Blind Policy

Marion looked at him wonderingly, and her lips parted, but no words came. He read the question, though, in her eyes.

“I ought to have known, and found it out sooner,” Chester said bitterly, “and I feel that I am only a miserable pretender, after all. This piece of jagged lead, broken from the conical bullet by the explosion; it has remained behind causing all the trouble.”

“Ah! Then he will recover now?”

“Yes,” he said, as his eyes met hers; and if was some moments before they were withdrawn, both, in the pre-eminence of self at that moment, having taken no thought of the old housekeeper, who involuntarily made her presence known by uttering a deep sigh; and as Marion started and met her gaze, the old woman shook her head at her reproachfully.

“Oh, my dear! my dear!” she said softly; “pray, pray think.”

Marion’s brow contracted, and she walked slowly away, to take up her former position; while Chester winced and gave the old woman an angry look, as she now shook her head sadly at him.

“No, doctor, no,” she said softly; “that could never be. Please think only of your patient and your position of trust.”

“How dare you, woman!” he whispered angrily; for her words had gone home, and stung him more deeply than she could have realised.

“Because I am not like an ordinary servant, doctor,” she said, meeting his eyes unflinchingly. “I nursed her when she was a little child, and I have watched over her ever since. Yes, she is very beautiful, but that could never be.”

Chester bent over his patient with knitted brow and tightly-compressed lips, feeling the truth of the old woman’s words, and ready to repeat them again mentally – that could never be.

His hands were busy with his task, and his brain was more active than ever, as he felt now that he had won this victory, and that the effort to bring the poor fellow back to life and strength would now be an easy one; little more than good nursing would suffice. Why, then, could he not win in that other fight? She was right; that could never be; and he seemed now to be suffering a rude awakening from the strange, dreamy time through which he had passed – awakening to the fact that he had lapsed into a faithless scoundrel, he who had believed himself all that was manly and true.

An hour before, he had felt that nothing could drag him from Marion’s side. He loved her more than he could have believed possible, but it could never be. He was awake once more, and now that the peril was past he must go.

“Hah!” he said softly, as he finished his task and the old housekeeper rose to bear away sponge, basin and towel, “head cooler, more susceptible of touch. A hard fight, but I win. An error of judgment? No; I did all possible. The probe revealed nothing. I saw no bullet, or I might have known.”

Everything else had passed away for the moment in the pride of his satisfaction – the triumph of life over death – and he stood with one hand resting on the back of the couch, the other upon his left hip, as he bent over his patient, whose breath came softly, and there was a restful look in the thin white face.

Then he started round, for there was a light touch upon his arm, and he was face to face with Marion once more, her head bent forward, her wild eyes searching his.

“Is – is it true?” she whispered excitedly. “She told me as she went out – you did not speak.”

“Yes; quite true,” cried Chester. “No wonder, poor fellow, that he made no advance. But there, we have won, and a day or two’s nursing will be all he wants. Now you can feel at rest.”

“Feel – at rest?”

“Of course; there is no disease. Weakness is the only trouble now.”

“Weakness the only trouble now! Rob – Rob – my own dear boy!”

She sank upon her knees, and as he saw her action, Chester tried to check her. But she gave him a reproachful glance, and passed her soft white arms about the patient’s head, but without touching him; and the loving kiss she breathed, as it were, upon his lips. Then she rose, sobbing gently, with all the strength of her mind and force of action seeming to have passed away, as with outstretched hands she caught at the nearest object to save herself from falling.

That nearest object was Chester; and the next moment she was weeping in his arms.

“You have given him back to me,” she sobbed, her voice little above a whisper. “You have saved him. How can I ever repay you for what you have done?”

The minute before he had been strong; now as he felt the sobs rising from the labouring breast, and clasped her throbbing, palpitating form closer and – closer, – “Marion!”

Her name – nothing more; but he felt her tremble in his arms and hang more heavily as her head sank slowly back, bringing her lips nearer his; and the next moment she uttered a low sigh, breathed in their lengthened kiss.

“Out of what comedy is this, doctor?” said a harsh, familiar voice; and as they started angrily apart, Jem, as they called him, advanced quickly from the silently opened door, straight towards Marion, upon whom he fixed his fierce eyes, as he spoke to her companion. “French, I suppose – a translation. I congratulate you, doctor – both of you. It was so real – so passionately grand. And you,” he literally hissed now, “most loving sister! Pour passer le temps, of course. The ennui of long nursing. Curse you!” he whispered savagely, as he stopped before her, and with a quick movement caught her by the wrist.

The next moment he uttered a hoarse cry of rage, for, stung to madness by the brutal act, Chester sprang at him, forcing him back over the table before which he stood, while Marion was flung aside.

Chapter Seven.

A Black Cloud Behind

“Where am I?”

Head throbbing horribly, a nauseous taste in the mouth, throat constricted and painful upon an attempt to swallow, and a strange mental confusion which provoked the above question.

The answer came at once.

In a miserable, musty-smelling, four-wheeled cab, whose windows were drawn up, and so spattered with mud and the heavy rain which fell upon the roof that the gleam from the street lamps only produced a dim, hazy light within, as the vehicle jangled slowly along, with wheels and some loose piece of iron rattling loudly in concert with the beat of the horse’s feet.

“Whatever am I doing here?” was Fred Chester’s next question.

Lying back in the corner, in an awkward position, as if in a state of collapse, and only saved from subsiding into the bottom of the cab by his feet being propped up on the front cushion, the doctor kept perfectly still trying to think, but every retrogressive attempt gave the idea that he was gazing at a vast black cloud which completely shut out the past.

He uttered a faint groan, for he felt startled; but after lying back listening to the beating rain and the jarring of the ill-fitting glasses, he recovered somewhat.

“How absurd!” he muttered. “Where am I going? Ask the driver.”

He drew up his legs and let his feet drop into the cab, as he tried to sit up, but the effort gave him the sensation of molten lead running from one of his temples to the other, and he lay perfectly still while the agonising pain passed slowly away, trying hard to think what had happened, but in vain. There was the black cloud before him mentally, though he could see the gleaming of a lamp he passed through the blurred panes of glass.

At last, feeling more and more startled by his condition, he made a brave effort, raised himself upright, and reached out for the strap, so as to lower the front window; but at the first movement he was seized with a sickening giddiness, lurched forward, and thrust himself back to recline in the corner again till the molten lead had ceased to flow from side to side of his head.

At last, very slowly and cautiously, bit by bit, he edged himself forward till his knees rested against the front cushion, and then, thrusting one hand into the left corner, he reached out for the strap, raised the window, and let it glide sharply and loudly down.

“Hi! Cabby!” he cried hoarsely.

“Right, sir!” came back, and the cab was drawn up by the kerb beneath the next street lamp.

Then the driver got down and opened the door, to stand with the rain streaming off his waterproof hat and cape.

“Mornin’, sir,” he said in a husky voice, closely following a chuckle. “Feel better now?”

“No, I am horribly ill. Where am I?”

“Why, here, sir,” said the man, chuckling. “My word, it’s a wet ’un outside.”

“But what street’s this?”

“Halkin Street, Belgrave Square, sir.”

“What? But how came I in your cab? – I can’t remember.”

“S’pose not, sir,” said the man, good-humouredly. “Does make yer feel a bit muzzy till yer’ve had another snooze. Shall I try and find one o’ the early purlers where the market-garden chaps goes?”