The Man with a Shadow

“Killed him?” cried North harshly. “Killed whom? There is no one here.”

“There is – there is, sir. I heard it all.”

“Hush!” cried North. “Listen. Is any one coming? Did they hear in the kitchen?”

“No, sir. I couldn’t bear for any one else but me to hear it all,” sobbed the trembling woman. “I went back and shut the door.”

“Then no one has heard – no one knows – but you?”

“No, sir.”

“My cousin?”

“He has gone out, sir.”

“Hah! Then it is a secret still,” muttered North.

The old housekeeper struggled to her feet, for his words and manner horrified her. She alone had heard what had taken place, and it seemed to her that within a few steps her master’s victim must be lying prone, and that even her life was not safe now.

Her first instinct was to make for the door, but he had hold of her wrist, and she sank once more at his feet, with a low sobbing cry.

“I’m an old woman, now,” she cried, “and a year or two more or less don’t matter much.”

The same harsh, mocking laugh broke out again, chilling her to the marrow, and then North uttered a hoarse, harsh expiration of the breath, and stamped his foot angrily.

Then there was a pause, broken only by the old woman’s painful sobs.

“My poor old Milt,” said North gently, as he raised her from the ground. “Why, what were you thinking – that I would do you any harm?”

“I – I couldn’t help it, sir; but – but I don’t think so now. Oh, master – dear master, I thought you had killed some one. What does it mean? – what does it mean?”

He did not answer for a few moments, and when he spoke again there was an indescribable, mournful sadness in his voice. “What are you thinking?” he said. She answered with a sob. “I’ll tell you,” he said; “you think that I am mad.”

“No, no, no! master – my great, clever, noble master,” cried the old woman passionately. “Only ill – only very ill; and you can cure yourself. Yes, yes; pray say that you can!”

“No,” he said bitterly. “No. It has come to the worst. There, go: I am worn out, and want to rest.”

“But you will let me help you, dear,” she said, speaking with the tenderness of a mother towards the boy she worshipped with a lavish love. “Let me do something – let me help you, dear. It is overwork. Your poor brain is troubled. Let me open the window, and let in light and air, and then you shall go to bed; and I’ll bathe your poor head, and you shall tell me what to mix. You know how I can nurse and tend you now you are ill.”

North took the old woman’s head between his hands as they stood there in the darkness, and kissed her on the forehead.

“Yes, the best and gentlest of nurses,” he said quietly.

“And you will let me help you, sir?”

“Yes; but not now. It was a kind of fit you heard – nothing more. Now go. See that I am not disturbed. Perhaps I can sleep. There: you know there is no one here.”

“Yes, my dear, of course – of course. I ought to have known better; I know now. And you will try to sleep?”

“Yes – I promise you, yes.

“Let me go down and get something for you; tell me what, and the quantities.”

“Yes,” said North eagerly, for she seemed to be opening before him the gates of release from his life of horror; but he shook his head as he called to mind how familiar she was with his surgery, and that if he bade her mix what he wished, she would turn suspicious and refuse.

“What shall I do, my dear?” said the old woman tenderly.

“Nothing now,” he said; “sleep will be best. Let me go to sleep.”

The old housekeeper sighed; but she made no opposition, and let him gently lead her to the door and shut her out, where she stood with her apron to her eyes, listening for a few moments to the loud snap given by the lock, and the dull, low sound of his pacing feet.

Then the old woman seemed to change.

She let fall her apron and tightened her lips. Her eyes grew keen and eager, and she gazed straight before her, deep in thought.

In a few moments her mind was made up.

“He must have proper help,” she said softly; and with an activity not to be expected of one at her time of life, she hurried up to her bedroom, to come out in a few minutes dressed for going out.

“I must fetch help,” she said eagerly, and going to North’s door she listened for a few moments more before hurrying down to the door, when a step on the gravel made her utter a cry of joy.

The man she was going to seek was coming up to the house, and the next minute she had confided to Salis all she felt and knew, and he had gone back to Mary, before hurrying away to telegraph to town.

Volume Three – Chapter Fifteen.

Dally’s Plans

“It’s little better than murder: it’s cruel, that’s what it is. What does he mean by being ill and shutting hisself up, and won’t see anybody? What right has a doctor to go and be ill? Yah!”

Old Moredock stared his clock full in the face as it ticked away slowly and regularly in the most unconcerned way.

“Yes! go it!” cried the old man, “go on marking it off, all your minutes and hours, but I don’t mean to die yet, so you needn’t think it. I’m not so old as all that, and if doctor ’ll only get well, I’ll astonish some on ’em.”

He changed his position, stared at his fire, and laboriously, and with many a groan, got down his old leaden tobacco box and pipe, filled slowly, lit up, and began to smoke; but somehow he did not seem to enjoy his pipe, and removed it again and again to go on muttering to himself.

“Well, suppose I did? A man must make a few pounds to keep himself out of the workhouse. They should pay the saxon better if they didn’t want him to. Tchah! What’s a few old bones?”

There was an interval of smoking, and then the old man resumed his complainings.

“Turning ill like that. What did he go and turn ill like that for, just as I wanted him so badly? It’s too bad o’ doctor. I wouldn’t ha’ let him go to the old morslem if I’d known he’d turn queer arterward. It’s my b’leef that young Tom Candlish gave him an ugly knock that night. But I warn’t there. Hi – hi – hi! I warn’t there. I didn’t want to be mixed up with it.”

He shifted his seat, and as he did so painfully, his jaw dropped, and he sat fixed and staring at the window, where at one corner there was a curious, rough-looking object, which remained stationary for some time and then moved slowly till first one and then a second eye appeared, gazed into the little cottage interior, and slowly descended again.

“Who – who – what’s that?” faltered the old man. “Is it – is it – tchah! It’s Joe Chegg, peeping and prying again to see if my Dally’s here.”

Recovering from his scare, the old man smoked away viciously for a time, and then grinned hideously.

“If I’d only been well,” he muttered, “and that doctor had let me have some more of his stuff, I’d ha’ took my spade and crope round by the back, and I’d ha’ come ahint that iddit and give him such a flop. Sneaking allus after my Dally, as if it was like she’d wed a thing like him.”