The Man with a Shadow

“Yes, sir. The butler’s theory seems to be quite correct. Sir Luke must have pitched headlong from the top of the stairs to the bottom.”

“And there is no hope?”

The doctor shook his head, and laid his hand upon the young man’s arm, signing to him to quit the room.

Tom followed mechanically.

“So horrible!” he said, as soon as they were in the drawing-room. “We were playing billiards together till late last night, while now – Yes, what is it?”

“I beg pardon. Sir Thomas,” said the old butler softly, “the housekeeper said would you and Dr North like a cup of tea?”

“Sir Thomas!” The title made Tom Candlish thrill as he stood gazing at the speaker. So soon! Le Roi est mort! Vive le Roi!

He was Sir Thomas Candlish. The estate was his and the rent-roll of at least five thousand a year. Last night he was enraged at the possibility of trouble arising from Thompson. Now he was a free man: he was rich.

And his brother?

It was his secret. And why should he trouble about the sudden death? It was an accident, and his own counsel could easily be kept. There was none to reveal the truth. The dead could never speak.

As he mused like this, and the butler brought in the tea, Dr North was lost in a fit of musing, for, like a flash, the scientific fancy upon which he had so long pondered came to him, so that for the moment he stood breathless and gazing wildly at the door which seemed to open before him.

The idea was bewildering. Leo had bidden her suitor distinguish himself as the price at which her love was to be won; and the more he thought, the more the idea shone out, dazzling him by its intense light – shining into the dark places of his soul.

What was his theory? That if a hale, hearty man were suddenly cut off by some accident, and apparently dead, could he arrest decay, Nature herself would repair the injury done, even as a fractured bone rapidly knits together and becomes stronger than before.

Here, then, was a hale, hearty man suddenly cut down; he was the medical man in attendance, and the opportunity served for restoring this man to life. Why should he not make his first essay now?

The idea grew more terrible in its intensity hour by hour. It was his chance if he would grasp it. Impious? No, not more so than performing an operation or trying to save a sufferer from death. But he was dead.

“What we call dead,” muttered North; “but why not suspended animation? For her sake, for my own fame, to achieve a success such as the world has not heard of before, I must – I will make the essay.”

“But how?”

“And suppose I make him live once more – what then?”

The idea blinded him, and he covered his eyes to think.

Chapter Twenty Six.

“Ah!”

“How horrible!” the curate said, when he heard the news from North, who came in at breakfast time.

As he spoke these words, Leo entered the room, and stopped short, gazing from one to the other.

She had come down looking happy and contented, with a satisfied smile upon her curved lips, heightened by a rather mocking light which danced in her eyes, as they encountered those of the doctor. There was a feeling of triumph, the satisfaction of a vain, weak woman at the sight of the slave ready to cast himself at her feet, and her manner was coquettish as she held out her hand.

But her brother’s ejaculation, the stern look on the doctor’s face, chilled her, and she stopped short, looking from one to the other, her lips parting as if for the utterance of words which would not come.

“What is it?” she said at last, wildly. “What is horrible?”

“Hush, Leo!” said the curate, taking her hand; “don’t be alarmed.”

“But you said – ”

“Yes; North has brought in terrible news from the Hall.”

Leo’s face turned ghastly, and she clung to her brother, while North hurriedly placed a chair, into which she sank, but only to sit up rigidly, as she stared with widely opened eyes at the doctor.

“Be calm,” he said tenderly. “You are still weak.”

“What is it?” she said, in a voice that did not sound like her own.

“It would be better that you should not know,” said North. “There has been a sad accident at the Hall.”

“I must know now,” panted Leo, as she opened and closed her hands in her excitement.

“It would be better to speak,” said the curate. “My sisters have been schooled to trouble, North. There has been a terribly sudden calamity at the Hall, Leo, dear. North was called up in the night, and – ”

“Is he dead?” she whispered hoarsely; and then reading her answer in the eyes of both, she uttered a long, low, “Ah!” and sat with her hand tightening upon her brother’s, while she closed her eyes, and an agonising spasm seemed to contract her beautiful face.

“A fit of giddiness seems to have seized Sir Luke, and he fell headlong from the top of the stairs to the bottom.”

“Ah!”

Once more that strange expiration of the breath, which sounded to the listeners precisely the same, for their senses were not attuned with sufficient keenness to detect the difference.

“I am sorry to have given you this terrible shock, Leo,” said North tenderly; “but I felt bound to come and let Salis know.”

She did not reply directly, but sat there spasmodically clinging to her brother’s hand with fingers that were damp and cold.

“I am better now,” she said at last, in a low whisper. “It is very terrible. Does Mary know?”

“Not yet,” said Salis. “I am going to fetch her down. Has the faintness passed away?”

“Yes – yes!” she said hastily. “It was the suddenness of the news. Try not to startle Mary, Hartley; but she is not such a coward as I am.”

“You have been so ill,” said North tenderly. “Your nerves are unstrung. Besides, it is a great shock to hear of so awfully sudden a death.”

“Go and tell Mary,” said Leo, rising. “I am quite well now. Speak gently.”

“Yes,” said the curate; and he left the room.

“Tell me,” said Leo, as soon as the door closed. “How was it? Was there any quarrel? It was an accident?”

She spoke in a hurriedly excited manner, and there was a wildly anxious look in her eyes.

“You are excited,” said North, taking her hand, half professionally, half with the anxious touch of a lover; but she snatched it away with an angry flash from her eyes.