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CHAPTER VI

The next morning after the encounter on the road, all nature seemed refreshed, rehabilitated. The grass sparkled green with rain, the trees glittered in the sun, the air was pure and cool and sweet. Not a cloud darkened the sky. The whole world seemed full of joy and lusty health. One felt that something had occurred, some burden had been withdrawn from the earth, some portentous influence had retired. Early bathers were hurrying towards the strand before Dr. O'Malley was stirring. When he awoke, the events of the previous night at once flashed into his mind. "Here's a nice pickle," he thought. "Mysterious event-two men half-killed-both deserve to be killed, no doubt-eminent medical man called in-eminent medical man treats with the utmost skill-no confidence beyond confidence in his professional ability reposed in medical man-medical man entrusted with a Mission-Mission to console Beauty-infernal nuisance! – infernal nuisance, Tom O'Malley! I suppose there's nothing for it but to keep your word, and do half-an-hour's clever lying to this Miracle." Between seven and eight o'clock the post was delivered in Glengowra. "I'll wait till I see if there are any letters," said O'Malley to himself. "My appointment as Surgeon-General to the Forces may at this moment be the property of Her Majesty's Postmaster-General. I suppose if they do offer I must accept. Oh, dear! why didn't I think of making love to this Paragon? Poor girl! It's no laughing matter for her this morning." The post brought no letter for Dr. O'Malley, and as soon as the carrier had gone by, O'Malley put on his hat and set out for the house where Mrs. Creagh lived. The postman was still in the street, and O'Malley gradually overtook him. At the rate the two men walked, allowing for time lost by the postman in delivering letters, the doctor would arrive at Mrs. Creagh's half-an-hour before the other. He found all stirring at the widow's place. He had some doubt as to whether he should tell the mother first; but, on second consideration, he decided that Miss Creagh was entitled to the earliest news. He knocked at the door and was shown in. "When Nellie entered the room she was dressed in white, the same dress she had worn that day he threw away the flowers and used words instead. Of all the things looking fresh to the doctor's eyes that morning she seemed freshest. The bloom of perfect health was on her cheek, the light of perfect health was in her eye. She wore no ornament but her engaged ring and a rose in her hair. "It's a pity," thought the little doctor, "that such a glorious creature as that should ever be troubled or grow old. What are kings and princes and all the powers and vanities of the world-what are all your Roman triumphs-compared to such amazing perfection?" "A very early call," he said, "but I was up and I thought I'd look in. It would be impertinence to ask you how you are. I had a little business this way, and, as I said, I thought I'd look in." The girl smiled. Her face remained unclouded. "I know a call at this hour is not convenient or considerate, but I had a little thing to say to you." "Something to say to me?" she said, with a look of gentle surprise. What could he have to say to her so early? She smiled faintly as though to encourage him; for now it struck her suddenly that what he had to say was not pleasant. "The fact is, a little accident has occurred. I am a doctor, and know what I am saying. It is the merest scratch. You must not be alarmed. There now, sit still." She had risen. All the bloom had now left her cheeks. A little still lingered at her lips. "You may tell me, Dr. O'Malley. I know he is not dead. I can see that by your face. Where is he?" "Sit down. My dear young lady, you are going too fast. Dead! Why he's nearly as well as ever, and will be better than ever in a short time." "Tell me all," she said. "May I go to him?" "I haven't seen him this morning yet. Better wait till after breakfast." "Where is he?" "At Maher's." "Dr. O'Malley, tell me exactly what has happened." Something strained and rigid in her voice warned him that he must be quick if he meant to be merciful. "There was a stupid quarrel of some kind," he said, "and he got a slight wound-I assure you not in the least dangerous." "With whom was the quarrel?" "With Mr. Lavirotte." "Mr. Lavirotte-Mr. Lavirotte! Did Mr. Lavirotte stab Eugene?" "Yes, a mere nothing, though, a pin-hole. You will be angry with me for causing you any uneasiness when you know how slight it is." "Why did Lavirotte stab Eugene?" "Because there was some foolish quarrel; I really don't know what. It's ridiculous to call the thing a stab; it's a mere scratch." "Is Lavirotte hurt?" "Yes; he is more hurt than O'Donnell. But putting the two hurts together, I assure you they're hardly worth talking of." The straightforward calmness of this girl was terrifying him. He was becoming fidgety, and not well able to gauge the value of the words he used. "You know the cause of the quarrel?" "Upon my honour I do not." "You know the cause of the quarrel. We need not mention it now. You see how calm I am. You must tell me the truth. Are you sure neither of these men will die?" "I-I-" "Mind, sure?" "I am as sure as man can be O'Donnell will not die." "But Lavirotte will?" "Lavirotte may. It is impossible to say. I left him unconscious. He is unconscious still." "I will not wait till after breakfast. I will go now. Stay a moment-I must tell mother, and get my hat; I will not keep you long." As the girl left the room, the postman turned into that street. As she came into the room again, with her hat and gloves on, the postman walked up the little garden and handed in a letter. It bore the Dublin postmark, and was addressed to "Miss Creagh." Her mother, who was in the hall, took the letter into the room where the doctor and the girl were standing. "A letter for you, Nellie," the mother said. "Will you keep it until you come back? It's from Ruth, I think." "I'll take it with me," said the girl, and put the letter in her pocket. "Ruth," she said, in the same calm, unmoved voice, "is one of my pupils in Dublin. Now, Dr. O'Malley, if you are ready, let us go." "She will not let me go with her," said the mother, in a tone of concern. "I am better alone, mother," said the girl, and she turned and moved out of the room. O'Malley followed her, and in a few minutes, which were passed in silence, they were at the hotel. O'Malley went upstairs to the room where O'Donnell lay. "All going on well?" he said briskly to the patient. He went through the ordinary formalities. "Yes," he said, "all going on well. Very little fever. We shall have you all right in time for your wedding. You can go away then and pick up strength, amuse yourself for a month or two." "Have you seen her?" asked O'Donnell. "How did she take it?" "Yes, I've seen her. She took it like an angel, like a heroine. I gave her leave to come and see you later." "When do you think she'll be here?" asked the invalid. "Oh, at some reasonable time. Young ladies don't visit at eight o'clock in the morning. You'll promise to keep yourself quiet when she does come?" "Very quiet. Did she get a great shock?" "Not so much a shock as a turn. Will you promise to be very quiet if I let her come soon? The fact is, O'Donnell, she will be here in a few minutes. There, of course, you guessed it; she is here already; she came with me. Now I'll go down, and she may come up and see you, but you must not talk too much." While the brisk little doctor was preparing O'Donnell for the visit of Nellie, the latter took out her letter and began to read it. Suddenly her face, which had been pallid ever since she heard the bad news, flushed, and she uttered an exclamation of dismay. "Such news," she cried, "and on this morning!" The letter ran as follows: "My dear Nellie, I told you I would write you if there was any news. There is news, and very bad news, I am sorry to say. Papa came home in the middle of the day quite unexpectedly, and told mamma that all was over and we were ruined. I don't think it's known in town yet, but mother told me everyone would know it to-morrow. This is dreadful. Mamma and papa are awfully cut up. I write you this news at once, because, of course, dear, you are greatly interested in Mr. O'Donnell, and his father is in some way mixed up with papa. I hope it will not hurt your friend." Then followed an account of some family matters, and the signature, "Ruth Vernon." "I must not say a word of this to Eugene now," she thought. "He told me his father was very largely mixed up with Mr. Vernon. Of course I could not tell Eugene. I feared there was something wrong there, but I was bound in honour, and by my promise to Ruth, not to speak of it to anybody living. When I met him first on the beach, and Lavirotte introduced us, I was greatly struck by the coincidence that I should meet him, knowing as I did, that he might suffer greatly if anything happened to Mr. Vernon." In a few minutes O'Malley came down and said she might go up. "He is getting on well," he said cheerfully, "and there's nothing in the world to fear." That day went over quietly at Glengowra. Early in the afternoon Lavirotte recovered consciousness. The police had got scent of the affair, and were making inquiries. In the afternoon news reached the village that the great banking-house of Vernon and Son had failed for an enormous sum. It was kept from O'Donnell, but Lavirotte heard it. "I must telegraph to London," he said. "Someone must write the telegram for me." The body of the message ran as follows:

"Vernon and Son bankrupt. See about your money at once. Am ill, and cannot go over."

When the telegram reached London it was delivered to a young woman of twenty years of age, who grew pale and flushed, and flushed and pale again, upon reading it. "What?" she cried, "Dominique ill. My darling suffering and I not near him. I will leave to-night for Glengowra. Stop! I must get money somewhere first. I have none, not a penny-the attorney told me he would have my money to-day. These people are pressing me for the rent. They are hateful creatures. I will go to the solicitor at once. I can pay what I owe then, and go over by to-night's mail." She put on her things. The landlady was waiting in the hall. The landlady would feel obliged if Miss Harrington would give her the rent now, before going out. She really must insist on being paid now. She could not afford to give six weeks' credit, and she had had an application for the rooms. There were six guineas for the rooms and ten guineas for meat and drink, sixteen in all. Would Miss Harrington pay or leave, please? Miss Harrington would pay upon her return from her solicitor. Oh, that old story about the solicitor! People could not go on believing this old tale for ever. If Miss Harrington did not bring the money with her, she need not come back that day. Whatever she had upstairs would not pay half the bill, and indeed Miss Harrington ought not to go out with her watch and chain and leave struggling people so pressed for money. The tears were now falling fast from the young girl's eyes. She was alone, friendless, in London. She had not a coin in her possession. She took off her watch and chain and laid them silently upon the hall table. She made a great effort at self-control, and said, pointing to the third finger of her left hand: "I have nothing else of value but this. Shall I leave it also? It was given to me by one very dear to me." "It would help," said the landlady, "and I have my husband and children to think of." Then she took off the ring-his ring-the ring he had given her to wear until he gave her a simpler one with a holier meaning. She put the ring down on the table beside the watch and chain. Then her heart hardened against this woman, and no more tears came, and bowing slightly she said good-bye and left the place, meaning never to return. She went to her solicitor's. He was away. Would his managing clerk do? Yes, anyone who could give her information about her affairs. The managing clerk had bad news-it was terrible news indeed. They had not been able to get the money from Vernon and Son. Vernon and Son were bankrupts according to to-day's reports, and all her money was gone. Would there be none of it coming to her? No. Owing to the way in which the money was lent there was no chance of getting any back. Then she left the office, homeless, friendless, penniless. She had not even a shilling to telegraph to him-her Dominique. Whither should she go? Where should she turn? To the river.

CHAPTER VII

Dora Harrington found herself in the Strand, in the full light of a summer's day, homeless, friendless, penniless. Her last chance was gone. Vernon and Son, who held all the money she owned in the world, had failed, and failed in such a way as to leave no prospect of her ever getting a penny out of the five thousand pounds confided to them. She was an orphan, and had spent much of her life out of these kingdoms. She knew nothing of business. Mr. Kempston, her solicitor, had been appointed her guardian, with full discretionary powers as to the disposal of her property. She and he had not agreed too well, for she had wished to marry Lavirotte, and he had opposed her desires. She had wished to get control of her property, and had been denied, and the relations between her guardian and herself had of late been most straitened. Only for his good-humour in the matter there would have been an open rupture. He had politely, but firmly, refused to agree to either of her suggestions. She had impulsively, warmly protested against what she called his interference in her affairs. Two years ago she had first met Lavirotte. She was then a young girl of eighteen. She met him at a concert of amateurs in London. He made love to her, and she fell in love with him. He proposed, and she had accepted. Then he explained his position. He was not rich enough to marry. She told him she had a little money-she thought about five thousand pounds. He laughed, and said that might be enough for one, but was no good for two, adding, bitterly, that he did not know how he could possibly advance himself in the world. He was then the only photographer in the small town or village of Glengowra, and the chance of his getting into any better way of making money did not seem likely to him. "You sing very well," she said. "You have a good voice, and you know music. Have you never thought of music as a profession?" He had never thought of music as a profession until then. He was only twenty-two at the time. He knew very well he could not afford to go to Italy or even to the Conservatoire. He had no money laid by, nor was there any likelihood of his having money to lay by. Then she suggested that he should borrow some of her. To this he would not listen. If he were not able to attain a competency himself, he would never put it in the power of fools to say that he had climbed into a profession aided by anyone, least of all by his future wife. After much talk and expostulation on her side, he was induced to agree to accept the loan of a few hundred pounds. Then it was that she went to her solicitor and guardian, told him she had made up her mind with regard to her future, and that the man of her choice was a Frenchman, by name Lavirotte, and by profession a photographer in the town of Glengowra, in Ireland. The solicitor was considerably surprised, and said he should not be able to come to any decision for a few days. Mr. Kempston was a bachelor, and had no means of taking care of his ward beyond the ordinary appliances of his profession. He could not invite her to his bachelor home, and her income was not sufficiently large to warrant him in appointing a lady companion or chaperon of any kind; all he could do in her interest was to find her moderately comfortable lodgings, and see that she regularly received the dividends on her shares in the banking concern of Vernon and Son. Mr. Kempston was the sole surviving executor and trustee to her father's will, and in the exercise of his discretion he had invested her five thousand pounds in shares of Vernon and Son, Unlimited. She knew nothing whatever of business, and Mr. Kempston's managing clerk, in alluding to her money as lent to the bankrupt firm, was simply using popular language, and attorning to the ignorance of business inherent in the female mind. He knew very well that she, being a shareholder, had not only lost all the money she owned, but was liable to the very last shred of her possessions for any further demands which might be made upon her with regard to this failure. He had felt himself fully justified in telling her she had lost all her fortune, that she was, in fact, a pauper; but he had not felt himself called upon to explain that later on she would appear in the light of a defaulter. Dora Harrington, now an outcast from home, and fortune, and friends, found herself in the great city of London absolutely without resources of any kind. Her money was gone, she knew. Her guardian and she were no more than business correspondents. Her lover's position in Glengowra forbade the hope he might ever be able to marry her, and she had within herself no art or knowledge by which she could hope to earn a living. What was now to be done? Where should she eat that evening? Where should she sleep that night? Nowhere! Where was nowhere? The river. And yet to be only twenty years of age, and beautiful, as she had been told, and still driven to the river by the mere fact of a few pounds this way or that, seemed terribly hard to one who knew she had done no harm. If he were but near her! But he was poor and hurt, and it would only help his pain if he knew that she had been cruelly hurt by fortune. And yet, how could she live? Where could she go? Whither should she turn? The world of life seemed closed against her, and only the portals of death seemed fit for her escape. To be so young, to love and be loved, and yet to have no avenue before one but that leading to the ghastly tomb, appeared hard indeed. It is true that of late her Dominique had seemed less eager in his haste to write to her, less fervent in his expressions, less tender in his regard. But this may have been owing to his sense of inability to face the future with her maintenance added to the charges upon his slender means. There was no prospect of his advancing himself to any substantial result. He had written her, saying he had devoted much of his time lately to the cultivation of his voice and the art of music. That, in fact, he was now leading tenor in the choir of the church. But he was careful to explain to her that this meant no financial advancement, and that in fact it was to him the source of some small losses of time and money. Besides, there was no one in Glengowra who knew much of music save the two organists, and the knowledge of even these was not of much use to anyone who had to think purely of voice culture as opposed to instrumentalism. In the present there seemed no germ of hope. The future was a blank, or worse than a blank. And to-day, now, this hour, was an intolerable burden which could not be endured. And yet how was she to remove it? How was she to get from under this crushing sense of ruin? It was plain to her that the ardour of his affection was cooling, not owing to any indifference on his part to herself, but owing to the fact that he recognised, even with the prospect of her five thousand pounds a year hence, the impossibility of their union. Now that five thousand pounds had vanished wholly, and the possibility of their marriage had been reduced to an almost certain negative. What should she do? What was there to be done? The answer to this question did not admit of any delay. Between this moment and the moment of absolute want was but an hour, two hours, three hours, a condition which must arise absolutely by sunset. She could do nothing. It was possible to walk about the streets, no doubt, until death overtook her; but why should she wait for death. If Death were coming, why should she not go and meet him half-way? Still it was hard to die. To die now in the full summer, when one was young and full of health, although bankrupt in hope, when the sun was bright, and the air was clear, and great London at its most beautiful. To die now without even the chance of communicating with him, Dominique? He, too, was ill, dying perhaps. Yes, he was dying. His affection towards her seemed waning. He had no worldly prospect, and her little fortune was wholly gone. If death would only come in some pleasant shape she would greet it gladly; but the notion of wooing death was cold and repugnant. The waters of the river were chill, and full of noises and foul contagion. People had not willed themselves into life; why should they not be allowed to will themselves out of it? For hours she walked along the crowded streets of London. Moment by moment faintness and the sense of dereliction grew upon her. The active troubles of the morning had passed away, and were now succeeded by a dull numbing sense of hopelessness. She had no longer the energy to protest against her fate. She moved through the crowded ways without hope, without fear, without anticipation, without retrospection. She had the dull, dead sense of being an impertinence in life, nothing more. She wished that life were done with her. Life was now a tyrannical taskmaster, who obliged her to walk on endlessly, with no goal in view; who compelled her to pass among this infinite multitude, debarred of all sympathy with them, of all participation in their joys. At length the sun fell, and minute by minute the busy streets grew stiller. The great human tide of London was ebbing to the cool and leafy suburbs. She found herself in a neighbourhood which she had never before trodden. She had passed St. Paul's, going east, and then turned down some dark, deserted way, until she found the air growing cooler and the place stiller. "I must be near the Thames," she thought. "Fate is directing my steps. The future is a blank. Let the present be death." She was now beginning to feel faint from physical exhaustion. She had sought that solitary way because she found she could no longer walk steadily. She had eaten nothing that day. It was now close to midnight. This place seemed so sequestered, so far away from the feet of men, that she felt she might lie down and sleep until the uprousing of the great city. But she thought: "If I sleep here, I shall wake here, and what good will that be to me? If I sleep in the river, I shall wake-Elsewhere." She found herself under a square tower. She leaned against the wall, irresolute or faint. She moaned, but uttered no word. In a few moments she placed her hand against the wall and pushed herself from it, as though repelling a final entreaty. Then she staggered down the street and into a narrow laneway that led to the river.