It was a sore disappointment to the town of Glengowra when it found
that its two interesting visitors had left, and left suddenly; having
had, as far as current accounts went, no communication whatever with
anyone in the place but the landlord of the hotel and Lavirotte,
neither of whom would give any information as to the strangers or
their business.
It was not, of course, until the next day that it became generally
known two strangers had arrived and gone away. Kempston, the fussy
little magistrate, said it was a shame, a part of a scandalous plot to
defeat justice, and that someone or other ought to be punished all the
more severely on this account.
The police became more gloomy and suspicious, and silent, and the
general townsfolk, visitors included, felt that they had been robbed
of an exciting item in the programme of crime.
Dr. O'Malley was no exception to the general protest, but he took a
rather different view of it. "I am told," he said to Lavirotte, "that
two highly mysterious and attractive strangers arrived last night. An
old man, attractive, because venerable, and all that. A young girl, a
seraph, a sylph, a miracle of beauty, attractive because of her
loveliness. The old man has an interview with Maher. The old man has
an interview with you. The two slope. Let us say, for argument sake,
'Confound the old man, but what about the nightingale, the bride of
Abydos, the seraph?' Here am I, Dr. Thomas O'Malley, one of the lights
of my profession, and a man who may at any time be called into
consultation at the bedside of Royalty, and yet I am not permitted to
be fascinated. You know, Lavirotte, I am not in the least curious, but
who was this goddess, and why was I not permitted to see her?"
Lavirotte raised his hand and let it fall on the counterpane with a
gesture of deprecation. "Even I was not permitted to see her,
O'Malley."
"But all those who did see her say she was adorable, divine. You arch
hypocrite, you know all about her, and will not speak. At this moment
there may be a telegram awaiting me at home, announcing that I have
been created a baronet. How, in heaven's name, am I to get on without
a Lady O'Malley? And once I am a baronet, a man of my appearance,
parts, and position would be so assailed by ambitious and designing
spinsters, that I should be compelled, in sheer self-defence, and in
order to prevent myself committing bigamy, to turn my back upon the
whole brood. What spite have you, Lavirotte, against this dark-eyed
wonder, that you would not give her a chance of becoming Lady
O'Malley?"
Lavirotte affected to be languid, and said: "I really cannot give you
any information, and you said I was not to talk much."
"I'll take very good care you do not talk much while _I_ am present.
_I_ never let anyone talk too much in my presence."
"Look here, O'Malley," said the invalid, "I really must ask you to let
me alone on this subject. I'm not equal to it just at present."
"I know, my dear fellow. I won't worry you. I'm the least curious man
in the world. As your medical adviser, I would recommend you, with a
view to relieving your mind, to tell me all about this matter. But, as
your friend, I would advise you to tell me nothing at all of it,
unless you wish it all over the town in an hour."
The busy little doctor left and proceeded to the room of the other
patient. Here he found Mrs. Creagh with O'Donnell. She had insisted
upon dividing the work of nursing with her daughter, and made the girl
go home and lie down for some hours.
Under the circumstances of Mr. O'Donnell's business difficulties, his
wife did not dare to leave him. She had paid a flying visit the
morning after the encounter, and gone back to Rathclare the following
day. After the position in which her husband had been found that
night, she did not dare to leave him for an hour. Like a brave woman
she faced all the world for his sake, and although no one blamed him
for the ruin which had overtaken him, the pair were pitied
universally, and pity is harder to bear than blame.
The doctor found his second patient doing remarkably well; in fact,
much better than could be expected. Of course, Mrs. and Miss Creagh
had been cautioned, with all the others who might visit the sick room,
to say nothing of the Vernon disaster.
"Let me see," said the cheery little man; "let me see. I think you
said your wedding was fixed for a month after the accident. Well, if
you don't want to be all right until a month, I'll have to give you
some powerful medicine to keep you back. It's amazing, ma'am," he
said, turning to Mrs. Creagh, who sat smiling pleasantly at the
bedside. She was a plump, fair, good-looking woman, between fifty and
sixty, with a genial, round face, and a gracious, cordial manner,
which are better in a sick room than all the medicines in the
Pharmacop[oe]ia. "It is amazing, ma'am, how these young men will get
well in spite of us doctors. We can generally manage to polish off the
old people in a handsome, becoming, and professional way; but these
young people are dead against us--or alive against us, what's worse.
Whenever, Mrs. Creagh, you hear of a doctor dying of a broken heart,
it is _always_--mind, I say _always_--because of the stubbornness of
the young people. Ordinary men die of broken hearts because of love,
or business, or something of that kind; but when a patient defies
prussic acid, nux vomica, or aqua pura, it is all up with one of our
profession."
"By-the-way, O'Malley," said O'Donnell, "have you got a couple of
hours to spare to-day?"
"My dear fellow, pending the arrival of the official documents
appointing me Surgeon-in-ordinary to the Queen, I can spare you a
couple of hours."
"Then I'd be very much obliged to you," said O'Donnell, "if you'd run
into Rathclare and see the old people. I am very anxious about them.
I know the governor always has his hands full of business, and that
my mother does not wish to be away from him, but I cannot help
wondering why neither of them has come out. I am greatly afraid there
must be something the matter with the governor. Of course Mrs. Creagh
or Nellie writes twice a day, and we hear once a day; but I can't make
out how neither of them has come here."
"I'm sure your father is in excellent health," said O'Malley; "but if
it will relieve your mind in the slightest degree, I shall go in by
the next train and come out with news."
O'Malley went straight to the railway station and took the first train
leaving Glengowra for Rathclare. He of course knew, or guessed, why it
was neither father nor mother came to visit the son; but under the
circumstances it was best to humour Eugene and see Mr. and Mrs.
O'Donnell.
He found the old couple in the small library behind the dining-room.
The window of this looked into the garden in the rear, and so was
shielded from prying eyes.
"Dr. O'Malley," cried the woman, rising to her feet, "have they been
writing me lies? Is he worse?"
The old man was sitting at the table, on which lay a few open ledgers.
In his hand he held a quill pen, with which he was making,
tremorously, figures on a large sheet of ruled paper. At his wife's
words he dropped the pen on the paper and looked up. Then, hearing the
noise of the pen fall, he looked down again, and cried: "Confound it,
I have blotted the sheet." At that moment the traditions of a lifetime
of business were all upon him. He stood in the centre of the ruins of
his beloved city, laid low by earthquake; the fiery heat of all his
years of commercial toil were focussed on him then.
He was making out _his bankrupt sheet_.
The doctor replied instantly, taking no notice of what the old man had
said:
"On the contrary, Mrs. O'Donnell, I am come to tell you, thinking you
would be glad to hear it by word of mouth from me, that your son is
getting on infinitely better than I had ever dared to hope. You may
make your mind quite easy that he will be up and about sooner than we
thought at the best."
The woman threw herself into a chair and burst into tears.
"Mary," said the husband, looking at her in perplexity as he sopped up
the ink with a piece of blotting-paper, "I was so busy I did not hear.
What did he say?"
"He said that all is well at Glengowra," said the woman, through her
sobs.
"He means, Mary," said the old man, "that Eugene is dead."
She dried her eyes, ceased her sobs, and looked up.
"No, James, no. He said Eugene is better--getting on as well as can be
expected, and that he will soon be up and about once more."
The father put down his pen, leaned back in his chair, covered his
face with his hands, and said in a feeble, tremulous voice: "It would
be better if my boy was dead."
Mrs. O'Donnell made a gesture of silence and caution to the doctor.
Then she rose and beckoned the latter to follow her out of the room.
When they were in the hall she said: "The shock, the business shock,
has been too much for his brain, I fear. Ever since that awful night
they found him in the strong-room with the revolver I am in dread if I
leave him for even a minute. I must go now. God bless you for coming.
Good-bye. Be good to my boy."
That evening, when O'Malley called to see Lavirotte, he told him the
scene he had witnessed that day in the library at O'Donnell's.
All at once the Frenchman became strangely excited. He sat up in the
bed, and cried out: "I have it, O'Malley; I have it. I have done a
great wrong to those people, but I think I see my way to setting it
right again."
"Lie down, you maniac," said the doctor, pushing him softly back. "Do
you want to burst your bandages, or bring on fever? What do you mean?"
"Mean!" cried the other. "I mean to sell my last shirt rather than
that Eugene's father should come to ruin."
"Keep quiet," said the doctor. "Keep quiet, or you will surely bring
on delirium."
"I have the means of doing it," cried Lavirotte, fiercely, "and I will
do it."
By this time O'Malley was bathing the injured man's head copiously.
"If he gets delirium," thought the doctor, "it's all up with him."
"I see the money," cried Lavirotte, excitedly shaking his arms in the
air. "Half a million if it's a penny! That will clear James O'Donnell,
the noble, honourable James O'Donnell, the father of my best, my
dearest friend Eugene. Come here, Eugene, and take it, every
sovereign, every sou. It is all yours. Take it, my boy; clear the old
man, marry Nellie, and God bless you and her, and then the devil may
have me if he will only have the goodness to wait so long."
"Delirium," said the doctor, "has set in, and he will die."