The Man with a Shadow

“Leo! sister!” said Salis, trying to take her hand, but she struck his away with an angry gesture which he did not resent.

“Well, what have you to say?” she cried. “Do you want to preach to me, to ask me to repent and sorrow with you? For what? Is it a crime to love?”

“Leo, my child!”

“Leo, my child!” she cried scornfully, as she repeated his words. “I tell you I am a child no longer, and that I will think and act for myself. Fool, idiot that I have been!” she cried, as her passion grew more wild and her voice rose. “I have submitted to you both till it has become unbearable. From this day, if I stay here, I will be my own mistress, and suffer your dictation no more. Teach and torture Mary into her grave, if you like, but I will be free.”

“Say nothing, Hartley,” said Mary softly. “She will repent all this, dear, when she is calm. Leo, stay with me. Hartley, dear, pray say no more; she is not mistress of herself, and to-morrow, perhaps to-day, this painful scene will be forgiven and forgotten by us all.”

“Forgiven? No. Forgotten? Never,” cried Leo; “and I tell you both that if I am driven from the home that I should have shared, and my future becomes to me a curse, it is your work.”

She had lashed herself into a pitch of unreasoning fury, and invective was flowing fast from her lips, when, in the midst of one of her most furious bursts, and just as Salis was being driven to despair, there was a sharp tap at the door, and before it could be answered, another, and Dally came into the room.

“Is Miss Leo ill, sir?” she cried. “I heard her sobbing in my room. Can I do anything? Shall I light a fire?”

It was Dally’s idea of being of some help, that of lighting a fire.

“No, no. Go away,” cried Salis passionately; but he said no more, for Leo had crossed quickly to the little servant maid, and clung to her.

“Go with me to my room, Dally,” she said in a sharp, strained voice; “and let them follow me if they dare.”

“Oh, Leo, my child, for Heaven’s sake!” cried Salis.

“For Heaven’s sake!” she cried wildly, as she clung to Dally. “What have you to do with Heaven, who have made my life a curse? Take me, Dally, take me away, for I am almost blind.”

“My poor, darling mistress!” sobbed the little traitress, passing her hand round Leo’s waist, and helping her towards the door, Leo yielding to the girl’s guidance, and keeping her defiant eyes flashing from sister to brother and back.

The door closed, and as Salis and Mary gazed after the retreating pair, a wild hysterical sob, followed by a passionate cry, reached their ears, and it was as if misery and despair were henceforth to be their lot; but at that moment, from the dewy meadow at the bottom of the garden, a lark rose to begin circling round and round, scattering his jubilant, silvery notes of song far and wide on the morning air. And as it proclaimed, as it were, to every listening ear that a new day had begun, hope and light flashed into the hearts of those within the room.

“It will be a hard task, Mary,” said Salis, going down on one knee beside Mary, who clung to him with a look of appeal that went to his heart. “Yes, a hard task, dear,” he said again, as he kissed her. “There, you will not go to bed now, but lie back and have a few hours’ sleep. The darkness of the night has passed, and hope cometh with the day.”

“But Leo – Leo!” moaned Mary, and, unable to contain herself longer, she burst into a passionate fit of weeping.

“Hush! darling. Come: I want my sister’s help. There, fight it down. Hers were the words of a passionate, hysterical woman. She will be penitent when the fit is over. What now?”

“Miss Leo, sir – Miss Leo!” cried Dally, running into the room.

“Well, what, girl?” cried Salis, alarmed by the maid’s frantic, excited look.

“She sent me out of the room, sir, to fetch her cloak.”

“Hush! Come with me,” said Salis, hastily rising to accompany Dally from the room, but Mary clung spasmodically to his hand.

“No, no; let her speak. I cannot bear the suspense.”

Salis nodded his head sharply, and the girl went on:

“I went down, sir, and when I came back she was standing in the middle of the room with a glass on the table, and something spilled – ”

Salis stopped to hear no more, but rushed into Leo’s room to find her clinging to the foot of the bed, her eyes dilated, a look of horror in her face, and in the same glance he took in that which Dally had described – a glass upon the table, overturned, and some fluid staining the cover and slowly sinking down the side towards the floor.

Volume Three – Chapter Six.

The Doctor is Eccentric

“Want me to attend Miss Leo Salis? Not I. Send to King’s Hampton for old – ”

“But, please, sir.”

“Please, sir? Yes, you do please this sir. Why, you pretty little, apple-faced, sloe-eyed, cherry-cheeked piece of human fruit! Here, let’s have a look at your little face!”

“Oh, Dr North! For shame! You shouldn’t.”

There was the sound of a smart kiss, and then Horace North stood gazing wildly at Dally as she made believe to be very much hurt in her dignity.

“You shouldn’t, sir, and Miss Leo all the time a-dying.”

“Miss Leo – very ill?”

“Yes, sir; I told you so, and then you began talking nonsense and hauling me about. I feel quite ashamed.”

“But I cannot go to her, girl. It is impossible,” cried North excitedly.

“But master said I was to fetch you, sir. Oh, I wouldn’t ha’ thought it of you!”

“I beg your pardon, Dally, I was not thinking. I – I – when was she taken bad?”

“Sudden like – early this morning, sir. You will come, won’t you? We’re quite frightened.”

“Yes, I’ll come,” said North quickly. “By what strange irony of fate am I called upon again to attend on her?” he thought to himself, as he recalled her last illness, and the way in which she had declared her passion for him.

“Idiot! fool!” he said. “What a mere child! And I a medical man, and let my weak vanity carry me away so that I could not see that all was delirium.”

“Did you speak, sir?” said Dally, who trotted beside him as he walked with rapid strides towards the Rectory.

“No. Yes. How was it all?”

“Well, sir, I hardly know; only that I left Miss Leo this morning for a minute, and when I came back she’d been drinking something out of a glass, and looked as if she’d poisoned herself.”

“Absurd! But this morning? How came you to be with her this morning? Why, it is only five now.”

“No, sir. We were up very early.”

“Early? Why, you look as if you had not been to bed. Here, Dally, what has been going on at the Rectory?”

“Going on, sir? Oh, I couldn’t tell you. And here’s master, sir; ask him.”

In fact, Salis had just run down from Leo’s room to see if the doctor was coming, and, on catching sight of him, came to hurry him on.