A little later, on that eventful day, when I was most in need of all
that your wisdom and kindness could do to guide me, came the telegram
which announced that you were helpless under an attack of gout. As soon
as I had in some degree got over my disappointment, I remembered having
told Euneece in my letter that I expected her kind old friend to come to
us. With the telegram in my hand I knocked softly at Philip’s door.
The voice that bade me come in was the gentle voice that I knew so well.
Philip was sleeping. There, by his bedside, with his hand resting in her
hand, was Euneece, so completely restored to her own sweet self that I
could hardly believe what I had seen, not an hour since. She talked
of you, when I showed her your message, with affectionate interest and
regret. Look back, my admirable friend, at what I have written on
the two or three pages which precede this, and explain the astounding
contrast if you can.
I was left alone to watch by Philip, while Euneece went away to see her
father. Soon afterward, Maria took my place; I had been sent for to the
next room to receive the doctor.
He looked care-worn and grieved. I said I was afraid he had brought bad
news with him.
“The worst possible news,” he answered. “A terrible exposure threatens
this family, and I am powerless to prevent it.”
He then asked me to remember the day when I had been surprised by the
singular questions which he had put to me, and when he had engaged to
explain himself after he had made some inquiries. Why, and how, he had
set those inquiries on foot was what he had now to tell. I will repeat
what he said, in his own words, as nearly as I can remember them. While
he was in attendance on Philip, he had observed symptoms which made him
suspect that Digitalis had been given to the young man, in doses often
repeated. Cases of attempted poisoning by this medicine were so rare,
that he felt bound to put his suspicions to the test by going round
among the chemists’s shops--excepting of course the shop at which his
own prescriptions were made up--and asking if they had lately dispensed
any preparation of Digitalis, ordered perhaps in a larger quantity
than usual. At the second shop he visited, the chemist laughed. “Why,
doctor,” he said, “have you forgotten your own prescription?” After
this, the prescription was asked for, and produced. It was on the paper
used by the doctor--paper which had his address printed at the top, and
a notice added, telling patients who came to consult him for the second
time to bring their prescriptions with them. Then, there followed in
writing: “Tincture of Digitalis, one ounce”--with his signature at the
end, not badly imitated, but a forgery nevertheless. The chemist noticed
the effect which this discovery had produced on the doctor, and asked if
that was his signature. He could hardly, as an honest man, have asserted
that a forgery was a signature of his own writing. So he made the true
reply, and asked who had presented the prescription. The chemist called
to his assistant to come forward. “Did you tell me that you knew, by
sight, the young lady who brought this prescription?” The assistant
admitted it. “Did you tell me she was Miss Helena Gracedieu?” “I did.”
“Are you sure of not having made any mistake?” “Quite sure.” The chemist
then said: “I myself supplied the Tincture of Digitalis, and the young
lady paid for it, and took it away with her. You have had all the
information that I can give you, sir; and I may now ask, if you can
throw any light on the matter.” Our good friend thought of the poor
Minister, so sorely afflicted, and of the famous name so sincerely
respected in the town and in the country round, and said he could not
undertake to give an immediate answer. The chemist was excessively
angry. “You know as well as I do,” he said, “that Digitalis, given in
certain doses, is a poison, and you cannot deny that I honestly believed
myself to be dispensing your prescription. While you are hesitating to
give me an answer, my character may suffer; I may be suspected myself.”
He ended in declaring he should consult his lawyer. The doctor went
home, and questioned his servant. The man remembered the day of Miss
Helena’s visit in the afternoon, and the intention that she expressed of
waiting for his master’s return. He had shown her into the parlor which
opened into the consulting-room. No other visitor was in the house at
that time, or had arrived during the rest of the day. The doctor’s own
experience, when he got home, led him to conclude that Helena had gone
into the consulting-room. He had entered that room, for the purpose of
writing some prescriptions, and had found the leaves of paper that he
used diminished in number. After what he had heard, and what he had
discovered (to say nothing of what he suspected), it occurred to him
to look along the shelves of his medical library. He found a volume
(treating of Poisons) with a slip of paper left between the leaves; the
poison described at the place so marked being Digitalis, and the paper
used being one of his own prescription-papers. “If, as I fear, a legal
investigation into Helena’s conduct is a possible event,” the doctor
concluded, “there is the evidence that I shall be obliged to give, when
I am called as a witness.”
It is my belief that I could have felt no greater dismay, if the long
arm of the Law had laid its hold on me while he was speaking. I asked
what was to be done.
“If she leaves the house at once,” the doctor replied, “she may escape
the infamy of being charged with an attempt at murder by poison; and,
in her absence, I can answer for Philip’s life. I don’t urge you to warn
her, because that might be a dangerous thing to do. It is for you to
decide, as a member of the family, whether you will run the risk.”
I tried to speak to him of Euneece, and to tell him what I had already
related to yourself. He was in no humor to listen to me. “Keep it for a
fitter time,” he answered; “and think of what I have just said to you.”
With that, he left me, on his way to Philip’s room.
Mental exertion was completely beyond me. Can you understand a poor
middle-aged spinster being frightened into doing a dangerous thing? That
may seem to be nonsense. But if you ask why I took a morsel of paper,
and wrote the warning which I was afraid to communicate by word of
mouth--why I went upstairs with my knees knocking together, and
opened the door of Helena’s room just wide enough to let my hand pass
through--why I threw the paper in, and banged the door to again, and
ran downstairs as I have never run since I was a little girl--I can
only say, in the way of explanation, what I have said already: I was
frightened into doing it.
What I have written, thus far, I shall send to you by to-night’s post.
The doctor came back to me, after he had seen Philip, and spoken with
Euneece. He was very angry; and, I must own, not without reason. Philip
had flatly refused to let himself be removed to the hospital; and
Euneece--“a mere girl”--had declared that she would be answerable for
consequences! The doctor warned me that he meant to withdraw from
the case, and to make his declaration before the magistrates. At my
entreaties he consented to return in the evening, and to judge by
results before taking the terrible step that he had threatened.
While I remained at home on the watch, keeping the doors of both
rooms locked, Eunice went out to get Philip’s medicine. She came back,
followed by a boy carrying a portable apparatus for cooking. “All that
Philip wants, and all that we want,” she explained, “we can provide for
ourselves. Give me a morsel of paper to write on.”
Unhooking the little pencil attached to her watch-chain, she paused and
looked toward the door. “Somebody listening,” she whispered. “Let them
listen.” She wrote a list of necessaries, in the way of things to eat
and things to drink, and asked me to go out and get them myself. “I
don’t doubt the servants,” she said, speaking distinctly enough to
be heard outside; “but I am afraid of what a Poisoner’s cunning and a
Poisoner’s desperation may do, in a kitchen which is open to her.” I
went away on my errand--discovering no listener outside, I need hardly
say. On my return, I found the door of communication with Philip’s room
closed, but no longer locked. “We can now attend on him in turn,” she
said, “without opening either of the doors which lead into the hall. At
night we can relieve each other, and each of us can get sleep as we want
it in the large armchair in the dining-room. Philip must be safe under
our charge, or the doctor will insist on taking him to the hospital.
When we want Maria’s help, from time to time, we can employ her under
our own superintendence. Have you anything else, Selina, to suggest?”
There was nothing left to suggest. Young and inexperienced as she was,
how (I asked) had she contrived to think of all this? She answered,
simply “I’m sure I don’t know; my thoughts came to me while I was
looking at Philip.”
Soon afterward I found an opportunity of inquiring if Helena had left
the house. She had just rung her bell; and Maria had found her, quietly
reading, in her room. Hours afterward, when I was on the watch at
night, I heard Philip’s door softly tried from the outside. Her dreadful
purpose had not been given up, even yet.
The doctor came in the evening, as he had promised, and found an
improvement in Philip’s health. I mentioned what precautions we had
taken, and that they had been devised by Euneece. “Are you going to
withdraw from the case?” I asked. “I am coming back to the case,” he
answered, “to-morrow morning.”
It had been a disappointment to me to receive no answer to the telegram
which I had sent to Mr. Dunboyne the elder. The next day’s post brought
the explanation in a letter to Philip from his father, directed to him
at the hotel here. This showed that my telegram, giving my address at
this house, had not been received. Mr. Dunboyne announced that he had
returned to Ireland, finding the air of London unendurable, after the
sea-breezes at home. If Philip had already married, his father would
leave him to a life of genteel poverty with Helena Gracedieu. If he had
thought better of it, his welcome was waiting for him.
Little did Mr. Dunboyne know what changes had taken place since he and
his son had last met, and what hope might yet present itself of brighter
days for poor Euneece! I thought of writing to him. But how would that
crabbed old man receive a confidential letter from a lady who was a
stranger?
My doubts were set at rest by Philip himself. He asked me to write a few
lines of reply to his father; declaring that his marriage with Helena
was broken off--that he had not given up all hope of being permitted to
offer the sincere expression of his penitence to Euneece--and that
he would gladly claim his welcome, as soon as he was well enough to
undertake the journey to Ireland. When he had signed the letter, I was
so pleased that I made a smart remark. I said: “This is a treaty of
peace between father and son.”
When the doctor arrived in the morning, and found the change for the
better in his patient confirmed, he did justice to us at last. He
spoke kindly, and even gratefully, to Euneece. No more allusions to the
hospital as a place of safety escaped him. He asked me cautiously for
news of Helena. I could only tell him that she had gone out at her
customary time, and had returned at her customary time. He did not
attempt to conceal that my reply had made him uneasy.
“Are you still afraid that she may succeed in poisoning Philip?” I
asked.
“I am afraid of her cunning,” he said. “If she is charged with
attempting to poison young Dunboyne, she has some system of defense, you
may rely on it, for which we are not prepared. There, in my opinion, is
the true reason for her extraordinary insensibility to her own danger.”
Two more days passed, and we were still safe under the protection of
lock and key.
On the evening of the second day (which was a Monday) Maria came to me
in great tribulation. On inquiring what was the matter, I received a
disquieting reply: “Miss Helena is tempting me. She is so miserable at
being prevented from seeing Mr. Philip, and helping to nurse him, that
it is quite distressing to see her. At the same time, miss, it’s hard
on a poor servant. She asks me to take the key secretly out of the door,
and lend it to her at night for a few minutes only. I’m really afraid I
shall be led into doing it, if she goes on persuading me much longer.”
I commended Maria for feeling scruples which proved her to be the best
of good girls, and promised to relieve her from all fear of future
temptation. This was easily done. Euneece kept the key of Philip’s door
in her pocket; and I kept the key of the dining-room door in mine.