The Man with a Shadow

“Why, doctor,” she said at last, half-wonderingly, “of what are you thinking?”

“Thinking?” he said hoarsely.

“Yes; you look so serious. Surely I am not going to have a relapse?”

“Oh, no!” he cried.

“Then why do you look at me like this?”

She asked him the question so naïvely, as she half lay back in her place, that a cold chill came upon him again, and, letting her hand fall, he took a turn to the window and back, half ready to say nothing then; but nerving himself once more, he took a chair, drew it to the lounge, and, seating himself again, took her hand.

“Another inspection, doctor?” she said, half laughingly; and then, as she met his eyes, she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and tried to withdraw her hand, but he held it tightly.

“Do you know what I want to say to you?” he said gravely.

“What you wish to say?”

“Yes. There! I cannot speak to you in set terms, but do you think I could know you as I have known, have watched by you, and tended you through all this terrible illness, with any other result? Leo, I love you! Will you be my wife?”

“Dr North!”

Yes; her mind must be a blank. There was so much genuine surprise in her tone, such a look of astonishment in her eyes, that he knew it now without doubt, and his emotion choked him for the moment, so great was the disappointment and despair her tone evoked.

“You wonder at it, but why should you? Listen to me, Leo – ”

“No, no; stop – stop! You are too hasty. Let me think.”

She put her hands to her temples, and looked at him half-wonderingly, half amusedly, but to him it seemed as if she were trying to recall something, and he once more caught her hand.

“You will listen to me. You will give me your promise, Leo – dear Leo! You seem to belong to me, for I have, as it were, brought you back from the dead. Tell me you will be my wife.”

She gave him a quick, keen glance that was as if full of horror and revolt, but he could not interpret it, and drew her hand towards his breast. Then, with a quick movement, and a pitying look at the man for whom she felt something approaching gratitude:

“No, no,” she exclaimed; “it is impossible.”

“I have spoken hastily. I have taken you by surprise,” he cried. “Only tell me this: you do not hate me, Leo?”

“Hate you? Oh, no, Dr North,” she cried. “Have we not always been great friends? Have you not saved my life?”

“Let me be more than friend,” he exclaimed; and a curious look came into her eyes, as he went on pouring forth in almost incoherent terms his love for her, the intense longing she had inspired. He could not interpret it – that it was full of mockery and suppressed mirth, mingled with contempt.

“You do not speak,” he said, at last. “Give me some hope.”

“What shall I say?” she cried. “It is too much to ask of me. You want me to promise.”

“Yes,” he said; “and I will wait patiently for the fulfilment of that promise.”

“But I have thought so little of such a thing,” she said calmly. “You have taken me so by surprise. I cannot – oh, I cannot promise.”

“But I may hope?” he said.

“I cannot – I will not – promise,” she said firmly. “If I marry it must be some one who has distinguished himself, who has made himself a name among the great people of the world. I hate this humdrum life, and this dull existence in the country. The man I loved should be one of whom his fellow-men talked because he had become great and done something of which I could be proud. No, no, Dr North; you must not ask me to promise this.”

He sat gazing into her eyes, for her words had struck a chord in his breast. They seemed to rouse up in him the thoughts and theories which had been set aside during the months of her illness while she had been his only care; and with an eager burst of fervid passion in his tones, he exclaimed:

“If I distinguished myself in some way – if I set men talking about my discoveries, and made my name famous, would you listen to me then?”

The same mocking light was in her eye, the same half-contemptuous smile played for a moment about the corners of her lips, as she said, in a low voice:

“Wait and see.”

“Wait? I will wait,” he cried eagerly; “and you shall share my triumph. Leo, you do not know, you cannot tell, what thoughts I have – what investigations I am making into a science which is full of wonders waiting to be discovered. You have roused once more in me the great desire to win fame: to make researches that shall benefit humanity for all time to come. I can, I will, win these secrets from Nature, and we will together go hand-in-hand, learning more and more. I shall succeed!” he cried excitedly. “Ah! you smile. You do give me hope.”

She did not speak, but veiled her eyes, to hide the mocking light within them.

“My darling – my love!” he exclaimed.

She drew back from his embrace.

“No, no,” she said. “We are only friends.”

“Yes, friends,” he cried – “friends now.”

“Say no more,” she continued. “I am still weak, and this troubles me. Pray go now.”

“Yes, I am going,” he said eagerly, “to fight a hard fight. I used to think of it as for fame alone. Now it is for love – your love – the love of the woman who first taught me that I had a heart.”

Raising the hand she surrendered, he kissed it tenderly, and was about to speak again, but he could not trust himself; and giving her a look full of love, trust, and devotion, he hurried back to the study, where Salis sat with Mary, waiting his return.

“Well?” said Salis, as Mary sat with pinched lips, and eyes wild with emotion.

“Congratulate me, my dear boy!” cried North excitedly.

“She has promised to be your wife?”

“No, no; I am to wait and work. She is quite right. It was assumption on my part.”

“Then she has refused you?”

“Oh, no! She is quite right. She bids me do something to make me worthy of her love, and – ah! Hartley, old fellow, I did not know what life was before. There! I am the happiest fool on earth.”

He turned to Mary, who was gazing at him with a look so full of pain that it would have betrayed her secret at another time. But just then the love madness was strong, and its effect sufficient to blind North, who, in his joy, raised Mary’s hand and kissed it, as he had kissed her sister’s.

Mary shrank at the contact of his lips with her soft, white hand; and a look of despair that she could not control shot from her lustrous eyes.

North did not see it, but Hartley Salis made a mental note thereof as the doctor exclaimed, laughing:

“There, good folks, let me go. Don’t laugh at me and be too hard when I am gone.”