The Doctor’s Answer.
It was with a sense of waking from a dream that Brace Norton opened his eyes to gaze upon lights and faces dancing around him; but it was long before he could collect his thoughts sufficiently to reply to questions that were asked. By degrees, though, he could make out that it was Sir Murray Gernon who was speaking, and then there arose a loud, wailing woman’s cry, followed by a voice Brace recognised.
“Ye’re reet, lassie—it is, sure enew. It’s Jock Gurdon come back to get his deserts.”
“Blast you!—a doctor—I’m—I’m dy—Here, quick!—a doctor, or I shall bleed to death!” groaned the wretched man.
“Has any one gone for a medical man?” said a stern voice.
“Yes, Sir Mooray, I’ve sent for a doctor and the police, too. It’s gude for us that the loons were quarrelling over the spoil.”
“Isa, my child, this is no place for you!” exclaimed Sir Murray.
“That’s right,” cried Lord Maudlaine, who was also present; “I’ve been asking her to go. My dear Miss Gernon—Isa—what are you about? Don’t go near him!”
Lord Maudlaine might well exclaim, for Isa Gernon, pale and scared, was slowly advancing towards where Brace Norton lay. The eyes of love were more piercing than those of the bystanders; and in those swollen and bleeding features Isa had recognised those of the man who had told her again and again of his love.
“Brace!” she cried, in a low, husky voice, as, falling upon her knees at his side, heedless of all present, she laid her hands upon his; for this could be no burglar, as they had told her—there must be some horrible mystery here.
“Isa!” he whispered, as his eyes met hers for an instant, ere they closed.
“Quick!—quick!” cried the agitated girl. “Father—dear papa—oh, what is this? You have shot him, and he is dying. Oh, quick!—quick!—a doctor!”
Her cries seemed to drive away the fainting sensation that oppressed Brace Norton; and as Sir Murray—astounded at his daughter’s words—hurried to her side, the young man’s eyes again unclosed, for his lips to part in a faint smile.
“No, no,” he whispered—“not shot—that man—Gurdon—I followed him—stabbed, I fear—perhaps to death—the cross, Sir Murray; look! Lady Gernon’s—my father’s innocence—left for me to prove—I know—old story—take it, Isa, love—if I pass away, recollect—not—son—dishonoured man—saved—”
“The brae laddie has fainted, and, Gude save us! it’s young Brace Norton. Here, quick!—some water, and don’t all stand staring like daft fules!” cried McCray. But, at the same moment, with his mind a chaos of wild thoughts, Sir Murray Gernon had sunk upon his knees by the young man, whose hands still clutched the sparkling cross, the jewels glittering brightly yet, though partly encrusted with soot. It was some few minutes, during which he had been striving to stanch the young man’s wound, before he could arrange his thoughts into something like their proper sequence.
This man, then—this Gurdon—had, indeed, stolen the cross; picked it up the night of the great party—more than twenty years ago—and concealed it here, behind the stove; for it was plain enough from whence it had been taken. Here, then, was the key to Gurdon’s attempted burglaries—the man who, with the knowledge of a hidden treasure, had never been able to take it from the spot where it had been placed. Had he, then,—he, Sir Murray Gernon,—been wrong in his suspicions, and was this young man’s father, after all, innocent? No; impossible! he was clear of one foul stain, but the other mystery was unsolved.
The unwonted feeling of gentleness that had come upon him, for a few minutes, as he knelt by the injured man, soon passed away, and the old, hard frown came fiercely back.
There was no one there he could speak to, and say that he was glad the jewels were found, and that he hoped the other mystery might be cleared up; but he rose, with a half-shudder, from his knees, as Jane McCray came forward, pale and trembling, her eyes fixed on his; and as the recollection of the past came back, he would have turned and left the room. But Jane’s hand was on his arm, and, in a voice that was only heard by Isa, she said, beseechingly:
“Oh, Sir Murray, don’t be hard upon your poor child, as you were on my own dear lady! I’ll never say a word—I’ll take all with me to the grave; only, now that it has pleased Heaven to make all this clear, and to show you what you would never believe, try and repent, and ask forgiveness of those you so cruelly wronged! You can’t do much now—it’s too late; but oh! Sir Murray—dear master—do something! Twenty years and more ago, now, since the wrongs were done; and yet, you see, how judgment comes at last for the wicked. You know now how cruelly wrong you were; there it all is. You thought, between them, there had been something done with that cross, and now you see. I hoped that man had died repenting, in a far-off land; but it was to be his fate to come and clear this up first—to show you how ill you treated my poor, sweet lady—to show you her innocence and—”
“Loose your hold, woman!” whispered Sir Murray, hoarsely.
“No,” she said, holding his arm tightly—“not yet. You know how I promised her, Sir Murray, that I’d be, as far as I could, a mother to that child; and I’ve tried to. Haven’t I, for her sake, sealed my lips, and kept hid a secret that has made the white come in my hair? Am I not an old and faithful servant? After what I have done, can you not trust me when I say that I will carry all I know to the grave? But, Sir Murray, you will try—you will make right what you can. Don’t break their hearts. Look at that brave boy. You know how he loves her; you know how you injured his father. Promise me that you will repent of it all, and try to make them happy.”
“Confound the woman!” cried Sir Murray, angrily—“she is mad! Lord Maudlaine, this is no place for your betrothed; take her away. Ha! here is the doctor at last.”
As Jane McCray covered her face with her hands, and fell back with a groan, Lord Maudlaine advanced to where Isa, who had heard all that had passed, still knelt by Brace Norton’s side.
“Miss Gernon—Isa,” he said, anxiously; “let me lead you away. Sir Murray wisely says that this is no place for you.”
“No place!” she cried, her soft eyes flashing into light. “Is it not a woman’s place beside the man she loves, when he is stricken down and helpless? Keep back, sir! I do not require your forced attentions!”
The aspect of Lord Maudlaine’s face was a mingling of the ludicrous and the enraged; but no one seemed to heed it, for, evidently violently agitated, Sir Murray had left the room, while all eyes were now directed to the doctor, whose ministrations were rapid, and orders issued sharply, as if he meant to have them obeyed.
“Gude-sake, sir!” said McCray, at last, unable to restrain his feelings, for he had read the anxiety in his young lady’s countenance—“Gude-sake, sir, tell’s how they all are!”
“Burglar—bad shot through shoulder, but not dangerous; Mr Norton—serious stab, knife pierced the—”
“Gude-sake, sir, never mind that!” exclaimed McCray. “Tell’s the warst at once: is he likely—”
McCray did not finish his sentence in words, but with his eyes; while, with an anxious troubled look, the doctor glanced towards the figure of Isa Gernon, before he replied:
“Well, McCray, I—There, I’ll give you my opinion to-morrow.”