It was like a flash: she saw the whole scene while the young clerk went on in answer to the Major.
“Just off the path, sir.”
“And what have you done?”
“Had him carried directly to my rooms at the office, sir.”
“Where his brother is seeing to him?”
“No, sir; Mr Jessop Reed has gone off in haste to London on business. Left a letter for Mr Sturgess. He’s ill too, sir. Half delirious with his bad shoulder, which has broken out again.”
“Tut – tut – tut!” ejaculated the Major. “Well? You did something more?”
“Yes, sir, sent off directly to Blinkdale for the doctor, bathed and bound up Mr Reed’s head, and then came on to you.”
“Good!” cried the Major sharply, clapping the young man on the shoulder, and drawing him into the room. “Sit down and swallow a cup of coffee, my lad. You’ve had no breakfast. Dinah, my child, be a woman. We’ll go over at once. No. You and Martha make a bed for him in my study. I’ll have him carried here. He cannot stay at that noisy mine.”
“Yes – yes,” said Dinah, in a whisper, as with trembling hands she hurriedly placed the coffee before the messenger. “Martha will get that ready, father. I must come too.”
“No, no, my child! – well, yes, you may be of use. Be quick, then. In a minute we must be off.” Then, as Dinah ran up to her room, he went to the study and returned hastily, placing something in his breast.
“Old soldiers know a little about surgery, Mr Robson,” he said. “It will be a couple of hours before the doctor can get to the mine.”
“Three, sir.”
“Perhaps, and I may be of use.”
“I thought you would come, sir,” said Robson, as he hurriedly appeased his hunger. “There’s something wrong, too, at the mine, so one of the principal men says, but I didn’t stop to hear what it was, for I was coming on here.”
“Curse the mine!” roared the Major; “let’s think of poor Mr Reed. Ah, that’s right, my dear,” he cried sharply, as Dinah came into the room, looking very white, but firm and determined. “Ready, Mr Robson?”
“Quite, sir,” said the messenger, starting up.
“Tell Martha, my dear?”
Dinah nodded. She could not speak, and the next minute they were down by the river, and then ascended the mountain path, walking quickly along the narrow shelf, with thrill after thrill passing through the girl, as she went by the spot where Clive had struck the paper she had offered him from her hand; and this was supplemented by a suffocating feeling of despair as they reached the cool, dark, shady cutting, tunnelled out in the precipitous cliff. Here she glanced wildly at the spot where she had flown, as she believed, to her lover’s arms, and rested in them for a moment, murmuring her delight that he had come.
There was a heavy dull pulsation in her brain, as she passed on with her father out into the sunshine once again, deafening her to the words he spoke from time to time, while the mountain side seemed to swim around before her and the purple heather to rise and fall in waves till the gap was reached. That pathway to the mine chasm with all its host of terrible recollections brought her back to the present with a shock, and she walked down it clinging to her father’s arm.
She shivered and felt cold now as she gazed wildly before her. It was wonderfully changed, but the salient points were the same, and she hardly noted the many buildings which had sprung up, but gazed excitedly round, expecting moment by moment that her eyes would light upon the fierce mocking face of Sturgess; while by a strange confusion of ideas, the beating of her heart seemed to form itself into the heavy steps of the man from whom she fled panting with horror, coming in rapid pursuit.
She started nervously again and again, as the figure of some sturdy workman passed before them, coming or going from different portions of the busy hive, where a steam-engine was panting heavily, or a huge pump toiled on tossing out the water from the depths of the mine to run gurgling along by the side of the path they followed.
At last the new-looking offices were reached, and a group of workmen drew away to let them pass, while Dinah gazed round nervously, clinging more tightly now to her father’s arm, feeling sure that in another moment or two she must face the man she feared.
A spasm shot through her, as Robson exclaimed sharply —
“How is he?”
And she strained her ears for the answer from a man in the doorway.
“Just the same, sir. He hasn’t moved.”
The next question turned her giddy.
“Where is Sturgess – in his room?”
“No, sir. He got up when they told him, and went down the mine.”
“Why, he wasn’t fit to stir! This way, sir.”
Robson led them into his room; and there Dinah fell upon her knees beside a mattress, upon which, pale and stern, with his head enveloped in a broad bandage, lay Clive Reed, his eyes half-closed, and his lips moving as he went on muttering incoherently; while as Dinah bent down over him, she heard her name faintly whispered.
For a moment she believed that it was in recognition of her presence, and her heart gave one great leap of joy. But it sank down directly into a slow, feeble beat, as she grasped only too truly that the speaker was delirious, and there was a look in his face which sent a terrible foreboding to her heart.
“Let him not die, O God, without knowing that I was his very own,” she moaned to herself, as an intense longing came over her to clasp him tightly to her heart.
Then she gave way, and rose with a low sigh, as her father said sternly —
“Let me come, my child. Minutes are precious. At all costs we will get him away from here.”
What followed was like a dream, but she heard the Major’s sharp military voice as he gave decisive commands. She saw him remove the bandage and replace it with another well saturated with water, and then as she stood back, she saw four sturdy, willing men stoop down at her father’s order, each take a corner of the thin, narrow mattress upon which Clive lay, and keeping step, bear him out of the place and along the path toward the entrance of the gap. Then she was conscious that she was walking behind in the little procession, with the Major grasping her arm, and carrying a large bottle of water.
“It is the best way,” he said, “and he will see the doctor all the sooner, for he must pass us on his way from Blinkdale.”
The little procession went steadily on, Robson leaving them now, and Dinah’s breath came more freely as they reached the mouth of the gap, and turned round on to the path without Sturgess having been seen. In this fashion they made their way steadily on to the cottage, the Major calling a halt, so that he could saturate the bandage from time to time. But the little ambulance party had hardly passed out of sight of the mine entrance, when in answer to the signal the engine gear began to work, the wire rope ran over the wheel as it revolved rapidly, till with a sudden clang the ascending cage reached the platform and Sturgess stepped out, with his arm and shoulder roughly bound up, and with a wild look in his eyes as they burned feverishly above his hollow, pallid cheeks.
The captain of one of the underground gangs stepped out after him, and laying a hand upon his arm, said quietly —
“You take my advice, Mr Sturgess; that place is turning ugly. You go and lie down again, and let the doctor see it when he comes.”
“You hold your tongue for a fool,” said Sturgess savagely; and then he made a lurch as if he had turned giddy, but he recovered himself directly. “Here, some of you: where’s Mr Jessop Reed?”
“I told you,” said Robson, who came up just then, “he has gone to town.”
“It’s a lie!” said Sturgess. “He wouldn’t have gone without telling me.”
“Then he told it himself on paper,” said Robson coolly. “I read you what he said.”
“And it’s a lie, and so is what Smithers says like a fool.”
“Ah! you told me there was something wrong below just as I was off this morning,” said Robson eagerly. “Nobody hurt, Smithers?”
“Nobody hurt?” said the man, with a coarse laugh; “well, I suppose everybody concerned. It’s a general burst up, Mr Robson.”
“A lie. All a lie,” said Sturgess, stretching out his hands and groping as if to save himself from falling. “All a big flam.”
“Is it? you’ll see,” muttered the captain.
“A lie, I say!” growled Sturgess, half-deliriously, as he looked round from one to the other, pressing his hand to his heated shoulder all the while. “A lie, I say, to frighten the people into selling their shares, and they did, the fools. Bah! The ‘White Virgin’s’ the richest mine in England, and I’ll break the neck of any one who says it arn’t!”
“No, you won’t break anybody’s neck,” said the man gravely, “unless it’s your own, Mr Sturgess, and unless you take care you’re going to be very badly. It’s all true, Mr Sturgess. I thought that lode couldn’t go on yielding like it did.”
“In Heaven’s name, man, what do you mean?” cried Robson.
“Only this, sir: we’ve come upon a blind lead.”
“What?”
“The lode has stopped dead in the rock, and we can’t find any more trace of it. Nothing but the stone, and I don’t believe there’ll be another scrap of ore ever found.”
“A blind lead,” cried Robson, astounded.
“Yes, sir, that’s it; and if Mr Clive Reed holds any shares still it’s a cruel bit of news for him. As for the other chaps – well, they can take their chance. – Ah, I thought so!”
For Sturgess had reeled and nearly fell, to be lowered down by the man, breathing stertorously, evidently insensible to all that passed around.
The news was true. The rumour Wrigley and Jessop Reed had set afloat for their own nefarious ends had proved prophetic. Hoist with their own petard, they had yet to learn that they were ruined men.
Chapter Thirty Six.
The Days of Peril
“Live, my own dearest, live,” murmured Dinah, as she knelt beside Clive’s couch, listening to his never-ending mutterings, as the fever ran its course, and mingled with the incessant babblings about the mine, his brother’s trickery and deceit, she heard him burst into torrents of reproaches against him who was slandering his character. Then would come appeals and declarations of his innocency, and Dinah’s tears fell softly as he rambled on about Lyddy.
“Shame on you, Janet!” he would cry. “How could you think it of me? That I came telling you of my love fresh from the embraces of that weak creature. Poor Lyddy! A cruel betrayal of a weak, easily flattered girl. I swear it was all false. To save himself. Yes: false as hell! But I pity you, dear. You are my sister now; and I pity you.”
He would calm down for a while, and then begin again, mingling his troubles in so confused a fashion, that Dinah would grow puzzled. But she could not tear herself away, and listened eagerly as the sick man rambled on, and laid bare the whole of his troubled life.
Then she would writhe in her agony, as from out of the tangle her own name would come, and he grew excited as he wandered on, going back to hearing her sobbing in the next room, the shots pattering on the window, and on and on to the surprise in the tunnelled pathway.
“All, all the same. So gentle and loving, but all so weak. Poor little sweet: so beautiful. Her words would ring like music, and yet she could throw herself into his arms. Forgive her? Yes, I must forgive her. So weak, so hard to trust.”
And then, sobbing gently, Dinah would bend over, and lay her cheek against his aching forehead, and whisper to him to believe in her. That there was nothing to forgive – that she was his own, and that he must live to learn the truth or she would die.
But her tender appeals were to one who could not understand. Still they were a solace to her, as she hung about his bed. She had him with her, the man who loved her so tenderly, and in those secret moments, when they were alone, often enough in the silent watches of the night, she could fall into an ecstasy of joy, as in the abandonment of her love, with none to know, she could draw the dear head upon her throbbing breast, and cover his face with her kisses.
“My own, my loving husband!” she would coo softly in the midst of her caresses, at first with burning cheeks, later on with her pulses undisturbed, her heart suffused by a sweet placid joy which made her beam upon him as a mother over her babe.
“Some day he will know all, and I can wait till then,” she sighed, as even in the midst of her agony of doubt as to his recovery, she revelled in the joy of having him there insensible, ignorant of her caresses, but still all her own.
The doctor had reached them soon after they arrived at the cottage, two of the bearers having been stationed upon high points to intercept him should he take any other track, and after his examination he had removed one horror from Dinah’s breast. For he declared the injury to be the result of a fall, and hence it was not through some furious encounter between brothers – a fratricidal strife.
But the fall, he declared, was not the sole trouble. There was fever, brain fever, and when pressed as to the result, he only shook his head, wisely, and said —
“We shall see – we shall see.”
Then in obedience to a letter from the Major, Doctor Praed had come down, to enter the cottage fussy, tired, and irritable.
“Most unreasonable, Major Gurdon, to bring me down to this out-of-the-way desert to see Clive Reed. Hang him, and his brother too. They’ve been the curse of my life. Dozens of important patients waiting for me, and I leave them to come down here to see this boy. Hang him, and his father too, sir. I wish I had never seen them. Ruined me – almost, and I’m very glad the mine has turned out a failure, after all.”
“I am afraid you are a little tired with your journey, sir!” said the Major stiffly.
“Tired, sir! I don’t seem to have a bone left. Of course, I’m tired. How a sane man could ever come and live in such an out-of-the-way spot, I don’t know.”
“A very peaceful spot, sir, for a heart-sore man,” said the Major coldly. “I will ask you to come and see the patient as soon as you feel refreshed.”
At that moment the door opened, and Dinah, looking pale, subdued, and anxious, appeared.
The Doctor started from his seat.
“Dinah, my child,” said the Major, “Clive Reed’s godfather, Doctor Praed. Can he come up now?”
The Doctor advanced, and took her hands, raised them one by one to his lips, and then letting them fall, he took her in his arms and kissed her forehead reverently.
“God bless you, my dear!” he said, in a softened voice. “So you are his tender nurse. It is you whom he spoke of as her who had made him think the world was not all bad. Hah, yes,” he continued, looking at her curiously, “the face of an angel. Major Gurdon, forgive my petulance. Getting old, sir. Tired and worried. I’m very glad you sent for me. Clive is my own dear boy. I always looked upon him as a son. There, I’m only an ignorant man, my dear,” he continued, turning to Dinah with a pitiful smile on his face, “but with God’s help and yours, he shall ask me to his wedding yet. I’ll come and claim the first kiss from her who is going to help me try and save his life. Hah! now I feel ready to go to work. As for the other patients, Major, there are plenty of doctors in town. I’m going to stop here with my boy Clive.”
The tears coursed rapidly down Dinah’s cheeks as she listened, while Doctor Praed patted the hand he held, and smiled.
“Ah,” he said, “you have no faith in me. You think I am a prattling old man, who talks instead of acts. Come along, and let’s see my patient, only really, according to etiquette, I ought to be meeting your regular attendant in consultation.”
“He is twelve miles away, sir,” said the Major rather coldly, “and unable to get over here much. He said it was a case for nursing.”
“No doubt, no doubt,” said the Doctor; and he followed Dinah to the patient’s couch, and then drew up the blind and sat down by the pillow.
“Poor boy!” he said tenderly, as he took Clive’s hand and noted his hollow cheeks, large burning eyes, and the restless muttering he kept up. “No doubt about it, my dear. That injury is nothing. Bled a good deal, you say?”
“Terribly,” whispered Dinah, with a suppressed sob.
“Weakened him, but on the whole I should say it was favourable. This is all brain, my child. Overwork and anxiety. He must have had some mental shock. He must have known that his fathers pet scheme had failed before any one else had suspected the fact.”
Dinah looked at him piteously, as she felt that it was her doing, as much so as if her acts had been intentional instead of the work of others.
“Well, this will not do,” said the Doctor, replacing a tiny clinical thermometer in its case. “His head is far too hot, and I suppose you have no ice here. All this must come off.”
He pointed to the sufferer’s hair, and Dinah’s face contracted with horror.
“I can’t help it, my child. Come; we must save his life. Where are your scissors? It will be a task for you. Pooh! don’t look like that, my dear. It will all grow again.”
A few minutes later, with the tears slowly trickling down her cheeks, Dinah sat, carefully cutting off lock after lock, the Doctor looking on impatiently.
“There,” he cried at last, “you must let me do it, child. You are snipping little bits off as if they were more precious than gold. I tell you it must all come off at once. His head ought, to be shaved. – Scissors.”
“No, no, please. Let me,” pleaded Dinah, hurriedly placing the scissors behind her.
“Very well, then, will you cut close?”
“But must it all be cut off?”
“Every scrap, and at once. It will relieve his poor burning head. You can save a nice curly bit. Save it all if you like.”
Dinah coloured, and darted at him a resentful look, then the sound of the scissors went on – snip, snip, as they closely sheared away the thick hair, the fall of every lock giving the operator a sharp pang.
“Ah, that’s better. Closer by the temples. The doctor you had ought to have insisted upon all that coming off at once.”
“He did,” sighed Dinah; “but I pleaded so hard for it to be left that he gave way.”
“And you nearly killed the poor fellow – because you were so proud of him, eh? But I will not reproach you. Ah, no evasion, please. Once for all I want that hair all removed, and possibly then I may think it necessary to operate with your father’s razor – that is, if you do not do your work well.”
Dinah sighed, and went on, shivering slightly as she saw how she was disfiguring the poor fellow, but steeling herself now to her task, till it was thoroughly done. Then she stood back full of remorse, and feeling that at last she had really done something which would make Clive hate her.
“Now, we can give him a chance. The cold bandages to his head will be of some service. The wind can blow upon them, and the evaporation will take away a great deal of heat from the poor fellow’s brain.”
To Dinah’s great delight their patient soon grew calmer, and the low mutterings and tossing of the head from side to side partially subsided.
“Well, sir,” said the Major that evening, after patiently waiting for the Doctor to give him some report, “can you tell us that we may hope?”
“I will not say that,” replied the Doctor. “Give me another twenty-four hours. A fever like this is slow. I must own that he is in a very critical condition; but do not tell your daughter that.”
The Major groaned.
“If he dies it will kill her.”
“He shall not die if medical knowledge can save him,” said the Doctor firmly.
“And you will stay, sir?”
“Stay? Great heavens, man, his father and I were school-fellows. His mother was like a dear sister to me; and as for this boy, I could not have thought more of him if he had been my own son. Stay? I sent a message back from the station to say that the date of my return was indefinite, and to place an old friend in charge of my practice. I presume that you will find me an easy-chair and a crust of bread while I am here, and I shall not go till I feel that I can leave him safely to his nurse, or it has pleased God to take him into His rest.”
The Major’s breast heaved, and he held out his hand, which was firmly grasped.
“God bless you for those words,” he said, with emotion. “We must save him for her sake.”
Doctor Praed’s forehead grew more wrinkled day by day; and there was a hard, stern look in his eyes as the time slowly glided on, and the fever fought stoutly against all the medical skill which could be brought to bear.
And all the time he was haunted by the piteous, almost upbraiding, look of Dinah, which wistfully followed every movement, paining the old man so that at last he avoided it when he spoke to her; and in his ignorance inflicted stab after stab.
“It is the great trouble which is killing him. I never could have thought that he would care so much for money, my child. But I suppose he felt that his honour was at stake after all that he said to his friends who took shares in the mine. I wish you were not here.”
“Why, Doctor Praed?” said Dinah faintly, as she recalled her last parting from Clive, and thought how little the visitor knew.
“Because I should like to let my tongue run loose and say all manner of evil things concerning that wretched mine. But I suppose I must not.” Dinah rose and laid her hand upon his arm.
“You do not talk to me about Clive,” she whispered. “You cannot think of the agony I suffer.”
“I do not speak because to one like you it would be cruel to talk in the slow, hopeful twaddle used by some of my weak brethren. My dear child, there is nothing to say. His life is not in my hands. We can only wait.”
“But, Doctor, think, for pity’s sake, think – is there nothing that can be done? It is maddening to stand here helpless and see him gliding slowly away from us. For he is weaker. I did hope that the quiet which has come over him was a change for the better. I know now that it is all increasing weakness.”
“May I come in?” said the Major at the door.
The Doctor hurriedly moved to him, glad of an excuse to escape from those pleading eyes, and followed the Major into the adjoining room.
Chapter Thirty Seven.
The Turning-Point
“There is a messenger from the mine,” the Major whispered.
“Don’t talk of it,” said the Doctor angrily. “Who is down there now?”
“Mr Jessop Reed and that Mr Wrigley. They are trying everything to discover a continuation of the lost lode.”
“Bah! let them. Well, what do they want? Do they expect me to operate on the vein and make it bleed again?”
“No, no. There is a man there, one Sturgess, the foreman, grievously ill, and this Mr Wrigley, knowing that you are here, has sent their clerk Robson over with a message begging you to see him.”
“I? No: impossible. Let him see the local man. I am engaged solely to watch my old friend’s son.”
This was said so decisively that the Major walked away, but stopped by the door and returned.
“I don’t like this man, Doctor,” he said; “he once insulted my child.”
“What? insulted Dinah – the girl my poor boy worshipped!” cried the Doctor angrily; “then let him die.”
He added something respecting Michael Sturgess’s future, as he angrily turned away.
“Think again, Doctor,” said the Major. “They say the man is in a dangerous state. He has been bad for some time. It was from a fall, I believe, down one of the shafts.”
“That mine again. Why, Major Gurdon, it has been a curse to every one who has had dealings with it. Well, it’s of no use to profess to be a Christian if one does not act up to it. I’ll just go in and see how Clive seems, and whether he can be left.”
“And then you will go?”
“Oh yes, I suppose I must. That’s the worst of being a Christian. One cannot hate or curse a man conscientiously. Yes; I’ll go and see the fellow, and I hope I shall not be tempted to give him too strong a dose.”
He went into the next room, bent over Clive for a few minutes, and rose as if satisfied.
“You will not leave him,” he said.
“You think there is fresh danger?”
“No, my child, the danger has always been great enough. They want me to go and see a man at the mine – one Sturgess.”
Dinah started and shuddered. The Doctor noticed it, and thought of her father’s words.
“You would rather I did not go.”
“I don’t like you leaving me, but if it is urgent – ”
“They fear the man is dying.”
