Blind Policy

Chester’s head was as blank as ever with regard to the past when the cab drew up at his home, but it was perfectly clear as to the present, and he was still hard at work trying to make out where he had been dining, with whom, and how it was possible for him to have so far forgotten himself as to have drunk till he was absolutely imbecile, when the man opened the door.

“One moment; my latch-key. Yes; all right, I said I’d give you a glass of brandy.”

“You did, sir, and welkum it’ll be as the flowers o’ May. Jump out quick, sir, and run up the steps, for it’s all one big shower bath.”

“Can you leave your horse?”

“Leave him, sir?” said the man, with a chuckle; “for a month. He’s got hoofs like hanchors. But I will hitch his nose-bag on, and let him see if he can find that there oat he was a-’untin’ for in the chaff last time he had it on.”

The next minute Chester was inside, with his head throbbing; but he was not so giddy, and his first glance was at the hall clock, illumined by the half turned down gas.

“Four o’clock,” he muttered. “How strange!”

“May I come inside, sir? Horse’ll be all right if there don’t come a bobby prowling round. If he ain’t a fool he’ll be under someone’s doorway, for there ain’t likely to be no burgling a time like this.”

“Shut the door, and come in here,” said Chester, shortly; and he led the way into his consulting-room, turned up the gas, and from a closet took a decanter and glass, filled the latter for the cabman, who was making a pool on the thick carpet, and then poured himself out a few drops from a small-stoppered bottle, added some water from a table filter, and tossed off the mixture.

“Thank you, sir, and hope that there’ll do you as much good as this here’s done me a’ready. Didn’t know you was a doctor.”

“Here’s a crown for you,” said Chester, taking the money from a little drawer.

“Five bob! Oh, thank ye, sir,” said the man, with a grin. “Makes a fellow feel quite dry. Sorry for your carpet, sir. Good-mornin’. I don’t think I want another fare.”

As the door was closed after the man, the potent drops Chester had taken began to have some effect, and it seemed as if the dawn was coming through the black cloud which separated him mentally from what had taken place overnight.

“The man’s right,” he muttered. “I must sleep. Good heavens! What a state my brain is in!”

“Is that you, Fred?”

He started as if he had been stung, and the dawn brightened as he replied sharply —

“Yes, aunt; all right. Go to bed. Why are you up?”

There was no reply, and he turned the hall light nearly out again, and went into his consulting-room to serve the gas jet there the same, and sank into an easy-chair instead; but he had hardly allowed himself to sink back when he sprang up again, for there, in the open doorway, stood the grotesque figure of Aunt Grace, in broad-frilled, old-fashioned night-cap and dressing-gown, a flat candlestick in her hand, and a portentous frown upon her brow, as she walked straight to him, wincing sharply as one slippered foot was planted in the pool left by the cabman, but continuing her slow, important march till she was about a yard away from her nephew, when she stopped.

“Why, aunt,” he cried, “what’s the matter? Surely you are not walking in your sleep!”

“Matter?” she cried in a low, deep voice, full of the emotion which nearly choked her. “Oh, you vile, wicked, degraded boy! How dare you treat your poor sister and me like this?”

“Pooh! Hush! Nonsense, old lady. It’s all right. I’ve been dining with a friend.”

“With a friend!” she said, with cutting sarcasm.

“Yes, at his club. There, I must have been unwell. I was a little overdone. What a terrible night.”

“Terrible indeed, sir, when my nephew stoops to lie to me like that. A friend – at his club! Do you think me such a baby that I do not know you have been with that abandoned woman?”

“Hush! Silence!” he whispered angrily. “For your dear, dead father’s and mother’s sake, sir, I will not be silenced.”

“But you will arouse Laura.”

“She wants no arousing. She is lying ill in bed, sleepless in her misery, sir, with her wretched brother staying out like this.”

“Confound you for a silly old woman!” he cried angrily. “Is a man to live the life of a hermit? If I had been away to a patient till breakfast-time nobody would have said a word. Poor little Laury! But how absurd!”

“Absurd, sir!” cried the old lady, who was scarlet with indignation. “Then I suppose it was absurd for poor Isabel Lee to have gone home broken-hearted because of your conduct.”

“What!” he cried, springing up, with a glimmer of memory coming back. “Why, surely you two did not canvass my being out one night till the poor girl was so upset that she – that she – went back – yes, she was stopping here. Oh, aunt, your foolish, suspicious ways are disgraceful. What have you done?”

“I done, you wretched boy? It’s what have you done? She was with us for a whole week after you had gone, fighting against me, and insisting that there was a reason for your being away, or that you had had an accident.”

“Here, aunt, are you going to be ill?” he cried, catching at her wrist; but she snatched it away.

“Don’t touch me, sir!” she cried. “Oh, Fred, Fred! I’d have given the world not to know that you were so wicked. And just when you were about to marry her, poor girl, to go away as you did.”

“Go away – as I did?” he faltered, gazing at her blankly.

“Yes, I knew something was wrong when I saw that wretched woman’s face. I felt it; but I could not have believed you would be so base. A whole fortnight too; and to think that this was to have been your wedding-day!”

He caught her by the shoulders, and she uttered a faint cry and dropped the candlestick, as he stood swaying to and fro, staring at the doorway, through which his sister hesitatingly passed, and came slowly toward him.

“A fortnight!” he stammered – “Isabel gone!”

“Yes, gone – gone for ever,” said Laura, sadly. “Oh, Fred, how could you?”

“Stop! Don’t touch me,” he cried angrily. “Don’t speak to me. Let me try to think.”

He threw his head back and shook it violently in his effort to clear it, but the confusion and mental darkness began to close in once more, while the throbbing in his brain grew agonising. It was as if his head were opening and shutting – letting the light in a little and then blotting it out; till he felt his senses reeling – the present mingling with the darkness of the past he strove so vainly to grasp.

“I can’t think. Am I going mad?” he groaned, as he staggered to a chair.

“Mad, indeed,” said his aunt, bitterly. “Come away, Laura, and leave him to his conscience. Better if it had been as you and poor Isabel thought – that he had met with some accident, and was dead.”

She caught her niece by the arm, but Laura shook herself free and took a step or two towards where, in his utter despair, Chester sat bent down with his head resting in his hands. But he made no movement, and with a bitter sob she turned and followed her aunt from the room.

Chapter Eight.

“Whither?”

It was a good forty-eight hours before Chester could think clearly. His aunt had sternly avoided his room, and he had been dependent upon Laura, who attended him as he lay quite prostrated by the agonising pains in his head. She hardly spoke, but saw to his wants as a sisterly duty, and felt that silent reproach was better than words to one who had proved himself such a profligate.

“I can’t understand it,” she said to herself again and again. “It is so unlike him. If he would only repent, poor Bel might forgive him – in time. No; I cannot speak to him yet.”

She little thought how her brother blessed her for her silence, as he lay struggling to get behind that black curtain; but all in vain.

He was sleeping heavily on the third night, when he suddenly woke up with the mental congestion gone. The pain had passed away, and his brain felt clear and bright once more.

He remembered perfectly now. The scene with Marion after his triumphant declaration of all danger being past. Their embrace. The interruption by the coming of the saturnine head of the house, and the struggle, all came back vividly clear, and with photographic minuteness. He recalled, too, how in the encounter when he had forced his adversary back over the edge of the table, he felt that an effort was being made to get at some weapon.