|They carried him into the house and laid him on a bed; then, seeing him
still speechless, and to all appearance senseless, Miss Santley sent for
Dr. Spruce, who lived close by. By the time that the doctor, a homely
old country practitioner, with much professional skill and worldly
wisdom, entered the chamber, Santley was sitting up and talking
incoherently. He tried to leave his bed and fly forth upon some wild
errand, and his speech was a confused medley, in which the words
“murder,” “poison,” and “Ellen Haldane,” were constantly repeated. He
did not seem to recognize any one, and his whole appearance was alarming
in the extreme.
Miss Santley told how she had found him, and in what condition. The
doctor shook his head.
“I’m afraid it’s brain fever,” he muttered. “You must keep him very
quiet.”
Before morning, the doctor’s prediction proved to be right. Brain fever
of the most violent kind had set in. He lay as if at death’s door,
incoherently raving.
Alarmed by the constant references to the one subject of “murder,” and
the constant repetitions of Mrs. Haldane’s name, Miss Santley next day
sent a messenger up to Foxglove Manor to make inquiries. Her messenger
ascertained from Mrs. Feme, the lodge-keeper, that the vicar had been
seen by the servants the previous night, in a state resembling mania,
and had told them some wild story of Mrs. Haldane’s death by violence.
For the rest, Mrs. Feme said, nothing of an extraordinary nature had
occurred at the Manor, and her mistress, though slightly indisposed, was
up and about.
So Miss Santley kept watch by the delirious man’s bedside, while he lay
and fought for life.
The crisis passed. One morning the vicar opened his eyes, and saw his
sister sitting silently close to his bed. The fever had almost left him,
and he recognized his own room in the Vicarage.
“Is it you, Mary?” he asked, reaching out his hand, now worn almost to a
skeleton.
“Yes, it is I. But you must not speak.”
“Have I been ill, Mary?”
“Yes; very, very ill.”
He closed his eyes, and seemed to fall into a sleep, which lasted for
some hours. Suddenly he started up, as if listening, and seemed about to
spring from the bed.
“What is it, dear?” asked his sister, softly soothing him.
He recognized her, and became calm in a moment.
“I was dreaming. I thought I was up at the Manor. Mary, quick--speak to
me! Have they buried her?”
She looked at him in wonder and terror.
“Hush, dear! The doctor says you are to keep very quiet.”
“But I must know. Tell me, or you will kill me! What has happened? How
long have I been lying here?”
“Many days. But you are better now.”
“Do you know what has taken place?” he whispered. “Ellen Haldane is
dead--murdered! He killed her.”
She shook her head pityingly.
“No, no! Do not distress yourself, dear, or you will be ill again. Mrs.
Haldane is quite well.”
“Quite well? No, no!”
“You have been dreaming, that is all.”
“Only dreaming?” he repeated, vacantly. “But I tell you I saw her, dead,
shrouded for her grave. Mary, it must be true!”
She succeeded at last, after repeated assurances, in soothing his
distracted spirit, and he fell asleep again, moaning to himself.
It was quite true, as his sister told him, that Mrs. Haldane lived.
She did not tell him, however, that she had left the Manor, with her
husband, and gone away back to Spain.
Was it all a dream, then, after all?
A week later, when Santley was convalescent, but still horribly
overshadowed and perplexed, his sister gave him a letter, which (she
said) had been left for him by the master of Foxglove Manor. It was
marked “strictly private.” Santley waited until he was alone, and then,
tearing it open with tremulous fingers, read as follows:--
“Sir,
“I hear that you have been ill. Before leaving for Spain, I have left
this with your sister, with instructions that it is to be given you when
you are strong enough to read and understand. What it contains, observe,
is strictly between you and me; and if you keep your own counsel, no one
will know the secret of your indisposition but ourselves.
“In the first place, be comforted by my assurance that my wife is in
excellent health. If, in your delirium, you have been under delusions
concerning her, dispel them; all that has passed. She lives; and you
will live. If you have thought otherwise (and we know sick men have wild
fancies), consider that you have merely had an extraordinary dream.
Yet, remembering that men have often ere now been warned by visions of
calamities to ensue as the consequence of their own mad acts, accept the
dream as a sort of divine admonition--an inspiration to lead you towards
a better and calmer life. In your dream, sir, you have had your own
heart vivisected, and have thus been made conscious of its disease; you
have suffered terribly, as all patients must suffer, under the knife.
But you will be healed. You will begin the world afresh, and, God
willing, become a new man, thanking God, every day you live, that it was
only a dream.
“By the time you read this we shall be far away. With my sincere hopes
for your perfect recovery, I am, sir, yours truly,
“George Haldane.
“P.S.--My wife knows nothing of your dream, in any of its phenomena.
Some day, perhaps, I shall enlighten her, but not yet. She sends you her
best wishes.”
That was all Santley read and re-read in amazement, not quite
comprehending, yet dimly guessing that there had been some strange
mystery. At last, relieved by the thought that all his guilty agony
had perhaps been a dream indeed, he sunk back upon the pillow of his
armchair, and wept aloud.
That same afternoon, as he sat looking at his loving nurse, he
questioned her concerning Edith. It was the first time, since his
recovery, that he had mentioned her name.
“Where is she? Have they heard from her? Is she well?”
“She is well, I believe,” replied Miss Santley. “Just after you fell
ill, her aunt heard from her, and went away to join her in London. They
are there together now.”
“Do you know their address?”
“Yes; I heard from Rachel that they are staying at the Golden Cross
Hotel, near the station.”
In the evening, Santley insisted on having pen, ink, and paper.
His sister begged him not to fatigue himself by writing, but he was
determined.
“Charles,” she said softly, as she brought him what he wanted, “is it to
Edith you are going to write?”
“Yes,” he replied; and she stooped and kissed him approvingly. Then she
left him alone, and he wrote as follows:--
“Dearest Edith,
“Come to me; come back to Omberley. I have had a dangerous illness,
but through it, God has opened my eyes. I love you, darling. We will be
married at once in the dear old church. Yours till death,
“Charles Santley.”
Two days afterwards, the reply came, in Ellen’s own handwriting, thus:
“I, too, have had an illness, in which, also, God has been pleased to
open my eyes. I know, now, that it is all over between us. I shall never
marry you; I shall never return to Omberley. I am going abroad with my
aunt, who knows all I have suffered, and approves an eternal separation.
“Edith Dove.”
Some months later, the vicar resigned his living in the parish, and
disappeared from the scene of his early labours. The year following, it
was publicly stated in the religious newspapers that the Rev. Charles
Santley, sometime Vicar of Omberley, had entered the Church of Rome.
THE END.