CHAPTER XI.
With what increased benignity I listened to the patients who visited me the next morning! The whole human race seemed to be worthier of love, and I longed to diffuse amongst all some rays of the glorious hope that had dawned upon my heart. My first call, when I went forth, was on the poor young woman from whom I had been returning the day before, when an impulse, which seemed like a fate, had lured me into the grounds where I had first seen Lilian. I felt grateful to this poor patient; without her Lilian herself might be yet unknown to me.
The girl’s brother, a young man employed in the police, and whose pay supported a widowed mother and the suffering sister, received me at the threshold of the cottage.
“Oh, sir, she is so much better to-day; almost free from pain. Will she live now; can she live?”
“If my treatment has really done the good you say; if she be really better under it, I think her recovery may be pronounced. But I must first see her.”
The girl was indeed wonderfully better. I felt that my skill was achieving a signal triumph; but that day even my intellectual pride was forgotten in the luxurious unfolding of that sense of heart which had so newly waked into blossom.
As I recrossed the threshold, I smiled on the brother, who was still lingering there,—
“Your sister is saved, Wady. She needs now chiefly wine, and good though light nourishment; these you will find at my house; call there for them every day.”
“God bless you, sir! If ever I can serve you—” His tongue faltered, he could say no more.
Serve me, Allen Fenwick—that poor policeman! Me, whom a king could not serve! What did I ask from earth but Fame and Lilian’s heart? Thrones and bread man wins from the aid of others; fame and woman’s heart he can only gain through himself.