The Man with a Shadow

Chapter Twenty One.

“Something Particular to Say.”

Horace North had sternly determined on self-repression, and, from the moment when the crisis of Leo’s fever had left her utterly prostrate, he had set himself the almost superhuman task of saving her from the grave.

He had treated his patient with a gentleness and care that gradually won upon her, harsh and distant as she was by nature; so that at last, after the first fits of wearing fretfulness were over, she began to greet him with a welcoming smile, and seemed happier when he sat down and stayed chatting to her by her bed.

On that night when the passionate avowals had been uttered she had sunk back into a violent fit of delirium; and since then, in all his long hours of watching, no word of love had passed her lips – no kindly look her eyes.

North was disappointed and touched to the quick, for he watched for her loving looks, listened for her tender words.

On the other hand, in his calmer moments he was pleased, for it made his task the lighter. He could repress himself until such time as his patient were well and he could honourably approach her to ask her to be his wife.

He was not surprised at her petulance or her irritability; and even in her worst moods he only smiled, as he thought of her past sufferings and present weakness. This childlike temper was the natural outcome of such a fever, and would soon pass away.

“It is better as it is,” he said, and he toiled away, neglecting his studies, his great discovery, all for Leo’s sake, that she might live and grow strong once more.

“How beautiful!” he thought; and as she unconsciously suffered his attentions, receiving them as her right, as if she were a queen, Mary drank in all, and read the doctor’s heart to the very deepest cell.

But she made no sign. It was her lot to suffer, and she would bear all in silent patience to the end, working to make others happy if she could, but sorrowing the more, as she wished well to North, and tried to believe that, after all, Leo might change, and worthily return his love.

For, after seeing her home, Tom Candlish sent twice to know how Leo was. After that he seemed to take no further notice, though he really spent his time in asking Dally Watlock about her mistress, as he called it – questions which took a long time to ask and longer to gain replies.

Leo never mentioned his name, but lay back reading, setting aside the book wearily when any one seemed disposed to converse, and taking up the book again as soon as whoever it was had done.

Salis entered the room where North was seated conversing with Mary, whose pinched face bore a slight colour as she listened to his words, something he was saying being interrupted by the brother’s entrance.

“Ah, here you are!” cried North warmly. “I have stayed to see you, for I have something particular to say.”

“That’s right. At least, it is not bad news, I hope.”

“I hope good,” said the doctor warmly, and then he stopped awkwardly.

It had all seemed so easy to say in his own room. Here it was terrible.

Mary’s heart began to flutter, and a piteous look came into her eyes; but she closed them gently, and a tear slowly welled through from each.

“Well, what is it? Nothing fresh about Tom Candlish, I hope?”

“About him? No; nonsense! I wanted to tell you that there is no further need for me to attend your sister,” Slid the doctor clumsily. “She is nearly well now, and – ”

“My dear Horace, you have saved her life!”

“No, no; nonsense! Only did as any other medical man would have done.”

“I say she owes you her life, and it will be Leo’s duty to remember that, and to strive henceforth to render back to you – ”

“If she only will!” cried North excitedly, as he sprang up and clasped his old friend’s hand.

For the ice was broken. He could speak now, and as Mary looked up through a mist of blinding tears he seemed to her like the hero she had always painted – as the man whom some day she might love. But for her love was dead.

“Why, Horace, old man, what do you mean?” cried Salis, as Mary fought down a wail of agony which strove to escape her lips.

“What do I mean, Salis?” cried the doctor passionately; “why, that I love Leo dearly, and I ask you to let me approach her, and beg her to be my wife.”

The curate sank into the nearest chair, and sat gazing up at his friend.

“Why, you don’t seem – I had hoped – Hartley, old fellow, don’t look at me like that.”

“I am very sorry.”

“No, no; don’t speak in that way – so cold and bitter.”

“Have you spoken to Leo – of your love?”

“Not a word. On my honour.”

A sigh escaped Mary.

“You need not say your honour, Horace, old fellow,” said the curate sadly. “I did once hope this, but that time has gone by, and I can only say again I am very sorry.”

“But why? – why?”

“Because,” said the curate slowly, “Leo is not the woman to make you a happy husband.”

“Nonsense, my dear boy. I – I believe she loves me.”

The curate shook his head.

“Ah! well,” cried the young doctor joyously; “we shall see. Tell me this: would you accept me as your brother?”

“I already look upon you as a brother.”

“Then you will let me speak to Leo?”

The curate paused a few moments, and then in the gravest of tones said:

“Yes.”

“Now? At once?”

“If you wish it,” said Salis, after another pause.

“Then I will,” said North. “I have waited months, and borne agonies all through her illness. Now I will be at rest.”

“But – ”

Salis was too late, for hot, excited, and strung up hard to the highest pitch of excitement, North strode from the room, while Salis stooped over Mary and kissed her.

“I am very sorry,” he repeated: and a couple of loving arms closed round his neck, as Mary sobbed gently upon his breast.

Then brother and sister sat talking, for the drawing-room door had closed, and they could hear the low, dull murmurings of the doctor’s voice.

He had entered the drawing-room, where, looking extremely beautiful in her négligée habit, and refined by illness, Leo lay upon her couch by the fire, for the spring was cold, and as he entered she lowered her book and smiled.

It was a good augury, and with beating heart Horace North advanced and took her hand – to ask this woman to be his wife.

Chapter Twenty Two.

Dr North Proposes

As Horace North took the hand of Leo Salis in his, it was to find it soft and cool and moist – very different from the burning palm he had so often held a few months since. It was without a tremble, but it sent a thrill through him; and with eyes flashing and revelling in his new joy, he was about to speak, when she half threw herself back in her chair with a movement of resignation which came upon him like a douche.

He knew it so well. He read it and understood it as plainly as if she had spoken. It was the patient waiting for him to feel her pulse.

“I thought you had given me up,” she said lightly.

“Given you up – you whom I love!”

Those were the words he wanted to say, but they would not come now after the damping he had received, and involuntarily his fingers glided slowly to her wrist, and he held them pressed against the calmly-beating pulse, gazing down at her half-averted eyes the while.

There was no coquetry, no playful manner; she was as calm and resigned as any patient he had ever visited, and yet, time back, she had clung to him, gazed passionately into his eyes, and whispered of her love.

Was it delirium?

He could not bring himself to say; but even if it were, she must at heart have loved him, and in her abnormal state have confessed what she would sooner have died than said when well.

The moments glided by, and he still held her wrist in the most professional manner, till, apparently surprised, she raised her eyebrows, opened her languid eyes, and looked up at him.

“Well, doctor,” she said, half laughing, “loth to part with your patient? I am quite well.”

He was dumb. A whirlwind of emotion was sweeping through him, as he vainly sought to shape his course. Could he tell her of her passionate avowal, or would it be too cowardly to take advantage of her past weakness?

He could not recall that – not now. Some day, perhaps, he might; but now he felt that he must approach her unarmed. She was delirious, and her brain must be a blank to all that had passed, and he would speak plainly – conventionally.

“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.”

“Hard!” said the curate sadly.

“Well, I know I’m behaving like a lunatic. I’m going away to study hard, and work myself back into a state of sanity – if I can.”

He nodded and left the house; and, as the door closed, Mary closed her eyes as the sank back helplessly in her place.

“Asleep, dear?” said Hartley tenderly, a few minutes later, and he had risen from where he sat, with a dejected look upon his face.

“No, Hartley; only thinking,” she said, smiling sweetly in his face.

“Thinking?”

“Of Leo.”

“And so was I,” he said sadly.

But Leo Salis was not thinking of brother or sister. She was writing rapidly, with a blotting-book held half open, and the book she had been reading held in the same hand, so that she could close the blotter instantly and seem to be reading if any one came.

Leo’s lips formed the words she wrote: —

“It is ridiculous of you to have such jealous thoughts. He has tended me patiently as any other doctor would. I will tell you more to-morrow night, but to-day I tell you this: I think him very clever as a doctor; as an ordinary being I think him an idiot. At the old time as nearly as I can. Do be punctual this time, pray.”

It was about five o’clock the next morning that, after sitting up reading hard, and trying to recover lost time, till half-past three, North was plunged in a deep sleep, in which he dreamed that Leo was smiling in his eyes, and repeating the words she had uttered in her delirium, when there was a heavy dragging at the night-bell.

“What is it?” cried the doctor from his window.

“My young master, sir,” cried the voice of the butler from the Hall.

“Taken ill?”

“Ill, sir? Oh, Heaven help us! it’s worse than that!”

Chapter Twenty Three.

Tom Candlish Plays Badly

Squire Luke Candlish looked flushed and angry, as he stood facing his brother in the billiard-room, over the dining-room, at the Hall. Dinner had been ended an hour, and in company with his brother he had partaken of enough wine for three ordinary men, after which they had gone upstairs to smoke and play two or three games.

Tom Candlish played horribly that night. The strokes he made were vile; and so transparent were some of his blunders that any one but Squire Luke would have seen and asked what it meant.

Squire Luke only chuckled and smoked, and spilled the cigar-ash over the green cloth and played; but played more vilely than his brother, with the result that, in spite of all his efforts, Tom won game after game.

It was very awkward, for Tom had a request to make, and unless he could get his brother in a good temper, the request would certainly be in vain.

He made misses and his brother scored one each time. Then went straight into the pocket without touching a ball; and his opponent scored three; but directly afterwards, when his turn came round, the balls seemed as if they would make cannons and winning and losing hazards, so that his score kept rising, and Squire Luke raved.

Tom won every game, and his brother grew more silent, till quite in despair at the failure of his plan to put the squire in a good temper, Tom blurted out his business. He wanted a hundred pounds.

“I should think you do want a hundred pounds!” said the squire coolly; “say two.”

“Two!” cried Tom merrily.

“Twopence!” cried his brother, driving his ball off the table with a tremendous clatter. “What for?”

“Meet a couple of bills,” said Tom, picking up the ball. “No! Your play again.”

“No business to accept them.”

“Couldn’t help it, old fellow. Come, let’s have a hundred.”

“Not a stiver.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ve had your allowance for the year, and fifty over.”

“Nonsense, old man; I’m hard pushed, and if I don’t meet the bills, they’ll be dishonoured.”

“Well, what of that?” said Squire Luke coolly, as he made a stroke.

“What of it! eh? Why, the glorious name of Candlish will be dragged in the mire.”

“Bah!” ejaculated the squire, playing again.

“Why, Luke, that stroke was not emblematic, was it, of your turning into a screw?”

“None of your hints. I put on no screw, and I am no screw. You have your five hundred a year to spend, and I keep you besides.”

“Oh, yes: and keep me well; but a man can’t always keep just inside a certain line.”

“You always keep outside a certain line,” retorted the squire. “You have your five hundred regularly.”

“And you have your five thousand regularly,” said Tom, who was beginning to flush up.

“Well, what of that?”

“Why, it isn’t fair that you should have all this big place and a large income, and I nearly nothing.”

“That’s right,” said the squire; “abuse your father.”

“I don’t abuse my father!” retorted Tom hotly; “but I say it was an infernal shame!”

“He knew what a blackguard you are, Tommy. Ah! that’s a good stroke: six!”

“Blackguard, eh? Come, I like that. Because I am open and above-board, and you are about the most underhanded ruffian that ever lived, I’m a blackguard, and you are only Squire Luke. Why, you sneaking – ”

“Don’t call names, Tom,” said the squire, laughing huskily, with his heavy face bloated and red from the wine he had taken. “Little boy, younger brother, if you are rude I may use the stick in the shape of a billiard cue.”

“I only wish you would,” said Tom, grinding his teeth as he played, striking the balls viciously, and scoring now every time.

“Oh, that’s it, is it?” cried the squire; “going to win, are you? We shall see.”

“Win? Curse the game! I could give you fifty out of a hundred, and beat you easily. Look here, are you going to let me have that money?”

“No, I am not; mind your play.”

“Then I’ll have it somehow.”

“Burglary?”

“No; I’ll make it so unpleasant for a certain person about some things I know that he shall be glad to lay down the hundred instead of lending it, as one brother should to another.”

The squire’s face grew dark, and the cue quivered in his grasp, as he gazed full at Tom Candlish, the brothers looking singularly alike in their anger. But the elder turned it off with a curious, unpleasant laugh, and leant over the table to make a stroke.

“Don’t be a fool, Tom,” he said, playing. “You always did have too much tongue.”

“Too much or too little, I mean to use it more, instead of submitting to the tyranny of such a mean-spirited hound as you. What the old man could have been thinking of to leave the estate to such a miserly cur – ”

“Mean-spirited hound! miserly cur, eh!” paid the squire, between his teeth.