Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

how great a work it is to become a popular doctor.

But in their leisure hours Ernestine put these perplexities aside, and revelled in the broad stream of sunshine that lay upon their lives, and was yet scarce chequered with shade. She allowed a child-like capacity for enjoyment which she possessed to appear and to be gratified. Dr. Doldy's strong maturity of manhood seemed suddenly to have taken a step back into hilarious youthfulness; and with his beautiful wife by his side he entered upon all manner of foolish excursions, and heartily delighted in small pleasures; and continually he would look at her, as, with true good comradeship, she followed him into any amusement or enterprise which pleased him at the moment; and at such times he felt that any social position was worth sacrificing for the possession of such a comrade.

But, as yet, society had looked kindly upon them. Ernestine being very quiet and eminently unmasculine, the grand old ladies had not taken much offence at her doorplate.

Life was so englamoured with rose-colour, and so rich in sweetness to Dr. Doldy, that when one day Ernestine spoke to him with a knitted brow and a very serious voice, he stood aghast.

She had just returned from Mrs. Silburn's house ; and, strangely enough, her visit there had brought a deep line upon her forehead-a straight one, downwards, between her eyes. When that appeared on Ernestine's brow it meant sore perplexity within. It was a signal of distress.

But the signal was not one to be understood by Dr. Doldy. He had studied her face narrowly, but he had not known her long enough to know the meaning of that line of

care.

Dorothy knew it; but she was quite in the dark as to what it meant in this case, although it was her own words that had produced it.

It was Dorothy's nature and Dorothy's business to know everything. She was not a scandalmonger; but she certainly was a purveyor of choice bits of gossip. Ernestine learned more of the ways and doings of the world around her in a few minutes' chatter with Dorothy than in a week of her own observations. She passed through life absorbed in the contemplation of certain aspects of it. She was not able, at the same time, to grasp all the petty incidents which befell her fellow passengers.

But Dorothy was all eyes and ears; she heard and saw and retailed all manner of small spicy things.

This afternoon, when Ernestine had spent a brief tranquil halfhour in her drawing-room, she had chattered thus about all sorts of people whom they both knew; and she innocently enough made the following remark:

I

"I hear Sir Percy Flaxen is paying great attention to Laura Doldy. suppose she will soon be engaged again. Sir Percy is considered rather a catch; but so is Laura. If they do become engaged they will be an excellent match; both are very attractive to the opposite sex, both are rich, and I should think at the outside they can't have more than one idea between them."

Dorothy's talk, like a wandering rivulet, had branched far away from Laura and Sir Percy Flaxen when Ernestine interrupted her.

"Engaged again I think you said? Has Laura Doldy, then, been already once engaged?"

"Didn't you know it?" exclaimed Dorothy. "She has been talked about with half-a-dozen men, and once definitely engaged.

She herself announced it to me; but it was immediately contradicted."

"To whom was she engaged?" asked Ernestine.

"A horrid little Spaniard, whom I believe Dr. Doldy hated. Probably that is why he has never mentioned the affair to you. He never could mention Yriarte's name with a cheerful expression of countenance."

"And she is being talked about again?" said Ernestine, with an effort at an ordinary tone of voice; but the deep line had come upon her forehead.

"Yes; that is only to be expected. She will marry soon, of course."

Ernestine did not like to ask any more. She knew so much and so little of Laura's affairs, that she was afraid lest in speaking she might either show her ignorance or suggest her knowledge. She soon went home, leaving Dorothy debating within herself what there could be distressing in the probability of Laura's engagement. And Ernestine had walked home deep in thought, and entered her own room.

She sat down near the

door, and, from where she sat, could hear something of what passed in Dr. Doldy's consultingroom. A patient had just come in, and, after a little while, his words seemed to enter her mind, and awaken its interest; for she arose, and stepped into the little antechamber.

In the midst of a long interview, Dr. Doldy rose and came to the ante-chamber where she stood, to fetch something which he required; and there he found her. She generally retreated under such circumstances, for she held a thinking man sacred; but now she stayed where she was.

Seeing that she remained, he turned towards her, expecting that

she had some bright remark to make, or some piece of news which was too good to keep. He was only too glad to refresh himself now and again in her sunny atmosphere.

But when he turned, he saw her absorbed and frowning: a cloud on her brow, and no smile on her lips.

He stood aghast.

"Why, Ernestine," he exclaimed, "what is it ?"

"Glaucoma," was her reply. At first he thought her mind was wandering; but a second after he laughed. "the

"Nonesnse!" he said, man's bilious. I meant, what is the matter with you?"

"Is it not Mr. Richy, the artist, who is with you?" was Ernestine's apparently irrelevant answer. “I should like to see him."

"Very well," said Dr. Doldy cheerfully, speaking from the level of a shelf, where he was looking for something. "I will bring him to the drawing-room. But I didn't know he was any favourite of yours."

CHAPTER XXVI. GLAUCOMA.

ERNESTINE approached her husband, and laid her hand on his

arm.

"Arthur," she said, "I don't want to see him in the drawingroom; I want to see him professionally."

Dr. Doldy paused an instant before he replied; but his answer had a little irritation in its tone for all that.

"Now, Ernestine, don't talk nonsense."

"I am not talking nonsense," she said, the straight downward line in her brow growing more defiant as she spoke. "I cannot help thinking you are making a

mistake in this case. There is every symptom of glaucoma." "Bah!" said Dr. Doldy, almost impatiently; "seeing so many eye operations has turned your head. The man has dined out too fre

quently, and has not taken enough

exercise. That is all."

"Let me see him," said Ernestine.

"Very well; if you will be in the drawing-room in about ten minutes I will bring him there. As he is a lover of beauty by profession I am sure he will be delighted to come. I have yet to meet with the man who would refuse your invitation."

This was said with a smile of mingled meanings, but Ernestine did not respond but by a little sigh of regret.

66

Well," she said, "I suppose I must submit to that if you wish it; but I should like to have used the ophthalmoscope myself to-day." Dr. Doldy made no reply, but left her, and returned to his patient without even another look in her direction.

The truth was that he scarcely knew what his eyes would express if he did look at her, for his mind was for the moment much confused by a new aspect of their relations to each other. As yet Ernestine had been to him a beautiful woman with a foible. He had no mind to see in her an actual practitioner of a new school.

Ernestine, meanwhile, went up stairs, the straight downward line. remaining unmoved upon her brow. She went into the drawing-room without removing her out-door dress. Her mind was profoundly abstracted after the fashion of a new and earnest worker.

Dr. Doldy would probably have laughed at her if she had taken him into her confidence at this moment. He had long passed the stage when a patient's life or death, or a new discovery in medicine or

be

physics, could cause him to forget small conventions. But Ernestine was yet young enough to thorough. She sat down and took from her pocket a note-book which had been very recently filled, as might be easily seen by the freshness of its leaves. Dr. Doldy and Mr. Richy found her still absorbed in studying this.

Mr. Richy knew her. He had met her once in society, and had not forgotten her; for, as Dr. Doldy had said, he was a professed admirer of beauty. He saw in her the charming and beautiful wife of an old friend, and he bowed low over her hand with the politeness of the old school to which he belonged, little aware of the meaning of the keen glance which met his eyes.

Mr. Richy had but a brief time to stay, for he had already prolonged his consultation with Dr. Doldy; and, after a few moments of small talk and some polite phrases of congratulation, he departed.

Dr. Doldy, after bowing him out, returned to Ernestine's side to find her face of perplexity resolved into one of smiles and brightness.

His was now the perplexed countenance, for he did not understand the secret of this change.

She looked up at him with a smile of enthusiasm.

"We can save his sight," she said, "but it must be done at once."

"What are you talking of ?" said Dr. Doldy.

"I am talking," said Ernestine, recalling herself to the reality of the position, "of Mr. Richy's eyes. I feel some interest in them, for I like his pictures; and imagine," she added, "the horror to an artist whose sight is infinitely more sensitive than ours, of total blindness."

"But there is no such danger

for Richy," said Dr. Doldy; "you are talking nonsense. There is a haze over his eyes from biliousness; he will be all right in a week or two with careful diet.

"No," said Ernestine; "I saw that the pupil is dilated to a degree that shows only a mere ring of iris; and the iris is discoloured."

Dr. Doldy laughed aloud. aloud. "That is all very well," said he;" but the man has constant nausea."

"So I heard him say," said Ernestine composedly. "You forget that I heard him detail his sufferings; and, perhaps, you don't remember either that recurrent vomiting is now ascertained to be one of the symptoms in an acute case of glaucoma."

"You are falling into the snare which besets young doctors who study a specialty," said Dr. Doldy, with a rather ineffectual effort to retain his coolness. "You think every patient is afflicted in the organ which you have studied. Modern discoverers appear to discover what they want to find. Richy would think I was mad if I told him he was made sick by a local disease of the eye. If new doctors avow such theories, I hope it is in the medical journals only, and not to their patients."

Ernestine had shut up her notebook, and was moving towards the door.

"We need not discuss that," said she, without any of the heat in her voice which had begun to be apparent in Dr. Doldy's. She was much too interested in the matter in hand to think of quarrelling about it. "We need not discuss that," she said, "for we need not tell him anything until we are quite certain that iridectomy must be performed at once. And to be certain of that we ought, of course, to use the opthalmoscope in a good light."

"Don't think me pragmatical," she added, pausing at the door, and turning to him with a winning smile. "I am really interested in the case; it is not all the vaingloriousness of a young doctor. I am not craving to perform the operation: I would not dare to attempt it. And I don't at all sympathise with the surgeons who delight in the operation of iridectomy because it is so interesting to give health to an eye by taking out the very part ordinarily considered necessary for health. I am not afflicted with the passion for operations; iridectomy does not fascinate me because it is asserted that the larger the piece of the iris cut out, the more complete the cure; and I am quite aware that, in some cases where it has been performed, the other eye has got well. Indeed, Arthur, I can quite understand your laughing at the absurdities committed by young doctors with specialties; and I am only anxious that Mr. Richy should have the benefit of further examination."

She went away full of her thoughts, leaving Dr. Doldy to his

own.

These did not seem to be very tranquil ones, for he walked the drawing-room in a manner unusual to him.

This was the first sign of interference with his patients-the first breach on the unwritten laws which Ernestine had committed. Dr. Doldy would have been furiously angry with anybody but Ernestine. With her it was different. It was a new sensation even thinking himself justified in being angry with her. But still, he was intensely annoyed.

After some little time, he followed Ernestine, intending to talk the matter over with her, and dissuade her from doing anything to break the harmony of their life. determined to point out to her that it was simple madness for her to

He

interfere between himself and a patient such as Mr. Richy.

He could not find her; and, on asking the servants, found that she had gone out.

In the evening, when they met again, the incident had almost been forgotten by both.

CHAPTER XXVII.

LEWIS LINGEN'S OFFICE.

LAURA had temporised; she had pawned as many jewels as she dared, to gain a temporary reprieve from Yriarte's claims. She wanted to postpone her revenge on him-to put him out of her thoughts while she carried on the more immediately interesting operation of catching a new lover.

But he had no idea of being satisfied or even temporarily pacified with the small sums she was able to give him. He wrote to her again, telling her that Anton absolutely refused to give up any of the letters unless the whole debt were paid; and that he much feared Anton had read some of the letters and was likely himself to go to her uncle and demand money.

This letter an ill-written, misspelt scrawl-kept Laura in a fever for an hour, shut in her

room.

Sir Percy Flaxen had proposed marriage to her only the night before, under the helpful influence of a good deal of champagne. The announcement of her engagement would be made whenever she gave him permission to go to Dr. Doldy.

And now she dared not give this permission until she had taken some step with regard to Yriarte. If Dr. Doldy were in new possession of her secret, when Sir Percy Flaxen went to him-especially with Ernestine's influence upon him-she knew not what catastrophe might not result. She was unable to grasp her uncle's mind;

she could not calculate on his probable actions. The combination of worldliness with a certain chivalrous purity of character which was visible in him puzzled her entirely. She distrusted him with a different distrust from that which she bestowed on Mrs. Honiton. The lady was wholly absorbed in selfinterest; and Laura knew that beyond a certain point her sympathies were not to be expected. Dr. Doldy she mistrusted simply because she never quite understood when he might turn upon her with horror and denounce her as having gone too far. And, when he did condemn her, she feared him; his judgment descended upon her from a platform nearer her own than Ernestine's; one less ideal and more intelligible to her.

Yriarte's threat could not have come to her at a more alarming moment. She dreaded the destruction of all her hopes. She had determined to marry Sir Percy; he was perfectly eligible himself according to her taste, and his family was one she would wish to enter. But how dare she advance another step in the matter with Yriarte and his creditor in possession of her letters-prepared at any moment to reveal her secret to her uncleperhaps to Sir Percy himself?

Her spirit rose with the exigency of her position; she determined to take a step which she very much dreaded. She did not know the real legal view of the position; what she might do and what she might not do with safety.

She

must have good advice. She must go to Mr. Lingen and give him a half-confidence. And it took all the necessity of her position to drive her to this; for, with a secret to keep, there was nothing she dreaded so much as the blank gaze through Lewis Lingen's eye-glass.

She thought she knew this man well. She believed him heartless,

« НазадПродовжити »