A RETROSPECTIVE GLANCE.
It was indeed Doctor Turner, although twenty years or more had changed
him greatly.
They had given portliness to his form, turned his dark brown hair to a
silvery whiteness, and seamed his face with many a line of thought and
care.
He now wore, too, a full beard, which was also very gray, although not
as white as his hair, while the gold-bowed spectacles, which had become
a constant necessity, added to the strangeness of his appearance.
He had given up his practice some ten years previous, and was now the
sole proprietor of the handsome drug store on Washington street, already
mentioned.
But, although Doctor Turner had spoken with the utmost confidence in
addressing the lady before him, charging her with her identity, he was
nevertheless somewhat staggered when she looked him calmly in the eye
and replied, without a tremor, in her full, rich tones:
“You are mistaken, Doctor Turner—if that is your name—mine is not ‘Mrs.
Marston,’ and never was.”
“I know that your true name is not Mrs. Marston and never was,” the
physician replied, after a moment’s quiet study of his companion; “but
you are nevertheless the woman whom I attended at the —— House on the
date I have mentioned. You are very little changed, and I could not fail
to recognize you anywhere.”
The woman’s face grew crimson, then startlingly white again; her eyes
drooped beneath his steady gaze, her lips trembled from inward
excitement.
“You have a remarkable memory,” she murmured, and stood confessed before
him.
“No better than your own, madame, if I had changed as little as
yourself. Time has dealt far less kindly with me. Not a thread of your
hair has silvered, your color is as fresh, your face as fair as on the
day of our last meeting. Pardon me,” continued the doctor, with a
deprecating gesture, “for reminding you so abruptly of the past, but I
have never ceased to feel a deep interest in the mysterious case to
which I have referred, and I could not refrain from renewing the
acquaintance.”
“With what object?” queried madame, with cold dignity.
“I cannot say that I have any definite object in mind,” responded the
physician, suavely; “possibly I imagined I might be on the brink of a
discovery. However, that is neither here nor there; if you are desirous
of finding the gentleman who adopted your child, it may be that I can
assist you, if, after you confide in me your reasons for seeking him, I
shall deem it advisable.”
Mrs. Marston started slightly at this.
“Do you know August Damon?” she asked.
Doctor Turner smiled.
“Madame,” he said, “did you imagine that the gentleman who took your
babe would be any less cautious than yourself in such a transaction? You
were known as Mrs. Marston, but frankly confessed that the name was an
assumed one. Your object was to find the child a good home and then drop
out of sight altogether, so that those who took it should never be able
to identify you afterward. Did you suppose it was to be a one-sided
affair, that you were to have all the power and advantage in your own
hands?—that if you withheld your true name they would give you theirs?”
Mrs. Marston, as we must still call her, flushed hotly.
“Then Damon was not the true surname of those people,” she said, in a
crest-fallen tone.
“No, madame.”
“What was it?”
Doctor Turner did not reply for a moment.
Finally he said:
“Mrs. Marston, pray do not let me keep you standing; come into my
private office and be seated; we can converse much more comfortably
there and be free from intrusion, if customers should come in.”
Mrs. Marston shivered slightly, although the day was an unusually warm
one. She did not wish to talk over the long-buried past, and this
recognition had been a bitter blow to her; but her curiosity regarding
her child’s fate was so great that she could not resist the physician’s
invitation, and she followed him to a small room beautifully fitted up
as a consulting office, at the rear of the store.
Doctor Turner politely handed her a luxurious chair, and then seated
himself opposite her.
“It is doubtless a great surprise to you to find me situated as I am,”
the physician remarked, by way of opening the conversation; “but some
years ago my health gave out under the strain of a large and constantly
increasing practice, and I was forced to relinquish it, although I still
receive some office patients.”
Mrs. Marston merely bowed in reply to this information, her manner
indicating that she cared very little about Doctor Turner’s personal
history.
She glanced at August Damon’s card, which she had recovered when Doctor
Turner relinquished it.
“You were going to tell me the real name of the person whom this card
represents, I believe,” she said.
The druggist smiled, yet bit his lip with vexation at himself for having
intruded his own affairs upon her, even for the purpose of making her
feel more at her ease. He might have spared himself that trouble.
“That will depend entirely upon your motive in seeking them,” he
replied.
Mrs. Marston flushed again.
She was an exceedingly high-spirited woman, one could perceive at a
glance, and it galled her beyond expression to have any one make
conditions for her like this.
“How can it matter to you what my motives are?” she demanded,
imperiously.
“A physician has no right to betray the confidence of his patients,”
calmly responded the doctor; “and unless you have some urgent reason for
your request, I shall not feel at liberty to give you the information
you desire.”
“Are you their physician?”
“I was, for a time. I was first called to the child not three days after
it had been given to them.”
“How could you tell that it was the same child? Babes of that age look
much alike.”
“Do you suppose that a man in my profession could be so lacking in
observation as not to recognize a babe at whose birth he had officiated,
and in which so much of unusual interest seemed to center?” queried
Doctor Turner, with a slight curl of his lips. “I knew her the moment I
saw her; but they do not know, to this day, that I had even a suspicion
that she was not their own flesh and blood.”
“You never told them?” said Mrs. Marston, quickly.
“Madame,” returned the gentleman, with dignity, “need I remind you again
that an honorable physician never betrays the confidence of his
patients. You confided in me to a certain extent, and I knew that you
wished to drop entirely out of existence, as far as your relation with
the child and its adopted parents were concerned. I knew also that they
wished its adoption to remain a secret—consequently my lips were
sealed.”
The lady’s eyes drooped and all the haughtiness vanished at these words.
“Thank you, Doctor Turner, for your consideration for me, and I am glad,
too, that one so conscientious has been intrusted with the care of the
child,” she said, earnestly. “Is—she still living?”
“Yes, and as beautiful a young lady as any one would wish to see.”
Mrs. Marston’s face clouded, and a sigh escaped her red lips. Her
companion thought it one of regret and yearning.
“Has she been well reared? Has she had advantages?”
“The very best that money could procure or fondest affection could
suggest. Mr. August—ah—Damon——” the doctor caught himself just in
season, for the gentleman’s true name had almost escaped him, “has
become a rich man, and no parents could have done more for the welfare
of their own child than they have done for yours.”
“Are there other children?”
“No; that is, they have none of their own, though I believe they have
been giving a poor boy of great promise a home and an education during
the last eight or ten years.”
“Does she—the daughter—know that she is an adopted child?” Mrs. Marston
inquired.
“I cannot say positively as to that,” Doctor Turner replied. “She did
not know it a few years ago, and I imagine she has never been told. I
hope not, at all events; it would be better for her never to know it,”
he concluded, with significant emphasis.
“Yes,” returned his companion, “I suppose it would. But you have not yet
told me the name.”
“And you have not told me your motive in wishing to learn it.”
“I do not know that I have any special motive, other than a curiosity
and a natural desire to know how my child is living, and how life has
dealt with her,” the lady answered, musingly. “I was traveling this
summer and thought I would take Boston in on my route, ascertain, if I
could, the residence of the people to whom my babe had been given, and
perhaps obtain a glimpse of her.”
“That is your only motive, your only reason?” the doctor asked, bending
a searching glance upon her handsome face.
“It is.”
“Then pardon me, madame, if I tell you that I do not consider it of
sufficient importance to gratify your desire,” Doctor Turner returned,
gravely. “I can understand and sympathize with you—it is but natural
that a mother should yearn for her child, even after a separation of
more than twenty years; but I know well enough that Mr. Damon would not
have withheld his true name from you unless he desired to cut you off
from all future knowledge of the child whom you had given him. You also
wished to drop entirely out of their orbit, to leave no trace by which
they could ever find you, to learn the secret you were so careful to
preserve, and they have only aided you by concealing their own identity.
If you should put yourself in their way and try to see their daughter,
they could not fail to recognize you, as I have done, and it would
greatly disturb their peace; while if anything should occur to arouse
the young lady’s suspicions that she does not really belong to the
parents whom she so fondly loves, I am sure it would cause her a great
deal of unhappiness, while it might result in inquiries and discoveries
that would be embarrassing to yourself.”
Mrs. Marston sat proudly erect at this, her eyes flashing warningly.
“Such inquiries might be embarrassing, it is true, but they could result
in nothing that would bring discredit upon either the child or me,” she
said, with conscious dignity.
“I do not question that, madame, yet it would seem to be the wiser
course to let everything rest just as it is,” said the physician,
thoughtfully.
“Perhaps you are right,” responded his companion, with a sigh, “but I
would like to see her.”
“Allow me to ask, Mrs. Marston,” Doctor Turner resumed, after a minute
of silence, “is your husband still living?”
The woman flushed, a startled, painful crimson, to her brow; then she
straightened herself haughtily.
“Yes, my husband is living,” she icily replied.
“And, excuse me, but having been your medical attendant, I feel
something of an interest in the case—how was he affected by the—the loss
of his child?”
Doctor Turner knew that he was trespassing on dangerous ground, but,
under the circumstances, he felt that he might be pardoned for asking
the question.
“I do not feel that you have a right to interrogate me thus,” Mrs.
Marston responded, with some excitement, “nevertheless, I am somewhat in
your power, and——”
“Madame,” interrupted the physician, with an air of pride, “you need not
go on; if a little bit of your life is in my keeping, I assure you it is
in the keeping of a conscientious man. Whatever I may possess regarding
any patient, I could never use it in a dishonorable way.”
“I beg your pardon,” his companion said, instantly disarmed and secretly
ashamed of her sudden anger. “I am very quick, and you touched a
sensitive nerve. Doctor Turner, my husband never knew of the birth of
that child, and he can never know of it.
“You look at me with horror,” she proceeded hastily, as she met his
astonished gaze, “as if you imagine that I must have been guilty of some
great crime; but I have not, unless giving away my babe was one. I was a
lawful wife, as I convinced you at the time, and the child had honorable
birth; but there were reasons which made it absolutely necessary that I
should conceal my maternity from every one who knew me. I did, from all
but my sister, who has since died.”
“Ah! then the lady who was with you at the time was your sister. I could
not believe her to be simply a maid,” the doctor interposed.
Mrs. Marston bit her lips with vexation at having thus thoughtlessly
committed herself even in so small a point.
“Yes,” she said, after considering a moment, “she alone knew my secret,
and I believed it safe from all the world until I stumbled upon you
to-day.”
“It is safe even now,” the physician hastened to assure her. “Believe
me, I shall never betray it—you may set your heart wholly at rest upon
that point.”
“Thank you—I am very grateful for your past silence, Doctor Turner, and
your assurance of future secrecy. I am not a heartless woman, nor devoid
of maternal affection,” she went on, her lips quivering painfully. “I
could have loved my baby as fondly as any mother ever loved her child,
if I had been allowed to open my heart to her; but I could not. I had to
steel it against her. I never dared even to allow myself to kiss her
until the moment they took her away—for fear that I should begin to love
her and refuse to part with her. I cannot tell you why—I can never
explain it to any living being. I am hedged—I have always been hedged
about by circumstances that made it impossible, and as long as I live I
must carry the secret locked within my own heart.”
She stopped for a moment, overcome by the sad memories and emotions
which this retrospective glance aroused, while the good doctor felt more
genuine sympathy than he had ever experienced for her over that
mysterious occurrence so many years ago.
“I will try to be content with what you have told me to-day,” she
resumed, presently, “although it was my intention, when I came here, to
see for myself how my child had been reared. I am glad to know that she
has been tenderly shielded by parental love—that life has been made
bright and beautiful for her; may it ever be so, and perhaps, some time,
in the great future, where there can be no secrets, I may be allowed to
recognize and love the daughter which stern fate decreed I could not
have in this life.”
Tears actually arose to the physician’s eyes at this little glimpse of
the innermost sanctuary of the beautiful woman’s heart; but he marveled
more than ever at the terrible secret which must have well-nigh blighted
her early life.
She looked up, caught his sympathetic glance, and was instantly the
proud, self-possessed woman of the world again.
“And now, Doctor Turner,” she said, rising and drawing her elegant lace
mantle about her shapely shoulders, “I trust we may never meet again. If
chance should throw us together in the presence of others, I beg, as a
personal favor, that you will not recognize me without a formal
introduction.”
“I will not, madame; and for the sake of your peace of mind, I, too,
hope that our paths may never again cross,” he replied.
He accompanied her to the door, where they bowed politely and formally
to each other, and then the handsome woman swept out upon the street, as
composed and self-possessed as if she had merely been purchasing some
trifling article for the toilet, instead of rolling away the stone from
a sepulcher where, for more than twenty years, a corroding secret had
lain concealed.
Doctor Turner went back to his private office, where he sat a long time,
musing over the wonderful mystery which had stood the test of nearly a
quarter of a century, and wondering if he should ever learn the solution
to it.
“It was the most perplexing, yet romantic, incident connected with my
whole life as a physician,” he murmured. “If I could but get at the
inside history of it I could write a book worth reading.
“It was almost too bad,” he added, some minutes afterward. “not to tell
her about Huntress—it is possible no harm would have resulted from the
knowledge; but if there had I should have blamed myself. It was better
not.”
He watched the passers in the street for several days, hoping to get
another glimpse at his visitor.
But he did not—he never saw her again.