SUSAN BRINGS MARY TO AN OLD LOVER.
On losing sight of the barrister, Dr. Duncan returned to the hospital,
hurried over certain professional duties which he could not neglect, and
then went off to Hudson's rooms in the Temple in the hope that his
friend had found his way home. He did not forget to take with him some
sedative drugs, which he knew the unfortunate man would most certainly
be in need of.
He did not reach the Temple until three in the morning.
On mounting the stairs he found both doors of the chambers wide open,
for Hudson had not thought of closing them after him when he rushed out
in his mad frenzy.
The doctor entered the rooms; they were deserted. He looked around him
and saw the half empty brandy bottle on the table. The mirror over the
mantel-piece was broken, and fragments of the glass were lying on the
floor; the madman, after Susan had left him, seeing his own image in the
mirror, had mistaken it for some other person, and had thrown a chair at
it. The candle was still burning, a fact which proved to the doctor that
his friend had been in his chambers, since he left him outside the
Albion.
Dr. Duncan went out, and on inquiring of the porter at the Middle Temple
gate learned that Hudson had left the Temple nearly two hours before.
Alarmed for his friend's safety, he returned to the chambers, and passed
the rest of the night there, vainly waiting for him.
Morning came, and he could stay no longer; he would be soon due at the
hospital, so he called on a barrister whom he knew to be a friend of
Hudson's, put the whole circumstances before him, and persuaded him to
watch for the return of the man to his chambers, and see that the proper
steps were taken for his safety.
On going out, he found that he had still some little time to spare, and
it occurred to him that he would not walk directly to the hospital, but
take a road on which he thought he might probably meet Mary Grimm on her
way to the same destination. He knew it was about the hour that she
usually started from home.
He had been very anxious to find an opportunity of speaking again to her
in private. He determined to discover what were her objections to
accepting his love, and whether they were really insuperable.
He walked on, until he reached the street in which she lived without
encountering her; so he stood at the end of it, waiting till she came
out, his heart beating with excitement.
He stood there several minutes, then looking at his watch he saw it was
later than he had imagined; and thinking that he must have missed her,
he was about to turn away sick at heart with disappointment, when
suddenly he perceived her well-known figure approaching him.
When she saw him, her feelings were as strongly stirred as were his own,
and her face lost all its colour.
They shook hands in silence, each conscious that the other was too
deeply moved for language.
Then the doctor spoke words simple in themselves, and with a calm voice;
but yet they seemed to her to breathe forth all the passion that a human
being under that fiercest spell of love can feel.
"I knew that you walked by this road to the hospital. I have come here
to meet you, Miss King."
Mary answered nothing. He continued, "I have come to see you, to speak
to you. No, let us go this way," and he turned off into a road, which
was not the direct one to the hospital, but which led through the
neighbouring park, and was little frequented by pedestrians at that
early hour, so afforded opportunity for undisturbed conversation.
They walked on side by side for some minutes without either speaking.
"Mary!" then said the doctor--"you must let me call you Mary, even if I
am only to be your friend--I have so longed to see you by yourself, to
learn from your lips what my fate is to be!"
The girl walked firmly on, but with downcast eyes, hardly seeing whither
she went, but guiding herself in some strange way by the consciousness
of the one who walked by her side.
After a pause he continued: "Mary, you know that I love you. I must
know--you must tell me--if it is altogether impossible for you to return
that love."
"Altogether impossible," she replied, in a scarcely audible voice.
"Altogether!" he repeated after her in a dazed way. "Then I have nothing
more to live for. Oh, pardon me, Miss King! Why should I speak to you of
my happiness or misery? What a selfish being I am, even in my love for
you? And yet I do not think that it is altogether selfish. I know that I
would willingly endure endless misery if by that I could lighten your
burden, my child. Mine is a love that, be it selfish or unselfish, fills
my whole being. Oh, Mary! cannot you love me a little? I would so
endeavour to make your life a happy one."
His voice was subdued, but full of profound tenderness, and it pierced
Mary's heart with a sharp pain.
"I know it--I know it," she whispered; "but, oh! it is impossible, quite
impossible."
They were now on a lonely path among the bushes of the park. They came
to a seat under a tree; Dr. Duncan sat down on it and Mary sat by him.
"I cannot at all understand your meaning, Mary," he said sadly.
"Oh why do you love me?" she cried in tones of anguish, "why do you love
me? Try and put me out of your heart. If you only knew my heart you
would do so at once."
He looked at her for a few moments, then asked in despair, "Do you
dislike me?"
"Dislike you!" and she raised her head and looked into his eyes as she
exclaimed the words. "Dislike you! How can I dislike you who are so kind
to me? Ah no! Dr. Duncan--it is not that; but have mercy on me--you are
torturing me. It can never be--never--never--I cannot love you. There is
something between us, something awful, and you must not ask me what it
is!"
She looked so wildly as she spoke that the suspicion of insanity again
flashed across the doctor's mind, but he felt that whatever this burden
of hers might be, it could only increase the vehemence of his love by
deepening his pity.
"Mary!" he said, "this love is too great a matter to be trifled with. We
must understand each other. Are you right in throwing this love of mine
away? Oh think! if you do love me--and I sometimes half believe you
do--is it right to allow this fearful something whatever it is to
separate us? Why, what should separate us? If you have any great sorrow,
if you are persecuted by any enemy, if there is any horrible secret that
torments you, so much the more reason that you should allow the one who
loves you, and whom you love, to help you, to defend you, and ward these
off. Mary! Mary! believe me, you said the other day that I should loathe
you did I know what this secret of yours was. Believe me, whatever it
was, I could do no less than feel for you the more, love you the more.
For heaven's sake, Mary! let nothing stand between us."
She looked at him with a terrified air, and said, "And supposing that I
had committed some abominable crime--what then?"
"What then? I should protect you, fold you to my arms, and help to
soften your bitter remorse into sweet repentance. I would share your
agony and delight in doing so. Whatever this secret is, it would but
deepen the sympathy between us. Oh, Mary! Love can cure every wound."
"Oh, mercy!" she cried in tones of anguish. "Dr. Duncan! Dr. Duncan! do
not talk to me like this. I shall go mad if you do. I tell you again I
can never know love--never! never! I am the most miserable creature on
earth, and I cannot tell you why."
He seized her arm in his passion, and said in a voice fierce and
tremulous: "Mary! Mary! this is all wrong. You are throwing away your
whole life's happiness for an utterly false idea. Oh, my sweet love,
tell me all! tell me all! I repeat from my heart, that nothing you could
possibly disclose can lessen my affection. Put the idea altogether out
of your mind that whatever you tell me can make any difference. Mary!
were you the lowest of creatures, I would love you all the more. It
would be all the sweeter to know that I had saved you. Whatever you are,
I am your lover, your slave. Ah, Mary! with such a love as ours will be,
we will be the happiest of people. In spite of anything that has been,
you will be all the world to me until death, Mary!--until death."
The man had made the girl's heart thrill responsive to his own great
passion, and she could conceal this no longer. "Oh, spare me! spare me!"
she whispered.
"Then you do love me," he exclaimed.
She closed her eyes as she spoke in a dreamy voice. "Oh, spare me! this
will kill me. Oh, my love! for I do love you--as I can scarcely believe
woman ever loved man before--you don't know what you ask."
He folded her in his arms and kissed her lips, but she turned from him,
and rising from the seat stood before him very pale, and trembling,
while the secret thoughts of her heart, that she would fain have hidden
for ever, but could not in that weak moment conceal, were revealed to
him in her passionate words. "Yes, I love you! I will die soon, so it
cannot matter much that I tell you this. I love you! but this must be
the last time I see you. We two cannot love each other--oh, that
I could tell you: and then be clasped in your arms and die there
straightaway--die in your arms dear!--for I cannot tell you and live.
Oh, how delicious it would be--oh, my love!" she clenched her fists and
looked up to the skies--"do not raise these visions of Paradise to
me--only to madden me with the contrast between them and what must
be--glimpses of Heaven through the black clouds of Hell."
She paused and began to weep.
Her lover stood by her with both her hands in his.
He was about to say what little he could to comfort her, when she
snatched her hands from his and exclaimed, as she wiped her eyes with
her handkerchief, "Come away, let us go, Dr. Duncan. I can bear no more
of this."
They walked along the path in silence for a few minutes, she with a
heart aching with its misery, he puzzled, not knowing what to make of
her behaviour, and feeling a strange mixture of joy and sorrow.
At last he spoke, and there was a triumphant ring in his voice. "Mary,
you _shall_ be mine! We love each other. In that all-absorbing love we
will forget all your secret whatever it may be." He went on in fierce
accents, carried away by his passion. "Yes, Mary! in spite of crime, or
madness, or the power of hell, it shall be--Oh, my dear! my dear!..."
At that moment Mary interrupted him with a slight exclamation, and at
the same time put her hand on his arm in order to draw his attention.
He looked up and saw very inopportunely tripping towards them, with her
usual jaunty step, the plump figure of Susan Riley.
This young lady's keen glance detected in the looks of the two lovers
that some serious conversation had been going on.
"Good morning, doctor," she said as he lifted his hat and bowed. "Good
morning, Mary. Good gracious! how glum you look. You seem quite ill;
doesn't she, doctor? Why, what's the matter with you?"
"I am perfectly well, thank you, Susan."
"I think Miss King requires a change."
"I have told her so," remarked Dr. Duncan.
"By-the-bye, Mary!" exclaimed Susan, "something very curious has
happened which concerns you. An old friend of yours has been asking for
you."
"An old friend of mine?"
"Yes! and a gentleman, too; but I will not keep you in suspense. They
brought in a man suffering from delirium tremens last night, a very bad
case. He is a young man, and has the appearance of a gentleman. No one
knows who he is. He has no card on him: his linen is unmarked. Well, he
called out your name several times this morning."
"My name!"
"Yes; called out 'Mary Grimm!' 'Mary Grimm!' a dozen times, at least.
Now, yours is not such a common name, is it?" As she spoke the woman's
eyes twinkled with malice.
Dr. Duncan looked from one to the other. What Susan had said puzzled and
disturbed him. Was this the clue to Mary's secret, he wondered. She
called her Mary Grimm, too; why _Grimm_?
Mary divined his thoughts, and turning to him said simply, "I _was_
called 'Grimm.' That was my real name, but when my aunt adopted me I
took her name." Then addressing Susan, "I cannot conceive who this poor
man can be, for I am not aware that I know any gentlemen, even by
sight, except the doctors and students at the hospital."
Mary instinctively knew what suspicions were passing through her lover's
mind, but conscious of her innocence she spoke without exhibiting any
signs of confusion. His mind was much relieved by her words. "No, it is
not a man that is between us," he said to himself.
Then suddenly he called to mind the adventures of the previous night.
"How old would you take this man to be?" he asked anxiously of Susan.
"About thirty," was the reply.
He quickened his pace unconsciously, and did not speak again till they
were at the gate of the hospital.
Then he turned to Mary and said, "I will go and see this poor fellow
myself first; then I will come for you. You may be able to identify
him."
The three entered the hospital together.
* * * * *
Dr. Duncan went into the private ward in which the man lay. He found him
asleep and breathing stertorously. Drugs had done their work for the
time.
The nurse who was in attendance on him had left his bedside a few
minutes before, so the doctor was alone with the sick man.
He approached the bed. It was as he expected. He recognised Hudson's
face at once, partly concealed though it was by the bandages that had
been placed on the wounds the barrister had inflicted on himself against
the stones of Devereux Court.
He re-arranged the pillow of the insensible man, and then stood by him a
few moments, contemplating the altered features of his old
school-fellow.
Dr. Duncan was anything but a religious man, but the idea came to him
then to do a thing which he had not perhaps done for several years.
Recent circumstances had made the strong wilful man feel as a little
child again. He knelt down by the bedside of his friend and prayed for
him, or rather did something very like it; for his thoughts as he knelt
were not framed into distinct language.
No _words_ came to his mind, but he was filled with a vague aspiration,
a sense of his own weakness, a consciousness of higher things, a
confident belief that the Universal Mercy would have a pity for his poor
friend infinitely greater than was even his own pity--a prayer without a
petition, without words, or even distinct ideas, but perchance a true
prayer for all that.