A SCIENTIFIC MURDER.
On those occasions when Susan Riley obtained the usual forty-eight hours' leave of absence from the hospital, it was her custom to pass most of this time in the company of her lover the barrister.
Now, it happened on the night that Dr. Duncan had come across his old friend at the Albion, the latter had made an appointment with his mistress to take her to the theatre after a dinner at a restaurant.
He had given her the set of keys to his chambers, so that she might let herself in at six o'clock, and there await his coming.
Susan arrived at the appointed hour. Hudson was generally punctual when he had to meet her; but seven o'clock passed, then eight, and yet he did not come, so that Susan, who had first felt only extremely angry at his delay, began to be fearful of some disaster.
This is what had occurred. At three o'clock in the afternoon, for the first time for three long years, the man had caught a glimpse of Mary Grimm as she was walking down Oxford Street.
He recognised her at once. The sight brought back to him a host of memories and regrets. His mind, weakened and excitable from habitual alcoholism, was altogether unbalanced by this meeting.
A senseless passion—such as are the curse of such enfeebled brains, in which all the emotions are exalted to the verge of madness—possessed him. It was not that he had, through all these years, nursed any love for the young girl whom he had only seen for a few hours altogether. He had almost forgotten her. He had long since given up thinking about her.
But now, no sooner did he perceive her, than he felt as if she had been all the world to him ever since that strange adventure in the Temple. He really believed that this had been the case; and the mad delusion took command of him and carried him away with it. He loved her—her only, he thought—the dear little girl who had passed that evening with him in his rooms—Oh! so long ago, it appeared now to him, not in years though, but in change of nature. Yes, he was sunk now beyond redemption, he was utterly lost—a degraded wretch—so he dared not go up to her and speak to her; he was too foul a thing to approach her—and he almost burst into hysterical tears, as he turned his back to her while she passed him, that she might not see his face; and then he walked away in an opposite direction—whither he cared not—in that condition when all good has abandoned the soul of a man, and it is empty, and will only open to devils.
He no longer thought of his mistress, his beloved Edith, or of his engagement with her. He went into refreshment bar after refreshment bar, asking at each for brandies, which he swallowed neat and at a gulp one after the other; so that men looked askance at him, and the bar-maids who served him pitied him, and begged him to drink no more.