Barrington. Volume 2

“Will you? Have I the assurance of your support?”

“I can scarcely venture to say ‘yes,’ and yet I can’t bear to say ‘no’ to you!”

“This is less than I looked for from you,” said Stapylton, mournfully.

“I know Dinah so well. I know how hopeless it would be to ask her concurrence to this plan.”

“She may not take the generous view of it; but there is a worldly one worth considering,” said Stapylton, bitterly.

“Then, sir, if you count on that, I would not give a copper half-penny for your chance of success!” cried Barrington, passionately.

“You have quite misconceived me; you have wronged me altogether,” broke in Stapylton, in a tone of apology; for he saw the mistake he had made, and hastened to repair it. “My meaning was this – ”

“So much the better. I’m glad I misunderstood you. But here come the ladies. Let us go and meet them.”

“One word, – only one word. Will you befriend me?”

“I will do all that I can, – that is, all that I ought,” said Barrington, as he led him away, and re-entered the cottage.

“I will not meet them to-night,” said Stapylton, hurriedly. “I am nervous and agitated. I will say good-night now.”

This was the second time within a few days that Stapylton had shown an unwillingness to confront Miss Barrington, and Peter thought over it long and anxiously. “What can he mean by it?” said he, to himself. “Why should he be so frank and outspoken with me, and so reserved with her? What can Dinah know of him? What can she suspect, that is not known to me? It is true they never did like each other, – never ‘hit it off’ together; but that is scarcely his fault. My excellent sister throws away little love on strangers, and opens every fresh acquaintance with a very fortifying prejudice against the newly presented. However it happens,” muttered he, with a sigh, “she is not often wrong, and I am very seldom right;” and, with this reflection, he turned once again to resume his walk in the garden.

CHAPTER XII. A DOCTOR AND HIS PATIENT

Stapylton did not make his appearance at breakfast; he sent down a message that he had passed a feverish night, and begged that Dr. Dill might be sent for. Though Barrington made two attempts to see his guest, the quietness of the room on each occasion implied that he was asleep, and, fearing to disturb him, he went downstairs again on tiptoe.

“This is what the persecution has done, Dinah,” said he. “They have brought that stout-hearted fellow so low that he may be the victim of a fever to-morrow.”

“Nonsense, Peter. Men of courage don’t fall sick because the newspapers calumniate them. They have other things on their minds than such puny attacks.”

“So he may, likely enough, too. He is bent heart and soul on what I told you last night, and I ‘m not surprised if he never closed his eyes thinking of it.”

“Neither did I!” said she, curtly, and left the room.

The doctor was not long in arriving, and, after a word or two with Barrington, hastened to the patient’s room.

“Are we alone?” asked Stapylton, cutting short the bland speech with which Dill was making his approaches. “Draw that curtain a bit, and take a good look at me. Are my eyes bloodshot? Are the pupils dilated? I had a bad sunstroke once; see if there be any signs of congestion about me.”

“No, I see none. A little flushed; your pulse, too, is accelerated, and the heart’s action is labored – ”

“Never mind the heart; if the head be well, it will take care of it. Reach me that pocket-book; I want to acquit one debt to you before I incur another. No humbug between us;” and he pressed some notes into the other’s palm as he spoke. “Let us understand each other fully, and at once. I ‘m not very ill; but I want you.”

“And I am at your orders.”

“Faithfully, – loyally?”

“Faithfully, – loyally!” repeated the other after him.

“You’ve read the papers lately, – you’ve seen these attacks on me?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what do they say and think here – I mean in this house – about them? How do they discuss them? Remember, I want candor and frankness; no humbug. I’ll not stand humbug.”

“The women are against you.”

“Both of them?”

“Both.”

“How comes that? – on what grounds?”

“The papers accused you of cruelty; they affirmed that there was no cause for the measures of severity you adopted; and they argued – ”

“Don’t bore me with all that balderdash. I asked you how was it that these women assumed I was in the wrong?”

“And I was about to tell you, if you had not interrupted me.”

“That is, they believed what they read in the newspapers?”

“Yes.”

“And, of course, swallowed that fine story about the Hindoo fellow that I first cut down, and afterwards bribed to make his escape from the hospital?”

“I suspect they half believed it.”

“Or rather, believed half of it, the cutting down part! Can you tell me physiologically, – for I think it comes into that category, – why it is that women not otherwise ill-natured, in nine cases out of ten take the worst alternative as the credible one? But never mind that. They condemn me. Is n’t it so?”

“Yes; and while old Barrington insists – ”

“Who cares what he insists? Such advocacy as his only provokes attack, and invites persecution. I ‘d rather have no such allies!”

“I believe you are right.”

“I want fellows like yourself, doctor, – sly, cautious, subtle fellows, – accustomed to stealing strong medicines into the system in small doses; putting the patient, as you call it in your slang, ‘under the influence’ of this, that, and t’other, – eh?”

Dill smiled blandly at the compliment to his art, and Stapylton went on: —

“Not that I have time just now for this sort of chronic treatment. I need a heroic remedy, doctor. I ‘m in love.”

“Indeed!” said Dill, with an accent nicely balanced between interest and incredulity.

“Yes, and I want to marry!

“Miss Barrington?”

“The granddaughter. There is no need, I hope, to make the distinction, for I don’t wish to be thought insane. Now you have the case. What ‘s your prescription?”