That evening Frank Pratt was busily preparing himself for a City dinner,
when Richard rushed panting into the room, haggard, his face covered
with perspiration, and a look of despair in his eyes that frightened his
friend.
"Why, Dick, old man," he cried, catching his hands, "what is it?"
"Money, Frank--give me money--ten--twenty--fifty pounds; doctors--
doctors. I've killed her--killed her!" he groaned.
Pratt asked no questions, but unlocking a desk, he took out and placed
five crisp bank notes in his friend's hand.
"I knew you would," panted Richard. "God bless you, Frank! Best
doctor--consumption?"
"Morley, Cavendish Square," said Pratt, with sharp brevity.
Then waving his hand, Richard dashed from the room; while Pratt quietly
sat down, half-dressed, to think it out, which meant to light his pipe.
Meanwhile his friend had rushed down, taken Sam Jenkles's cab, which was
waiting, and, as he was being driven through the streets, went over the
incidents of his return--how they had called on a suburban surgeon, who
had administered a styptic, and ordered them to go back very gently--how
Mrs Lane had met him with a look of reproachful agony in her eyes, as
he lifted out the half insensible girl, and bore her upstairs; and then,
as he turned to go, after laying poor Netta on the bed, she had held out
her hands to him, taking his in hers, and kissing them--so unmanning him
that he had sunk upon his knees by her side, and hid his face.
He could hardly recall the rest--only that he had had to go to four
doctors before he could find one ready to come to the shabby street; and
when at last he had been brought to the poor girl's bedside, he had
recommended the hospital.
It was this that had sent the young man to Frank Pratt's for money, the
value of which he now thoroughly realised for the first time in his
life.
The old white-haired physician came with him at once--Ratty, the horse,
never once causing trouble; and Netta gave the messenger a grateful
smile, as she saw the mission upon which he had been. Then, with his
mind in a whirl, Richard waited to see the physician, taking him over
into his own rooms, that his questions might be unheard.
"But she will recover?" said Richard, eagerly.
The old physician shook his head.
"It is but a matter of time," he said, gravely. "I can do nothing.
Quiet, change, nutritious food, are the best doctors for a case like
hers. A southern climate might benefit her a little; but it would be
cruelty to send her away from home, and might do more harm than good.
The poor girl is in a deep decline."
Richard was alone. What an end to the pleasant day he had projected!--
one which should do his poor little neighbour good, and wherein at the
same time he could quietly tell her of his position, and so stop at once
any nascent idea she might have that he was seeking to win her love.
How could he know, he asked himself, that matters had gone so far--that
the poor child really cared for him--for him, who had not a disloyal
thought to Valentina Rea; who, like the poor sufferer, lay that night
wakeful, and with a weary, gnawing pain at her heart--in the one case
mingled of hopeless misery, in the other tinged with bitterness, and a
feeling new to her--anger against the author of her pain.
Thus the days glided by, with Netta lying dangerously ill, too weak to
be moved. Richard was over a dozen times a day, asking after her
health, and he had insisted upon Mrs Lane taking money for the
necessities of the case. Then came a day when a fly stopped at the
door; and Richard from his window, expecting to see a fresh doctor, saw
a quiet-looking man step out, enter, stay a quarter of an hour, and then
return; and when, an hour later, he went over himself, it was to find
Mrs Lane deeply agitated, and with traces of tears upon her face; but
she made no confidant of him.
At last, while he was sitting writing one day, there came a letter for
him, with Frank Pratt for bearer. It had come to his chambers by post,
he said, enclosed in another, asking him to forward it.
Frank went away as soon as he had delivered it, seeming troubled; and on
Richard opening the note, he found these words:--
"I think it right to tell you what you have done, though no one knows
that I have written. I did trust you, Richard Trevor; for I thought
you a true, good man, who would be as faithful to my dear sister as
she would have been to you. If any one had told me you would give her
up directly for somebody else, I could have struck him. But I'll tell
you what you've done, for you ought to know it for your punishment:
you've broken the heart of the dearest, sweetest sister that ever
lived, and I hate you with all mine.
"Fin Rea.
"P.S.--Tiny's very ill, almost seriously, and all through you."
He had hardly read the note a second time, when Mrs Fiddison came in
dolefully, to say that Mrs Jenkles wanted to speak to him; and upon
that lady being admitted, it was to say, with a curtsey--
"If you please, sir, Mrs Lane says Miss Netta has been begging for you
to be sent for, if you'd come."