First Person Paramount

by Ambrose Pratt

I was dying, so they said: two physicians and my nurse—Marion Le Mar. They informed me, very gravely and gently, and the explicit motive of their confidence was that I might have time to make my peace with heaven, and settle my affairs with men. It was easy to believe them. I was so feeble. When the men of medicine had gone, Marion surprised me by throwing herself down upon her knees beside my bed and bursting into the most passionate fit of weeping I have ever witnessed. As I could not calm her, I occupied the time of her abandonment in considering how I might provide best for her future. I thought of a will, but dismissed the idea, because of its publicity. Marion could not afford to advertise her whereabouts to our enemies. I decided at last to withdraw all my money and the jewels from the bank and give them to her while I lived. When, therefore, she grew tranquil, I made her write a letter and a cheque, both of which, with exhausting effort, I contrived to sign. But she resolutely declined to leave me for a moment, so I was compelled to send a waiter on the errand. He was, by good chance, an honest man, and an hour later my bed was strewn with bank-notes and with flashing gems.

But Marion would not take them. She implored me, for my soul's sake and her satisfaction, to make full restoration to the man I had blackmailed, and so vehemently and persistently did she entreat me that, in very weakness, I at length gave way, only stipulating that she should retain sufficient money to pay the debts my illness had incurred, and to keep her for a little while till she should find employment. While she was packing up the jewels to send to Sir Charles Venner, I fell asleep, and when I awoke I was once more a pauper.

It was very curious. From that instant I grew better, and hour by hour my strength increased. On the evening of the fourth day, thereafter, I arrived, after much reflection, at the conclusion that Marion had prevailed upon the physicians to pretend that I was dying in order to rob me of the jewels. I also believed her story that she had restored them to Sir Charles to be a falsehood, and I entertained no doubt whatever but that she would presently desert and leave me to my fate. Naturally, I kept these opinions to myself. It was useless to discuss them, and I told myself that such a course would only hasten her departure. I thought her something like a fiend in human form, but she was very beautiful, and I loved her so madly that all I wished for in the world was to retain her by my side as long as possible. With that end in view, I played the hypocrite, and let her think me every simple kind of fool she wished. I derived a bitter-sweet satisfaction from the game, for on her part she pretended to be ardently attached to me. We spent the hours building castles in the air, weaving pretty fancies of love in a cottage, and a long life shared together. She said she had a friend, an old kind-hearted gentleman, whom she could depend upon to find me some employment, as soon as I was perfectly restored to health. I was then to turn over a new leaf, and live an honest, hard-working life, and she would be my wife, my comforter, my devoted helpmate, to the end. It was a very pretty dream, but the strange and bitter feature of it was that I sighed for it to come true. I was tired of my rascality. My long illness had made a changed man of me, and if I could have believed in Marion's avowals, I would have been as happy as a king to mend my ways for her sweet sake, and never do a shady thing again. Once or twice I tried my best to induce her to explain to me the mysteries connected with Sir Charles Venner's secret society of consumptives which I had been unable to fathom. On that subject, however, she maintained an adamantine reticence, and when I ventured to press her in love's name, she entreated me in tears to forbear, saying that she was bound by an oath which she could not break. Her art was perfect, for she used to add: "How, dear Agar, could you trust me, if you proved me capable of breaking a solemn oath, sworn to God?"

I could only have effectually answered her by voicing my convictions of her baseness, and that would have driven her away. On the contrary, I praised her constancy, and received my reward from the exquisitely assumed love-light in her glorious brown eyes. The drama took another week to play out. By that time I was quite out of danger, and, although still painfully feeble, my physician assured me that I should soon be able to leave my bed. Marion's joy at that knew no bounds. She covered me with kisses, and insisted that she should write forthwith to her old friend, to inform him of her whereabouts, and the hopes she reposed in him for our happiness and welfare.

"What is his name, sweetheart?" I asked. I had not troubled to inquire before.

She gave me a bright smile. "I'll tell you on our wedding-day," she replied. "It is a little surprise that I am keeping for you, dear."

My thought was: "She is, after all, a poor hand at invention!" I felt convinced that she was simply paving the way with her letter for her escape, and when she went out to post it, I cried aloud in my bitterness of spirit—"To-morrow morning there will come a telegram, and she will leave me!"

So it happened! She was seated by my bed, reading me the morning journals, when, of a sudden, a knock sounded on the door, and a waiter entered with a wire upon a salver. "For Nurse Hampton!" he announced. Such was the name she had assumed when first we came to the hotel.

Marion started up with a little cry of delight that echoed itself in anguish in my heart. I knew what that envelope contained as well as she. Holding my breath, I watched her with critical intentness. But I had no fault to find. To the very last she maintained her part, playing it like the unimaginably perfect actress that she was. Tearing it open, she read its contents with an expression of happy expectation, which quickly changed before my eyes to fear and passionate concern.

"Mon Dieu!" she gasped, and crushing up the paper in her hand, she turned to me. "Agar!" she cried, "he is very ill, dying they say, and he needs me. I must go to him at once!"