I was interrupted here. A case at the hospital; James McDermot—fever-ward—cut his throat in a fit of delirium. There must have been great neglect in the nurse or orderly—perhaps in more than they. These night absences were bad—this pre-occupation—though I have tried earnestly to fulfil all my duties. Yet, as I walked back, the ghastly figure of the dead man was ever before me.
Have I not a morbid conscience, which revels in self-accusation? Suppose there were one who knew me as I knew myself—could shew myself unto myself, and say, “Poor soul, 'tis nothing. Forget thyself, think of another—thy other self—of me.”
Why recount this, one of the countless painful incidents that are always recurring to our profession? Because, having begun, I must tell you all that happens to me, as a man would, coming home after his day's labour to his—let me write down the word steadily—his wife. His wife; nearer to him than any mortal thing—bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh; his rest, comfort, and delight—whom, more than almost any man, a doctor requires, seeing that on the dark side of human life his path must continually lie.
Sometimes, though, bright bits come across us—such as when the heavy heart is relieved, or the shadow of death lifted off from a dwelling: moments when the doctor, much to his own conscious humiliation, is apt to be regarded as an angel of deliverance—seasons when he is glad to linger a little amidst the glow of happiness he has been instrumental in bringing, before he turns out again into the shadows of his appointed way.
And such will always be this, which I may v consider the last of my nights at Rockmount.
They would not hear of my leaving, though it was needless to sit up. And when I had seen Mr. Johnston safe, and snug for the night, they insisted on my joining the merry supper-table, where, relieved now from all care, the family assembled. The family included, of course, Mr. Charteris. I was the only stranger.
They did not treat me as a stranger—you know that. Sometimes falling, as the little party naturally did, into two, and two, and two, it seemed as if the whole world were conspiring to wrap me in the maddest of delusions; as if I always had sat, and were meant to sit, familiarly, brotherly, at that family table; as if my old solitude were quite over and gone, never to return more. And, over all, was the atmosphere of that German love-tale, which came up curiously to the surface, and caused a conversation, which, in some parts of it, seems the strangest thing of all that strange evening.
It was Mrs. Treherne who originated it. She asked her sister what had we been doing that we were so exceedingly quiet upstairs?
“Reading—papa wished it.” And being further questioned, Miss Theodora told what had been read.
Mrs. Treherne burst out laughing immoderately.