living in the very atmosphere of the illness, amidst its bustle, distress, and attendant facts, to Arthur Bohun it seemed almost impossible that she should be ignorant of it.
"Why, what has Rane been about, not to tell you?"
"I don't know. What is the matter with Edmund North?"
Captain Bohun explained the illness and its cause. Her work dropped on her knee as she listened; her face grew pale with interest. She never once interrupted him; every sympathetic feeling within her was aroused to warm indignation.
"An anonymous letter!" she at length exclaimed. "That's worse than a stab."
"A fellow, writing one of malice, puts himself beyond the pale of decent society: shooting would be too good for him," quietly remarked Captain Bohun. "Here comes a summons for you, I expect, Ellen."
Even so. One of the maids approached, saying Mrs. Cumberland was downstairs; and so the interview was broken up. Captain Bohun would perforce have taken his departure, but Miss Adair invited him in--to tell the sad story to Mrs. Cumberland. Only too glad was he of any plea that kept him by Ellen's side.
Putting her work away in her pocket, she took the arm that was held out, and they went wandering through the garden; lingering by the cascade, dreaming in the dark cypress walk, standing over the beds of beautiful flowers. A seductive time; life's summer; but a time that never stays, for the frosts of winter and reality succeed it surely and swiftly.
Nothing had been said between them, but each was conscious of what the other felt. Neither had whispered in so many words, "I love you." Ellen did not hint that she had watched for him the whole of the past livelong day with love's sick longing; he did not confess how lost the day had been to him, how worse than weary, because it did not bring him to her presence. These avowals might come in time, but they would not be needed.
Stepping in through the centre doors of the bay window, as Arthur Bohun had made his exit from the opposite one, they looked round for Mrs. Cumberland, and did not see her. She was in the drawing-room on the other side the small hall, sitting near the Gothic windows that faced the road. A pale, reticent, lady-like woman, always suffering, but making more of her sufferings than she need have done--as her son, Dr. Rane, not over-dutifully thought. Her eyes were light and cold; her flaxen hair, banded smoothly under a cap, was turning grey. But that Mrs. Cumberland was quite occupied with self, and very little with her ward, Ellen Adair, she might have noticed before now the suggestive intimacy between that young lady and Arthur Bohun.
"Captain Bohun is here, Mrs. Cumberland," said Ellen, when they entered. "He has some sad news to tell you."
"And the extraordinary part of the business is that you should not have heard it before," added Arthur, as he shook hands with Mrs. Cumberland.
Mrs. Cumberland's rich black silk gown rustled a very little as she responded to the greeting; but there was no smile on her grey face, her cold eyes wore no brighter light. In her way she was glad to see him: that is, she had no objection to seeing him; but gladness and Mrs. Cumberland seemed to have parted company. The suffering that arises from constant pain makes a self-absorbed nature doubly selfish.
"What is the news that Ellen speaks of, Captain Bohun?"
He stood leaning against the mantelpiece as he told the tale: told it systematically; the first advent of the anonymous letter to Mr. North; the angry, passionate spirit in which Edmund North had taken it up; his stormy interview with the surgeon, Alexander; the subsequent attack, and the hopelessness in which he was lying. For once Mrs. Cumberland was aroused to feeling sympathy in another's sufferings: she listened with painful interest.
"And it wasOliverwho was called in first to Edmund North!" she presently exclaimed, with emphasis, as if unable to credit the fact.
"Yes."
"But how was it he did not step in here afterwards to tell me the news?" she added, resentfully.
Captain Bohun could not answer that so readily. Ellen Adair, ever ready to find a charitable excuse for the world, turned to Mrs. Cumberland.
"Dr. Rane may have had patients to see. Perhaps he did not return home until too late to come here."
"Yes, he did; I saw his lamp burning before ten o'clock," was Mrs. Cumberland's answer. "Ah! this is another proof that I am being forgotten," she went on, bitterly. "When a woman has seen fifty years of life, she is old in the sight of her children, and they go then their own way in the world, leaving her to coldness and neglect."
"But, dear Mrs. Cumberland, Dr. Rane does not neglect you," said Ellen, struck with the injustice of the complaint. "He is ever the first to come in and amuse you with what news he has."
"And in this instance he may have kept silence from a good motive--the wish to spare you pain," added Captain Bohun.
"True, true," murmured Mrs. Cumberland, her mind taking a more reasonable view of the matter. "Oliver has always been dutiful to me."
Departing, Captain Bohun crossed the road to Mr. Alexander's; a slight limp visible in his gait. The mystery that appeared to surround the surgeon's movements at present, puzzled him not a little; his prolonged absence seemed unaccountable. The surgery, through which he entered, was empty, and he opened the door leading from it to the house. A maid-servant met him.
"Is Mr. Alexander at home?"
"No, sir."
"Papa's gone to London," called out a young gentleman of ten, who came running along the passage, cracking a whip. "He went last night. They sent for him."
"Who sent for him?" asked Captain Bohun.
"The people. Mamma's gone too. They are coming home to-day; and mamma's going to bring me a Chinese puzzle and a box of chocolate if she had time to buy them."
Not much information, this. As Captain Bohun turned out again, he stood at the door, wishing he had a decent plea to take him over to Mrs. Cumberland's again. He was an idle man; living only in the sweet pastime of making that silent love.
But Mrs. North never suspected that he was making it, or knew that he was intimate at Mrs. Cumberland's. Still less did she suspect that Mrs. Cumberland had a young lady inmate named Ellen Adair. It would have startled her to terror.
Early on the following morning the death-bell ringing out from the church at Dallory proclaimed to those who heard it that Edmund North had passed to his rest. He had never recovered consciousness, and died some thirty-six hours after the attack.
Amongst those who did not hear it was Oliver Rane. The doctor had been called out at daybreak to a country patient in an opposite direction, returning between eight and nine o'clock.
He sat at breakfast in the dining-room, unconscious of the morning's calamity. The table stood in front of the large bay-window.
"She has done it too much--stupid thing!" exclaimed Dr. Rane, cutting a slice of ham in two and apostrophizing his unconscious servant. "Yesterday it was hardly warmed through. Just like them!--make a complaint, and they rush to the other extreme. I wonder how things are going on there this morning?"
He glanced up towards the distant quarter where the Hall was situated, for his query had reference to Edmund North; and this gave him the opportunity of seeing something else: a woman stepping out of Mrs. Cumberland's dining-room. She was getting on for forty, tall as a may-pole, with inquisitive green eyes, sallow cheeks, remarkably thin, as if she had lost her teeth, and a bunch of black ringlets on either side of her face. She wore the white apron and cap of a servant, but looked one of a superior class. Emerging from the opposite window, she stepped across the wire fence and approached Dr. Rane.
"What does Jelly want now?" he mentally asked.
A curious name, no doubt, but it was hers. Fanny Jelly. When Mrs. Cumberland had engaged her as upper maid, she decided to call her by the latter name, Fanny being her own.
Jelly entered without ceremony--she was not given to observing much at the best of times. She had come to say that he need not provide anything for dinner; her mistress meant to send him in a fowl--if he would accept it.
"With pleasure, tell her," said Dr. Rane. "How is my mother this morning, Jelly?"
"She has had a good night, and is pretty tolerable," replied Jelly, giving a backward fling to her flying cap-strings. "The foreign letters have come in; two for her, one for Miss Adair."
Dr. Rane, not particularly interested in the said foreign letters, went on with his breakfast. Jelly, with characteristic composure, stood at ease just inside the window watching the process.
"That ham is dried up to fiddle-strings," she suddenly said.
"Yes. Phillis has done it too much."
"And I should like to have the doing of her!" spoke Jelly in wrathful tones. "It is a sin to spoil good food."
"So it is," said Dr. Rane.
"So that poor young man's gone!" she resumed, as he cracked an egg.
The doctor lifted his head quickly. "What young man?"
"Edmund North. He died at half-past seven this morning."
"Who says so?" cried Dr. Rane, a startled look crossing his face.
"The milkman told me: he heard the passing-bell toll out. You needn't be surprised, sir: there has been no hope from the first."
"But there has been hope," disputed the doctor. "There was hope yesterday at midday, there was hope last night. I don't believe he is dead."
"Well, sir, then you must disbelieve it," equably answered Jelly; but she glanced keenly at him from her green eyes. "Edmund North is as certainly dead as that I stand here."
He seemed strangely moved at the tidings: a quiver stirred his lips, the colour in his face faded to whiteness. Jelly, having looked as much as she chose, turned to depart.
"Then we may send in the fowl, sir?"
"Yes, yes."
He watched her dreamily as she crossed the low fence and disappeared within her proper domains; he pushed the neglected ham from him, he turned sick at the lightly done egg, of which the shell had just been broken. What, though he preferred eggs lightly done in calm times? calm times were not these. The news did indeed trouble him in no measured degree: it was so sad for a man in the prime of early life to be cut off thus. Edmund North was only a year or two older than himself: two days ago he had been as full of health and life, deep in the plans and projects of this world, thinking little of the next. Sad? it was horrible. And Dr. Rane's breakfast was spoiled for that day.
He got up to walk the room restlessly: he looked at himself in the glass; possibly to see how the news might have affected his features; in all he did there was a hurried, confused sort of motion, betraying that the mind must be in a state of perturbation. By-and-by he snatched up his hat, and went forth, taking the direction of the Hall.
"I ought to call. It will look well for me to call. It is a civility I owe them," he kept repeating at intervals, as he strode along. Just as though he thought in his inmost heart he oughtnotto call, and were seeking arguments to excuse himself from doing so.
How eager he was to be there and see and hear all that was transpiring, he alone knew. No power could have stopped him, whether to go were suitable or unsuitable; for he had a strong will. He did not take the lane this time, but went straight along the high-road, turning in at the iron gates, and up the chestnut avenue. The tender green of the trees was beautiful: birds sang; the blue sky flickered through the waving leaves. Winding on, Dr. Rane met Thomas Hepburn, the undertaker and carpenter: a sickly looking but intelligent and respectable man.
"Is it you, Hepburn?"
"Yes, sir; I've been in to take the orders. What an awful thing it is!" he continued in a low tone, glancing round at the closed windows, as if fearful they might detect what he was saying. "The scoundrel who wrote that letter ought to be tried for murder when they discover him. And they are safe to do that, sooner or later."
"The writer could have done no great harm but for Edmund North's allowing himself to go into that fatal passion."
"An anonymous writer is a coward," rejoined Hepburn with scorn. "They say there'll not be an inquest."
"An inquest!" repeated the doctor, to whom the idea had never occurred. "There's no necessity for an inquest."
"Well, doctor, I suppose the law would in strictness exact it. But Mr. North is against it, and it's thought his wishes will be respected."
"Any of the medical men can furnish a certificate of the cause of death. I could do it myself."
"Yes, of course. But I've no time to stay talking," added the undertaker. "Good-day to you, sir."
The next to come forth from the house was Alexander, the surgeon. Dr. Rane rubbed his eyes, almost thinking they deceived him. The brother practitioners shook hands; and Mr. Alexander--a little man with dark hair--explained what had seemed inexplicable.
It seemed that the very same evening delivery which brought Mr. North the anonymous letter, had brought one to Mr. Alexander. His was from London, informing him that he had been appointed to a post connected with one of the hospitals, and requesting him to go upat oncefor a few hours. Mr. Alexander made ready, sent for a fly, and started with his wife for the station, bidding the driver halt at Mr. North's iron gates. As he was in attendance at that time on Edmund North, he wished to give notice of his temporary absence. To be furiously attacked by Edmund North the moment he entered the doors, and as it seemed to him, without rhyme or reason, put Mr. Alexander into somewhat of a passion also. There was no time for elucidation, neither was a single word he said listened to, and the surgeon hastened out to his fly. He had returned by the first train this morning--London was not much more than an hour's journey by rail--and found that Edmund North had died of that self-same passion. Half paralyzed with grief and horror, Mr. Alexander hastened to the Hall; and was now coming from it, having fully exculpated himself in all ways in the sight of its master. Almost as fully he spoke now to Dr. Rane; in his grief, in his straightforward candour, nothing selfish or sinister could hide itself.
The transaction in regard to drawing the bill had been wholly Edmund North's, Some months ago he had sought Mr. Alexander, saying he was in want of a sum of money--a hundred pounds; he did not know how to put his hands just then upon it, not wishing to apply to his own family; would he, the surgeon, like a good fellow, lend it? At first, Mr. Alexander had excused himself; for one thing he had not the money--fancy a poor country surgeon with a hundred pounds loose cash, he said; but eventually he fell in with Edmund North's pleadings. A bill was drawn, both of them being liable, and was discounted by Dale, the lawyer, of Whitborough. When the bill had become due (about a week ago) neither of them could meet it; and the matter was arranged with Dale by a second bill.
"What I cannot understand is, how Edmund North, poor fellow, could have pitched upon me as the writer of that letter," observed the surgeon to Dr. Rane, when he had finished his recital. "He must have gone clean daft to think it. I had no reason for disclosing it; I did not fear but he would eventually meet the bill."
"I told them you could not have written it," quietly rejoined the doctor.
Mr. Alexander lifted his hand with angry emphasis. "Rane, I'd give a thousand pounds out of my pocket--if I were a rich man and had it--to know who wrote the letter and worked the mischief. I never disclosed the transaction to a living soul; I don't believe Edmund North did; besides ourselves, it was known only to the discounter. Dale is a safe man; so it seems a perfect mystery. And mark you, Rane--that letter was written to damage me at the Hall, not Edmund North."
Dr. Rane gazed at the other in great surprise. "To damage you?"
"It is the view I take of it. And so, on reflection, does Richard North."
"Nonsense, Alexander!"
"If ever the hidden particulars come to light, you will find that it is not nonsense, but truth," was the surgeon's answer. "I must have some enemies in the neighbourhood, I suppose; most professional men have; and they no doubt hoped to do for me with Mr. North. The Norths in a degree sway other people here, and so I should have lost my practice, and been driven away."
Oliver had raised his cane, and was lightly flicking the shrub by which he stood, his air that of one in deep thought.
"I confess I do not follow you, Alexander. Your ill-doing or well-doing is nothing to Mr. North; his son's of course was. If you lived by drawing bills, it could be no concern of his."
"Drawing bills on my own score would certainly be of no moment to Mr. North; but drawing them inconjunction with his sonwould be. Upon which of us would he naturally lay the blame? Upon a young, heedless man, as Edmund North was; or upon me, a middle-aged, established member of society, with a home and a family? The case speaks for itself."
Oliver Rane did not appear quite to admit this. He thought the probability lay against Mr. Alexander's theory, rather than with it. "Of course," he slowly said, "looking at it in that light, the letter would tell either way. But I think you must be wrong."
"No, I am not. Whoever wrote that missive did it to injure me. I seemed to see it, as by instinct, the minute Mr. North gave me the letter to read. If the motive was to drive me from Dallory, it might have been spared, and Edmund North saved, for I am going to quit it of my own accord."
"To quit Dallory?"
"In a month's time from this I and mine will have left it for London. The situation now given to me I have been trying for, under the rose, these six months past."
"But why do you wish to leave Dallory?"
"To better myself, as the servants say," replied Mr. Alexander, "and the move will do that considerably. Another reason is that my wife dislikes Dallory. Madam turned up her nose at us socially when we first settled here; and that, in a degree, kept the best society closed to Mrs. Alexander. She is well-born, has been reared a lady; and of course it was: enough to set her against the place. Besides, all our friends are in London; and so, you see, if my exit into the wilderness was what that anonymous individual was driving at, he might have gained his ends without crime, had he waited only a short time."
"I hate Mrs. North," dreamily spoke Dr. Rane; "and I am sure she hates me, though the wherefore to me is incomprehensible."
"Look there," spoke the surgeon, dropping his voice.
Both had simultaneously caught sight of Mrs. North. She was passing the shrubbery close by, and looked out at them. They raised their hats. Mr. Alexander made a movement to approach her; she saw it, and turned from him back to the dark wall with her usual sweeping step. So he remained where he was.
"She asked to see me on Tuesday night when I was leaving; wanting to know if I could tell her who wrote the letter," said Dr. Rane.
"She suspected me, I suppose."
"She appeared to suspect--notyou, but some one else; and that was Richard North."
"Richard North!" ironically repeated Mr. Alexander. "She knows quite well that he is above suspicion; perhaps she was only trying to divert attention from some other person: she is made up of craft. Who knows but she wrote the letter herself?"
"Mrs. North!"
"Upon my word and honour, the thought is in my mind, Rane. If the motive of the letter were as you think--to do Edmund North damage with his father--I know of only one person who would attempt it, and that is Mrs. North."
Their eyes met: a strange light shone momentarily in Oliver Rane's. In saying that he hated Mrs. North, he spoke truth; but there was every excuse for the feeling, for it was quite certain that Mrs. North had long been working him what ill she could. His marriage with Bessy was being delayed, and delayed entirely through her covert opposition.
"That she is an entirely unscrupulous woman, and would stand at nothing, I feel sure," spoke Dr. Rane, drawing a deep breath. "But, as to the letter----"
"Well, as to the letter?" cried the surgeon, in the pause. "I don't say she foresaw that it would kill him."
"This would disprove your theory of its being written to damage you, Alexander."
"Not altogether. The damaging another, more or less, would be of no moment at all to Mrs. North; she would crush any one without scruple."
"I'm sure she would crush me," spoke Dr. Rane. "Heaven knows why; I don't."
"Well, if she did write the letter, I think her conscience must smite her as she looks at the poor dead man lying there. Good-day, Rane: I have not been home to see my little ones yet. Mrs. Alexander is remaining in town for a day or two."
In talking, they had walked slowly to the end of the avenue; Mr. Alexander passed through the gates, and took the road towards the Ham.
"I may as well go on at once, and see Ketler," thought Dr. Rane. "Time enough to call at the Hall as I return."
So he went on towards Dallory. Two gentlemen passed him on horseback, county magistrates, who were probably going to the Hall. The sight of them turned his thoughts to the subject of an inquest: he began speculating why Mr. North wished to evade it, and whether he would succeed in doing so. For his own part, he did not see that the case, speaking in point of law, called for one. Hepburn said it did; and he was supposed, as chief undertaker in Dallory, to understand these things.
Deep in reflection, the doctor strode on; when, in passing Mrs. Gass's house, a sharp tapping at the window saluted his ear. It came from that lady herself, and she threw up the sash.
"Just come in, will you, Dr. Rane? I want you for something very particular."
He felt sure she only wanted to question him about the death, and would a great deal rather have gone on: but with her red and smiling face inviting him in peremptorily, he did not see his way to refusing her.
"And so he isgone--that poor young man!" she began, meeting him in her smart dress and pink cap. "When I heard the death-bell ring out this morning, it sounded to me a'most like my own knell."
"Yes, he is gone--unhappily," murmured Dr. Rane.
"Well, now, doctor, the next thing is--what became of you yesterday?"
The change of subject appeared peculiar.
"Became of me?" repeated Dr. Rane. "How do you mean?"
"All the mortal day I was stuck at this parlour window, waiting to see you go by," proceeded Mrs. Gass. "You never passed once."
"Yes, I did. I passed in the morning."
"My eyes must have gone a-maying then, for they never saw you," was Mrs. Gass's answer.
"It was before my usual hour. I was called out early to a sick man in Dallory, and I took the opportunity to see Ketler at the same time."
"Then that accounts for the milk in the cocoa-nuts; and I wasted my time for nothing," was her good-tempered rejoinder.
"Why did you want to see me pass?"
Mrs. Gass paused for a moment before replying. She glanced round to see that the door was closed, and dropped her voice almost to a whisper.
"Dr. Rane, who wrote that fatal letter?"
"I cannot tell."
"Didyou?"
Oliver Rane stared at her, a sudden flush of anger dyeing his brow. No wonder: the question, put with emphatic earnestness, seemed an assertion, almost like that startling reproach of Nathan to David.
"Mrs. Gass, I do not know what you mean."
"I see you don't relish it, doctor. But I am a plain body, as you know; and when in doubt about a thing, pleasant or unpleasant, I like to ask an explanation straight out."
"But why should you be in doubt about this?" he inquired wonderingly. "What can induce you to connect me with the letter?"
Mrs. Gass took her portly person across the room to a desk; unlocked it, and brought forth a folded piece of paper. She handed it to Dr. Rane.
It was not a letter; it could not be the copy of one: but it did appear to be the rough sketch of the anonymous missive that had reached Mr. North. Some of the sentences were written two or three times over; in a close hand, in a scrawling hand, in a reversed hand, as if the writer were practising different styles; in others the construction was altered, words were erased, others substituted. Oliver Rane gazed upon it as one in complete bewilderment.
"Whatisthis, Mrs. Gass?"
"Is it not the skeleton of the letter?"
"No, certainly not. And yet----" Dr. Rane broke off and ran his eye over the lines again and again. "There is a similarity in some of the phrases," he suddenly said.
"Some of the phrases is identical," returned Mrs. Gass. "When Mr. Richard North was here yesterday, I got him to repeat over to me the words of the letter; word for word, so far as he remembered 'em, and I know 'em forthesewords. Whoever writ that letter to Mr. North, doctor, first of all tried his sentences and his hand, on this paper, practising how he could best do it."
"How did you come by this?"
"You left it here the night before last."
"Ileft it here!" repeated Dr. Rane, looking as if he mentally questioned whether Mrs. Gass was in her right senses.
"Yes. You."
"But you must be dreaming, Mrs. Gass."
"I never do dream--that sort of dreaming," replied Mrs. Gass. "Look here"--putting her stout hand, covered with costly rings, on his coat-sleeve--"didn't you upset your pocketbook here that night? Well, this piece of paper fell out of it."
"It could not have done anything of the sort," he repeated, getting flushed and angry again. "All the papers that fell out of my pocketbook I picked up and returned to it."
"You didn't pick this up; it must have fluttered away unseen. Just after you were gone I dropped my spectacle-case, and in stooping for it, I saw this piece of paper lying under the claw of the table."
"But it could not have come out of my pocketbook. Just tell me, if you please, Mrs. Gass, what should bring such a document in my possession?"
"That's just what I can't tell. The paper was not there before candle-light; I'll answer for that much; so where else could it have come from?"
The last words were not spoken as an assertion of her view, but as a question. Dr. Rane looked at her, she at him; both seeming equally puzzled.
"Had you any visitor last evening besides myself?" he asked.
"Not a soul. The only person that came into the parlour, barring my own servants, was Molly Green, under-housemaid at the Hall. She lived with me once, and calls in sometimes in passing to ask how I am. They sent her into Dallory for something wanted at the chemist's, and she looked in to tell me. The thing had just happened."
Dr. Rane's brow lost its perplexity: an easy smile, as if the mystery were solved, crossed his face. The hint recently given him by Mr. Alexander was in his mind.
"I'm glad you've told me this, Mrs. Gass. The paper was more likely to have been left by Molly Green than by me. It may have dropped from her petticoats."
"Goodness bless the man! From her petticoats! Why, she had run all the way from the Hall. And how was she likely to pick it up inthathouse--even though her gown had been finished off with fish-hooks?"
"What cause have I given you to suspectmeof this?" retorted Dr. Rane in harsh tones.
"Only this--that I don't see where the paper could have come from but out of your own pocketbook," replied Mrs. Gass frankly. "I have no other reason to suspect you; I'd as soon suspect myself. It is just a mystery, and nothing else."
"Whatever the mystery may be, it is not connected with my pocketbook, Mrs. Gass," he emphatically said. "Did you mention this to Richard North?"
"No. Nor to anybody else. It was not a pleasant thing to speak of, you see."
"Not a pleasant thing for me, certainly, to be suspected of having dropped that paper. The culprit, an innocent one, no doubt, must have been Molly Green."
"I never was so brought up in all my life," cried the puzzled woman. "As to Molly Green--it must be just a fancy of yours, doctor, for it never can be fact."
Oliver Rane drew his chair a little nearer to Mrs. Gass, and whispered a word of the doubt touching Mrs. North. He only spoke of itasa doubt; a hint at most; but Mrs. Gass was not slow to take it.
"Heaven help the woman!--if it's her work."
"But this must not be breathed aloud," he said, taking alarm. "It may be a false suspicion."
"Don't fear me: it's a thing too grave for me to mix myself up in," was the reply: and to give Mrs. Gass her due, she did look scared in no slight degree. "Dr. Rane, I am sorry for saying what I did to you. It was the impossibility, as I took it, of anything's having left it here but that flutter of papers from your pocketbook. Whoever would have given a thought to Molly Green?"
Dr. Rane made no answer.
"She put her basket down by the door there, and came up the room to look at my geraniums; I held the candle for her. I remember she caught her crinoline on the corner of the iron fender, and it gave her a twist round. The idiots that girls make of themselves with them big crinolines! Perhaps it dropped from her then."
"Well, let us bury it in silence, Mrs. Gass; it is only a doubt at best," said the prudent but less eloquent physician. "You will allow me to take this," he added alluding to the paper. "I should like to examine it at leisure."
"Take it, and welcome," she answered; "I'm glad to be rid of it. As to burying it in silence, we had better, I expect, both do that."
"Even to Richard North," he enjoined rather anxiously.
"Even to Richard North. I have kept secrets in my day, doctor, and can keep 'em again."
Dr. Rane put the paper in his pocketbook, deposited that in the breast-pocket of his coat, and took his departure. But now, being a shrewd man, a suspicion that he would not have given utterance to for the whole world, lay on Dr. Rane--that it was more in accordance with probability that the paper had dropped out of his pocketbook than from Molly Green's petticoats, seeing they werenotfinished off with fish-hooks.
A heavy weight lying there on his breast! And he went along with a loitering step, asking himself how the paper could have originally come there.