"Well, I had been wondering that I had not heard from this girl. She must be sixteen or seventeen now, and she writes most capital letters. I assure you, when I'm regularly dry and stoney with business, feel as if I was stuccoed all over like, one of this girl's letters refreshes me and cheers me up, and makes me remember there is something else in the world to live for besides money-getting. I had been wondering I had not heard from Louise, when this morning a letter came. In it she told me that she had been very ill with a fever, which had completely prostrated her, and that--but I may as well read this part out to you."
Mr. Thacker then produced a letter from his pocket-book, and read the following passage:
"You know, my dear guardian, notwithstanding my foreign extraction and half-foreign bringing-up, the horror I have always had of French doctors; and it is certain I should have been left to the mercy of some of these dreadful creatures, if it had not been for Lucy Elliott, who is a fellow-pupil of mine at the Conservatoire, and who knew Dr. Hudson, who is our great English physician over here. She came and saw me when I was first taken ill, and promised to send Dr. Hudson to me. Within an hour he was by my bedside; and I can never express to any one his kindness and attention. He asked me, without the smallest impertinent curiosity, about myself; and when I told him that I was all alone in Paris, and had no relations on whom I could depend, he shook his head, and said it was absolutely necessary that I should have some one to nurse me. I suggested Sister Agatha, who used to come and see us so often at the pension, and who, I know, is a skilled and practised nurse; but Dr. Hudson said he thought he could do better than Sister Agatha for me, and that he would try to get an English widow lady of his acquaintance to come and nurse me."--("Ah, ha! you start, Yeldham, my friend! Hold on a bit, my boy; the scent's only just warming yet; hold on a bit longer.")--"I went to sleep after Dr. Hudson left me; and when I woke that evening I found a stranger sitting by my side. A tall elegant young woman, very young still, but looking as though she had seen a great deal of sorrow; for her beautiful face--I can't explain to you how wonderfully beautiful it is, so calm and classical and statuesque--is marked here and there with deep lines, and there is a gravity about her which I am sure has been brought on by mental suffering. She motioned me to keep silent, and then told me, in O such a sweet voice, that I was to be quite quiet, and that she had come to nurse me and attend upon me, and under God's help get me well again. From that night until now--she has only just gone away, and she will be back this evening, though I scarcely require any assistance now--she has been my best and dearest friend, my nurse, my consoler, my sister. In all that dreadful fever I had the sense of her constant presence, knew the touch of her cool hands to my hot head, recognised the cheering tone of her voice, when, in my pain and misery, I could scarcely see her. To her and my kind Dr. Hudson I owe my life; and as I know, my dear guardian, that you are good enough to prize that life, I am sure you will be grateful to these good friends. And here I come to a point where I require your advice and assistance. I told Dr. Hudson that though I was only a struggling pupil at the Conservatoire, I had connections in England who, I was sure, would take care that his kindness to me was not forgotten. I presumed so much, my dear guardian; for I felt certain that your goodness of heart"--("That's nothing," said Mr. Thacker abruptly; "hem! hem! here it is")--"but now I don't know what to say about Madame Sidney. She is evidently not rich, though a thorough lady born and bred; and I'm sure you will think with me that some recompense should be made her, though what it is to be, and how it is to be managed, I must leave to your better sense and knowledge of the world to suggest. One thing I have discovered, and that is, that this is one of the most trying, if not the most trying, occasions on which Madame Sidney has acted in the capacity of sick nurse; and that discovery I made in this way. When I was first coming into convalescence, when I first had a glimmering of what was passing round me, I heard the doctor say to her, 'Well, I knew I was not mistaken; the child owes her recovery, under Providence, to your care and ceaseless attention. It's your greatest experience; it's the opportunity which you have so much wished for, of showing that you possessed the patience, the energy, and the long-suffering for which you have so long fervently prayed; but all of which I knew were your attributes, when, under different circumstances, neither you nor I thought you would ever be called upon to employ them, for they were not wanted then for others, but they were wanted for yourself,--I mean during that week's illness at Martigny.'"
"Stop!" cried Charley Yeldham, bringing his hand down heavily on the table, and then rising and pacing hurriedly up and down the room; "stop! that seems to me to be conclusive."
"Ah, ha!" cried Thacker, in exultation; "we're hot at last; we're burning now, ain't we? When I came to that passage in Louise's letter, the whole thing flashed across me. I recollected having heard Streightley talk of his wife's illness at Martigny. I said to myself, 'Here's a go; the lost bird's found!' And in an instant I saw my way--I confess it; I don't go in for any high moral dodges--I saw my way to being revenged on Mrs. Gordon Frere, and to shooting a bolt between the joints of her armour, and hitting her in the very place where she was most vulnerable, and would least like to be hit." And Mr. Thacker looked up in Yeldham's face, and rubbed his hands with the greatest glee.
"By Jove, Thacker, I think there's very little doubt about the co-identity of Mrs. Streightley and Madame Sidney," said Yeldham, after a few minutes' deliberation. "It will be a wonderful thing if it turns out so. I never thought that--" and Yeldham stopped.
"Never thought that I should be the means of furnishing you with such pleasant information? Never thought that the Jew-discounter could ever do a man a good turn without an ulterior view to his own advantage? That's it, eh? Don't be bashful; speak out."
"Not exactly that," said Charley Yeldham. "I am in the habit of speaking out, and so I'll say that I never thought--how could I?--that the man whom we have all regarded as the active agent in Robert Streightley's financial ruin would probably turn out to be the means of securing his domestic happiness."
"I hope to God I may!" said Thacker earnestly. "Look here. I don't pretend to be a particularly moral or a strait-laced kind of person; and I acknowledge, as I have done from the first, that my promptings in this matter have been to be revenged on Hester Gould--Mrs. Frere, I mean. But if by any act of mine I could do a good turn to Streightley, whom I believe to be an honourable man and a devilish clever fellow, and to his wife, who is certainly the handsomest woman I know, I--well, it would be a deuced pleasant thing to think over by and by, and I wouldn't let money be any obstacle to my carrying it out."
"You said I didn't like you, and wasn't pleased to see you, when you came in," said Yeldham, taking Thacker's hand and wringing it. "Put that opinion to the test some day--you'll find yourself mistaken."