The Doctor's Wife
KEEPING A PROMISE.
The moon was slowly a black of foliage,—a screen of and that Lord Ruysdale's from the common world without,—as Roland Lansdell the lawn, and in the of the park. At Lowlands there were no glades, and waterfalls, no of landscape-gardening, such as Mordred Priory. The Earls of Ruysdale had been more or less the world for the last century and a half; and the land about the old red-brick was only a of forest, in which the deer peacefully, by the of modern improvement.
The of the place Roland Lansdell's mood to-night. At he had walked very rapidly, into a now and then; so and did he to the spot where he might that which would his despair. But all at once, when he had gone some from the house, and the lights in Lady Gwendoline's drawing-room were from him by the of the park, he stopped suddenly, against a tree, and almost breathless. He stopped for the time to think of what he had heard. The of anger, the of pride, had his so as to away every feeling, as flowers near a may be by the lava-flood that over them. Now, for the time, he a little to upon what he had heard. Could it be true? Could it be that this woman had him,—this woman for he had been false to all the teaching of his life,—this woman, at he had offered up that which an against in to all under heaven,—this woman, for he had to the painful of humanity, the of suffering?
"And she is like the rest, after all," he thought; "or only a little than the rest. And I had so much for her sake. I had out the of a decade in order that I might in the of her dark eyes. I, the man of half-a-dozen in London and Paris, Vienna and St. Petersburg, had away every record in the book of my memory, so that I might her name upon the blank pages; and now I am angry with her—with her, creature, who I is only true to her nature when she is and false. I am angry with her, when I have only my own to for the whole business. I am angry with her, just as if she were a being; as if she be anything but what she is. And yet there have been good in the world," he thought, sadly. "My mother was a good woman. I used to sometimes what might have if I had her in my mother's lifetime. I have a picture in my mind of the two women, happy together, and each other. Heaven me! And after all her talk about and poetry, she me for a low intrigue, and a in an ale-house."
In all his anger against the Doctor's Wife, no of her husband's entered into Mr. Lansdell's mind. It was he—Roland—who had been betrayed: it was he love was outraged, was to the very dust. That there was a man, now and at Graybridge, who had a right to Isabel Gilbert's treachery, and upon the unknown for she was thus and guilty, to this angry man. It had been, for a long time past, his to George Gilbert's existence; he had from his mind the image of the Graybridge since his return to Midlandshire; since the he was doing against George Gilbert had into a and course, leading to a conclusion. He had done this, and little by little it had very easy for him to so and a person as the simple-hearted surgeon, only against was that he had a woman for his wife.
So now it was of his own wrongs, and of those alone, that Mr. Lansdell thought. All the of Isabel's visit to the Priory came to him. Came back? When had they left his mind, for that of which his mind had been a chaos?
"The money she wanted was for this man, of course!" he thought. "For else should it be? for else should she come to ask for money—of her rejected lover—in the of the night, with all the mean, of a and action? If she had wanted money from me for any purpose—in any of and difficulty—why should she not have to me for the she required? She must have that my was hers to she it. But that she should come secretly, like a creature,—compromising herself and me by a midnight visit,—afraid to why she wanted the money,—answering my questions by and prevarication! What can I put upon her of last night one—except one? And yet, after last night, I in her. I that she might have wanted the money for some relation. Some relation! What relation should she meet alone, secretly, late at night, in such a place as Nessborough Hollow? She who never, in all the of our acquaintance, mentioned a her step-mother who had any upon her; and all at once some one comes—some one for she must have fifty pounds; not in the of a cheque, which might be home to the person who it. I cannot that; I cannot that she to take my cheque for the money she wanted. That alone makes a of the business; and the meeting that Raymond tells all the rest. This man is some old lover; some of a era, who comes now and is and dangerous, and will only be off by a bribe. Oh, shame, shame, upon her, and upon my own folly! And I her an child, who had a man's heart!"
He walked on slowly now, and with his bent, no longer trying to make a cut for himself among the trees, but a narrow path by slow peasants' upon the grass.
"Why should I be so to see this man?" he thought. "What can I that I do not already know? If there is any one upon earth word I can trust in, it is Raymond. He would be the very last to this woman, or to be self-deluded by a prejudice; and he saw her—he saw her. And this, the has common talk. Gwendoline would not have to say what she said to-day without good for her statement. It is only I,—I who have from all the world to think and about her,—it is only I who am the last to be told of her shame. But I will try to see this notwithstanding. I should like to see the man who has been to me."
Nessborough Hollow was some from Lowlands; and Mr. Lansdell, who was familiar with almost every of his native county, his way by and by-ways, where the wild-flowers in the night. Never surely had upon a earth. The and blossoms, the long by lazy winds, a that the stillness: and now and then the notes of a the that above hedgerows, and of grass.
"I wonder why people are not happy," Mr. Lansdell, in of himself by the of the landscape. Intensely though our natures may be, will not be put away, as we may to them out. Did not Fagin think about the rail when he in the dock, and wonder who would it? Was not Manfred, the and subjective, the mountain-tops and Alpine into his talk of his own troubles? So to-night, though he was by the of his own wrongs, there was a of action in Roland Lansdells mind, by means of which he was of every of the dark upon the of the grass.
"I wonder how it is that people cannot be happy," he thought; "why can't they take a out of this universe, and the moonlight, and the shadows, and the perfume of new-mown upon the air; and then, when they are of one set of sensations, move on to another: from England to India; from the southern to the snow-mantled Alps; playing a game at hide-and-seek with the seasons, and to go to the through the of a summer, as to who dies or suffers, so long as the of the world endures? Why can't people be reasonable, and take life wisely? I to think that Mr. Harold Skimpole was the only true philosopher. If he had been rich to his out of his own pocket, he would have been perfect. It is only when the Skimpole wants other people's that he objectionable. Ah, how life might by, taken à la Skimpole;—a river, on to darkness! But we make our own election. When we are wise to all the battle-grounds of man's ambition, we must needs in love, and go a shallow-hearted woman has black and a nose. With red and Mrs. Gilbert might go to perdition, and unhindered; but the false has a we want to tear her all to pieces for her treachery."
In that moonlight walk from Lowlands to Nessborough Hollow there was time for Mr. Lansdell to into many moods. At one time he was to laugh aloud, in for his own weakness; at another time, moved almost to by the of his dreams. It was so difficult for him to the Isabel of yesterday from the of to-night. He what Charles Raymond had told him, but he not it; the hard and away from him every now and then, and he himself of the Doctor's Wife with all the old tenderness. Then suddenly, like a of light, the memory of her would upon him. Why should he the of his dreams? There was not, there had been, any such creature. But he not this in his mind. He not out of his brain the Isabel of the past. It was for him to think of her as he might have of the dead, on of which once might have been, but now be, she was no more.
There was not a that he had for that which did not come to his mind to-night. The places in which he had himself in with the woman he loved him in all their colouring; Alpine villages, very names he had forgotten, from the of memory, as an city out of night's swiftly-melting into the clear light of morning; and he saw Isabel Gilbert from a out upon waters, screened and by the tall of snow-peaks. Ah, how often he had painted these things; the on nights as as this, under still by a larger moon; the and by which they might have gone, always leading them and away from the common world and the of common people; the perfect in which there should have been no loneliness! And all this might have been, Mr. Lansdell, if she had not been so and a as to to a lover, power over her most likely in some of the past.
Twenty times in the of that long night's walk Roland Lansdell stopped for a minute or so, he should go or not. What had he in out this at a public-house? What right had he to in a woman's low intrigue? If Isabel Gilbert was the she was to be,—and he not his authority,—what it to him how low she sank? Had she not and rejected his love—his devotion, so and offered to her? Had she not left him to his and desolation, with no than the promise that she would "think of him?" What was she to him, that he should trouble himself about her, and upon his name, perhaps, by some low brawl? No; he would go no farther; he would this out of his mind, and turn his upon the land which her. Was not all the world him, and all designed for his pleasure? Was there anything upon earth him, the ignis-fatuus light of this woman's black eyes?
"Perhaps this is a turning-point in my life," he one of these pauses; "and there may be some for me after all. Why should I not have a career like other men, and try like them to be of some use to my species? Better, perhaps, to be always trying and always failing, than to for ever, my upon calculations as to the relative of the game and the candle. An cannot judge the of the strife. To a man of my it may have a small Spartans or Persians were in the pass of Thermopylæ; but what a thing the and of the must have been for those who were in it! I to think it is a mistake to on the stand, looking at the riders. Better, perhaps, wear a jockey's jacket; to be and to death in the race. I will wash my hands of Mrs. George Gilbert, and go to the Priory and sleep peacefully; and to-morrow I will ask Lady Gwendoline to be my wife; and then I can for Wareham, and go in for liberal-conservatism and steam-farming."
But the picture of Isabel Gilbert and the meeting in Nessborough Hollow was not to be so easily from Mr. Lansdell's brain. The of vacillation, which had out of the of his life, was in him to-night than usual; but the to see for himself how he was over every other feeling, and he his from the direction in which Nessborough Hollow lay,—a little in Midlandshire, almost as beautiful, after its own English fashion, as those Alpine villages which upon Roland Lansdell in his dreams. He came near the place at last; a little by the long walk from Lowlands; a good by all the of the last hours. He came upon the spot at last, not by the ordinary roadway, but across a of waste land high above the hollow—a and shelter, in which the tall the of the trees. Here he stopped, upon the top-most of a bank that into the roadway. The place him was a of glen, from all the world, in that hour. He saw the road and under the trees till it a little bridge. He the low of the brook; and close the he saw the white of the little inn, with black beams, and by high out above the casements. In one low window he saw a a of curtain, and through the half-open door a narrow of light in a line upon the ground.
He saw all this; and then from the other end of the still he saw two slowly the inn. Two figures, one of which was so familiar and had been so dear that despair, complete and absolute, came upon him for the time, in that one start of recognition. Ah, surely he had in her until this moment; surely, if he had Charles Raymond, the of her here not have been so great as this!
He upon the of the slope, with his hands the on each of him, looking at those two slowly in the moonlight. There was nothing him and them the bank, here and there by of and fern, and and saplings; there was nothing to his view, and the moonlight full upon them. He did not look at the man. What did it to him what he was like? He looked at her—at her he had loved so tenderly—at her for he had to in woman's truth and purity. He looked at her, and saw her face, very in the moonlight,—blanched, no doubt, by the of fear. Even the pattern of her dress was familiar to him. Had she not it in one of their at Thurston's Crag?
"Fool!" he thought, "to think that she, who it so easy a to her husband, must needs be true to me. I was at and when I to meet her; but she came to me smiling, and away, and as a good angel, to tell her husband that she had been to Thurston's Crag, and had to meet Mr. Lansdell."
He as still as death, not his presence by so much as the of a leaf, while the two approached the spot above which he stood. But a little way off they paused, and were parting, very coolly, as it seemed, when Mrs. Gilbert up her face, and said something to the man. He with his Roland, to the very of Isabel's was visible in the moonlight.
It to him as if she was for something, for he had her more earnest,—no, not when she had the question of his life's in that meeting Thurston's oak. She to be for something, since the man his once or twice while she was speaking, with a of assent; and when they were about to part he his and her. There was an about his manner of doing this that Roland more than any of have done.
After this the Doctor's Wife away. Roland her as she once, and for a moment looking at the man from she had just parted, and then the in the glade. Ah, if she had been nothing more than a shadow—if he have to all this the of a dream! The man where Isabel had left him, while he took a box of from his waistcoat-pocket and a cigar; but his was still to Mr. Lansdell.
He two or three of from the cigar, himself that it was lighted, and then slowly the spot above which Roland stood.
All that was left of the original in the at that moment in Roland Lansdell's breast. He had come there, only to for himself that he had been and deluded; he had come with no purpose in his mind; or, at any rate, with no of any such purpose. He had come to be cool, indifferent, ironical; to with and words, perhaps, but to use no common weapons. But in a moment all his modern of melted away, and left him with the original man's and of in his breast.
He the bank with any of the grass; but he the and from the earth in his descent, and a of up into the air. He had no weapon, nothing but his right arm, to the broad-chested black-bearded stranger. But he paused to that, or to count the of a struggle. He only that he wanted to kill the man for Isabel Gilbert had rejected and him. In the next moment his hands were on the stranger's throat.
"You scoundrel!" he gasped, hoarsely, "you and scoundrel, to that woman to this place!"
There was a struggle, and then the himself from Mr. Lansdell's grasp. There was no the physical and weight of the two men; and the was by a walking-stick of the order by the black-bearded stranger.
"Hoity-toity!" that gentleman, who to take Mr. Lansdell's attack seriously; "have you newly from some local asylum, my friend, that you go about the country at people's in this fashion? What's the row? Can't a in the merchant take a moonlight with his for once in a way, to wish her good-bye he out for a fresh voyage, without all this hullabaloo?"
"Your daughter!" Roland Lansdell. "Your daughter?"
"Yes, my Isabel, wife of Mr. Gilbert, surgeon."
"Thank God!" Roland, slowly, "thank God!"
And then a of through his heart, as he how little his love had been worth, after all; how he had been to in her purity; how easily he had the idea of her degradation.
"I ought to have known," he thought,—"I ought to have that she was innocent. If all the world had been together against her, I should have been her champion, and defender. But my love was only a after all. The gold to in the fire of the ordeal."
He this, or something like this, and then in the next moment he said courteously:
"Upon my word, I have to for my——" he a little here, for he was of himself; all the were gone, as if they had been, and the Englishman's of the being aroused, he that he had a of himself. "I have to for my very just now; but having a very and report, you as a stranger, and not as a near relation, with Mrs. Gilbert, and a most respect for that lady and her husband, to say nothing of the that I had been dining,"—Mr. Lansdell had not so much as one of the last four-and-twenty hours; but he would have been to admit himself a if that have the of his position—"in point of fact, I my head. I am very happy to think you are so nearly related to the lady I so much esteem; and if I can be of service to you in any manner, I——"
"Stop a bit," Mr. Sleaford the barrister,—"stop a bit! I I your voice. You're the swell, who was so at the Old Bailey,—the who had nothing to do than join the against a that you out of sixpence. I said, if I came out of prison alive, I'd kill you; and I'll keep my promise."
He out these last his set teeth. His big hands were on Roland Lansdell's throat; and his was pushed until it almost touched that other which him in the proud of a that rose above all physical superiority. The moonlight through a wide in the full upon the two men; and in the dark at his, Mr. Lansdell the man he had to Liverpool for the of the chase,—the man in the police records by a dozen aliases, and best by his familiar of "Jack the Scribe."
"You dog!" Mr. Sleaford, "I've about such a meeting as this when I was the at Portland. I've about it; and it did me good to my at your throat, in my dreams. You dog! I'll do for you, if I for this night's work."
There was a struggle,—a and struggle,—in which the two men with each other, and the of victory uncertain. Then Mr. Sleaford's up into the air, and with a thud, once, twice, three times upon Roland Lansdell's head. After the third blow, Jack the Scribe his from the man's throat, and the master of Mordred Priory among the and wild-flowers, with a of opal-tinted rose-petals about him as he fell.
He very where he had fallen. Mr. Sleaford looked about him right and left along the moon-lighted glade. There was not a to be either way. The light the red in the little still in the distance; but the of the place have more had Nessborough Hollow been a in some forest.
Jack the Scribe the so the verdure, and his hand very above Mr. Lansdell's waistcoat.
"He'll do," the Scribe; "I've him for some time to come, anyhow. Perhaps it's all for the best if I haven't gone too far."
He rose from his knees, looked about him again, and himself of the perfect of the place. Then he walked slowly the little inn.
"A low would have taken the fellow's watch," he mused, "and got himself into trouble that way. What did he by at me about Isabel, I wonder; and how he come to know her? He to this part of the country, I suppose. And to think that I should have been so near him all this time without it. I his name, and that's about all I did know; but I he was a London swell."
He pushed open the door of the little presently—the door through which the line of light had out upon the pathway. All was very quiet, for the owners of the had long since retired to their peaceful slumbers, Mr. Sleaford what he called "the of the house." They had very familiar with their lodger, and in him as a of the order; for these Midlandshire were not very to any small in Mr. Sleaford's of the mariner.
He into the room where the light was burning. It was the room which he had his at the Leicester Arms. He seated himself at the table, on which there were some materials, and a lines to the that he himself to go away that night, on his way to Liverpool, and that he left a of sovereigns, at a guess, to pay his score. He the money up in the letter, sealed it with a great red seal, it to the landlord, and it on a of the mantel-piece. Then he took off his boots, and up the leading to his bedroom, with the in his hand. He came down-stairs again about ten minutes a little valise, which he across his by a strap; then he took up his and prepared to depart.
But the room he over the table, and the end of his by the light of the candle. There was blood upon it, and a little of dark hair, which he in the of the candle; and when he looked at his he saw that there were of blood on that and on his shirt.
He the end of the over the till it was all and charred; he his cut-away over his chest, and then took a railway-rug from a chair in a and it across his shoulder.
"It's an to look at, that is," he muttered; "but I don't think I too far."
He out at the little door, and into the glade, where a was high up the foliage, and where the air was with the perfume of and wild roses. Once he looked, with something like terror in his face, the spot where he had left his enemy; and then he and walked away at a in the other direction, the bridge, and the ground that the Briargate Road.
