If Emily’s eyes could have followed Alban as her thoughts were following
him, she would have seen him stop before he reached the end of the road
in which the cottage stood. His heart was full of tenderness and sorrow:
the longing to return to her was more than he could resist. It would be
easy to wait, within view of the gate, until the doctor’s visit came
to an end. He had just decided to go back and keep watch--when he heard
rapid footsteps approaching. There (devil take him!) was the doctor
himself.
“I have something to say to you, Mr. Morris. Which way are you walking?”
“Any way,” Alban answered--not very graciously.
“Then let us take the turning that leads to my house. It’s not customary
for strangers, especially when they happen to be Englishmen, to place
confidence in each other. Let me set the example of violating that rule.
I want to speak to you about Miss Emily. May I take your arm? Thank
you. At my age, girls in general--unless they are my patients--are not
objects of interest to me. But that girl at the cottage--I daresay I
am in my dotage--I tell you, sir, she has bewitched me! Upon my soul, I
could hardly be more anxious about her, if I was her father. And, mind,
I am not an affectionate man by nature. Are you anxious about her too?”
“Yes.”
“In what way?”
“In what way are you anxious, Doctor Allday?”
The doctor smiled grimly.
“You don’t trust me? Well, I have promised to set the example. Keep your
mask on, sir--mine is off, come what may of it. But, observe: if you
repeat what I am going to say--”
Alban would hear no more. “Whatever you may say, Doctor Allday, is
trusted to my honor. If you doubt my honor, be so good as to let go my
arm--I am not walking your way.”
The doctor’s hand tightened its grasp. “That little flourish of temper,
my dear sir, is all I want to set me at my ease. I feel I have got hold
of the right man. Now answer me this. Have you ever heard of a person
named Miss Jethro?”
Alban suddenly came to a standstill.
“All right!” said the doctor. “I couldn’t have wished for a more
satisfactory reply.”
“Wait a minute,” Alban interposed. “I know Miss Jethro as a teacher
at Miss Ladd’s school, who left her situation suddenly--and I know no
more.”
The doctor’s peculiar smile made its appearance again.
“Speaking in the vulgar tone,” he said, “you seem to be in a hurry to
wash your hands of Miss Jethro.”
“I have no reason to feel any interest in her,” Alban replied.
“Don’t be too sure of that, my friend. I have something to tell you
which may alter your opinion. That ex-teacher at the school, sir, knows
how the late Mr. Brown met his death, and how his daughter has been
deceived about it.”
Alban listened with surprise--and with some little doubt, which he
thought it wise not to acknowledge.
“The report of the inquest alludes to a ‘relative’ who claimed the
body,” he said. “Was that ‘relative’ the person who deceived Miss Emily?
And was the person her aunt?”
“I must leave you to take your own view,” Doctor Allday replied. “A
promise binds me not to repeat the information that I have received.
Setting that aside, we have the same object in view--and we must take
care not to get in each other’s way. Here is my house. Let us go in, and
make a clean breast of it on both sides.”
Established in the safe seclusion of his study, the doctor set the
example of confession in these plain terms:
“We only differ in opinion on one point,” he said. “We both think it
likely (from our experience of the women) that the suspected murderer
had an accomplice. I say the guilty person is Miss Jethro. You say--Mrs.
Rook.”
“When you have read my copy of the report,” Alban answered, “I think you
will arrive at my conclusion. Mrs. Rook might have entered the outhouse
in which the two men slept, at any time during the night, while her
husband was asleep. The jury believed her when she declared that she
never woke till the morning. I don’t.”
“I am open to conviction, Mr. Morris. Now about the future. Do you mean
to go on with your inquiries?”
“Even if I had no other motive than mere curiosity,” Alban answered, “I
think I should go on. But I have a more urgent purpose in view. All that
I have done thus far, has been done in Emily’s interests. My object,
from the first, has been to preserve her from any association--in
the past or in the future--with the woman whom I believe to have been
concerned in her father’s death. As I have already told you, she is
innocently doing all she can, poor thing, to put obstacles in my way.”
“Yes, yes,” said the doctor; “she means to write to Mrs. Rook--and you
have nearly quarreled about it. Trust me to take that matter in hand.
I don’t regard it as serious. But I am mortally afraid of what you are
doing in Emily’s interests. I wish you would give it up.”
“Why?”
“Because I see a danger. I don’t deny that Emily is as innocent of
suspicion as ever. But the chances, next time, may be against us. How
do you know to what lengths your curiosity may lead you? Or on what
shocking discoveries you may not blunder with the best intentions?
Some unforeseen accident may open her eyes to the truth, before you can
prevent it. I seem to surprise you?”
“You do, indeed, surprise me.”
“In the old story, my dear sir, Mentor sometimes surprised Telemachus.
I am Mentor--without being, I hope, quite so long-winded as that
respectable philosopher. Let me put it in two words. Emily’s happiness
is precious to you. Take care you are not made the means of wrecking it!
Will you consent to a sacrifice, for her sake?”
“I will do anything for her sake.”
“Will you give up your inquiries?”
“From this moment I have done with them!”
“Mr. Morris, you are the best friend she has.”
“The next best friend to you, doctor.”
In that fond persuasion they now parted--too eagerly devoted to Emily
to look at the prospect before them in its least hopeful aspect.
Both clever men, neither one nor the other asked himself if any human
resistance has ever yet obstructed the progress of truth--when truth has
once begun to force its way to the light.
For the second time Alban stopped, on his way home. The longing to
be reconciled with Emily was not to be resisted. He returned to the
cottage, only to find disappointment waiting for him. The servant
reported that her young mistress had gone to bed with a bad headache.
Alban waited a day, in the hope that Emily might write to him. No letter
arrived. He repeated his visit the next morning. Fortune was still
against him. On this occasion, Emily was engaged.
“Engaged with a visitor?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. A young lady named Miss de Sor.”
Where had he heard that name before? He remembered immediately that he
had heard it at the school. Miss de Sor was the unattractive new pupil,
whom the girls called Francine. Alban looked at the parlor window as
he left the cottage. It was of serious importance that he should set
himself right with Emily. “And mere gossip,” he thought contemptuously,
“stands in my way!”
If he had been less absorbed in his own interests, he might have
remembered that mere gossip is not always to be despised. It has worked
fatal mischief in its time.