His visits over, he went home and dined quietly. The romantic feelings connected with an "empty chair" troubled Chudleigh Wilmot very little. He had never paid very much attention to the person by whom the chair had been filled; indeed very frequently during Mabel's lifetime he had done what he always had done since her death, taken a book, and read during his dinner. But he could not read on this occasion. He tried, and failed dismally; the print swam before his eyes; he could not keep his attention for a moment on the book; he pushed it away, and gave up his mind to the subject with which it was preoccupied.
Fair, impartial, and judicial self-examination--that was what he wanted, what he must have. Captain Kilsyth had insulted him, purposely no doubt; why? Not for an instant did Wilmot attempt to disguise from himself that it was on Madeleine's account; but how could Captain Kilsyth know anything of his (Wilmot's) feelings in regard to Madeleine; and if he did know of them, why should he now object? Captain Kilsyth might be standing out on the question of family; but that would never lead him to behave in so brusque and ungentlemanly a manner; he might object to the alliance--to the alliance!--good God! here was he giving another man credit for speculating on matters which had only dimly arisen even in his own brain!
Still there remained the fact of Captain Kilsyth's conduct having been as it had been, and still remained the question--why? To no creature on earth had he, Chudleigh Wilmot, confided his love for this girl; and so far as he knew--and he searched his memory carefully--he had never in his manner betrayed his secret in the remotest degree. Had his wife been alive, Ronald Kilsyth might have objected to finding him in close converse with his sister; yet in the fact of his having a wife lay--
It flashed across him in an instant, and sent the blood rushing to his heart. The manner of his wife's death--was that known? The causes which, as Henrietta Prendergast had hinted to him, had led Mabel to the vial with the leaden seal--had they leaked out? had they reached the ears of this young man? Did he suspect that jealousy--no matter whether with or without foundation--of his sister had led Mrs. Wilmot to lay violent hands upon herself? And if he suspected it, why not a hundred others? The story would fly from mouth to mouth. This Captain Kilsyth--no; he would not lend his aid to its promulgation; he could not for his sister's sake; but--And yet, with or against Captain Kilsyth's wish, it must come out. When his visits ceased in Brook-street, as they must cease--he had determined on that; when he no longer saw Madeleine, who, as he perfectly well knew, had been brought to London with the view of being under his care, would not old Kilsyth make inquiries as to the change in the intended programme, and would not his son have to tell him all he had heard? It was too horrible to think of. With such a rumour in existence--granting that it was a rumour merely, and all unproved--it would be impossible for Kilsyth, however eagerly he might wish it, to befriend him--at least in the manner in which he could best befriend him, by encouraging his addresses to Madeleine. Lady Muriel would not listen to it; Ronald would not listen to it, even if those two were in some way--he could not think how, but there might be a way of getting round those two and winning them to his side--even if that were done, while that horrible story or suspicion was current--and it was impossible to set it at rest without the chance of establishing it firmly for ever--Kilsyth would never consent to his marriage with Madeleine.
He must at once free himself from the chance of any story of this kind being promulgated. The more he thought the matter over, the more he saw the impossibility of again going to Brook-street, after what had occurred; the impossibility of his absence passing without remark and inquiry by Kilsyth; the impossibility of Ronald's withholding his statement of his own conduct in the matter, and his reasons for that conduct. For an instant a ray of hope shot through Chudleigh Wilmot's soul, as he thought that perhaps the reasons might be infinitely less serious and less damaging than he had depicted them to himself; but it died out again at once, and he acknowledged to himself the hopelessness of his situation. He had been indulging in a day-dream from which he had been rudely and ruthlessly waked, and his action must now be prompt and decisive. There was an end to it all; it was Kismet, and he must accept his fate. No combined future for Madeleine and him; their paths lay separate, and must be trodden separately at once; her brother was right, his own dead wife was right--it is not to be!
There must be no blinking or shuffling with the question now, he thought. To remain in London without visiting in Brook-street would evoke immediate and peculiar attention; and it was plain that Ronald Kilsyth had determined that Dr. Wilmot's visits to Brook-street were not to be renewed. He must leave London, must leave England at once. He must go abroad for six months, for a year; must give up his practice, and seek change and repose in fresh scenes. He would spoil his future by so doing, blow up and shatter the fabric which he had reared with such industry and patience and self-denial; but what of that? He should ascribe his forced expatriation and retreat to loss of health, and he should at least reap pity and condolence; whereas now every moment that he remained upon the scene he ran the chance of being overwhelmed with obloquy and scorn. He could imagine, vividly enough, how the patients whom he had refused to flatter, whose self-imagined maladies he had laughed at and ridiculed, would turn upon him; how his brother practitioners, who had always hated him for his success, would point to the fulfilment of their never-delivered prophecies, and make much of their own idleness and incompetency; how the medical journals which he had riddled and scathed would issue fierce diatribes over his fall, or, worse than all, sympathise with the profession on--he could almost see the words in print before him--"the breach of that confidence which is the necessary and sacred bond between the physician and the patient."
Anything better than that; and he must take the decisive step at once! He must give up his practice. Whittaker should have it, so far at least as his recommendation could serve him. He should have that, and must rely upon himself for the rest. Many of his patients knew Whittaker now, had become accustomed to him during the time of Wilmot's absence at Kilsyth, and Whittaker had not behaved badly during that--that horrible affair of Mabel's last illness. Moreover, if Whittaker suspected the cause of Mabel's death--and Wilmot shuddered as the mere thought crossed his mind--the practice would be a sop to him to induce him to hold his tongue in the matter. And he, Wilmot, would go away--and be forgotten. Better that, bitter as the thought might be--and how bitter it was none but those who have been compelled, for conscience' sake, for honour's sake, for expediency's sake even, to give up in the moment of success, to haul down the flag, and sheath the sword when they knew victory was in their grasp, could ever tell;--better that than to remain, with the chance of exposure to himself, of compromise to her. The mental overthrow, the physical suffering consequent upon the sudden death of his wife, would be sufficient excuse for this step to the world; and there were none to know the real cause of its being taken. He had saved sufficient money to enable him to live as comfortably as he should care to live, even if he never returned to work again; and once free from the torturing doubt which oppressed him, or rather from the possibility of all which that torturing doubt meant to his fevered mind, he should be himself again.
Beyond his position, so hardly struggled for, so recently attained, he had nothing to leave behind him which he should particularly regret. He had been so self-contained, from the very means necessary for attaining that position, had been so circumscribed in the pleasures of his life, that his opportunities for the cultivation even of friendship had been very rare. He should miss the quaint caustic conversation, the earnest hearty liking so undeniably existing, even under its slight veneer of eccentricity, of old Foljambe; he should miss what he used laughingly to call his "dissipation" of attending a few professional and scientific gatherings held in the winter, where the talk was all "shop," dry and uninteresting to the uninitiated, but full of delight to the listeners, and specially to the talkers; he should miss the excitement of the lecture-theatre, where perhaps more than anywhere else he thoroughly enjoyed himself, and where he shone at his very brightest, and--that was all. No! Madeleine! this last and keenest source of enjoyment in his life, this pure spring of freshness and vigour, this revivification of early hopes and boyish dreams, this young girl, the merest acquaintance with whom had softened and purified his heart, had given aim and end to his career, had shown him how dull and heartless, how unloved, unloving, and unlovely had been his byegone time, and had aroused in him such dreams of uncensurable ambition for the future,--she must be given up, must become a "portion and parcel of the dreadful past," and be dead to him for ever! She must be given up! He repeated the words mechanically, and they rang in his ears like a knell. She must be given up! She was given up, even then, if he carried out his intention. He should never see her again, should never see the loving light in those blue eyes--ah, how well he minded him of the time when he first saw it in the earliest days of her convalescence at Kilsyth, and of all the undefined associations which it awakened in him!--should never hear the grateful accents of her soft sweet voice, should never touch her pretty hand again. For all the years of his life, as it appeared to him, he had held his eyes fixed upon the ground, and had raised them at the rustle of an angel's wings, only to see her float far beyond his reach. For all the years of his life he had toiled wearily on through the parching desert; and at length, on meeting the green oasis, where the fresh well sparkled so cheerily, had had the cup shattered from his trembling hand.
She must be given up! She should be; that was the very keystone of the arrangement. He had looked the whole question fairly in the face; and what he had proposed to himself and had determined on abiding by, he would not shrink from now. But it was hard, very hard. And then he lay back in his chair, and in his mind retraced all the circumstances of his acquaintance with her; last of all, coming upon their final interview of that morning in the drawing-room at Brook-street. He was sufficiently calm now to eliminate Ronald and his truculence from the scene, and to think only of Madeleine; and that brought to his remembrance the reason of their having gone into the drawing-room together, to consult on her illness, the weakness of the lungs which he had detected at Kilsyth.
That was a new phase of the subject, which had not occurred to him before. Not merely must he give her up and absent himself from her, but he must leave her at a time when his care and attention might be of vital importance to her. Like most leading men in his profession, Chudleigh Wilmot, with a full reliance on himself, combined a wholesome distrust of and disbelief in most of his brother practitioners. There were few--half a dozen at the most, perhaps--in whose hands Madeleine might be safely left, if they had some special interest, such as he had, in her case. Such as he had! Wilmot could not avoid a grim smile as he thought of old Dr. Blenkiron, with his snuff-dusted shirt-frill, or little Dr. Prater, with his gold-rimmed spectacles, feeling similar interest to his in this sweet girl. But unless they had special interest--unless they could have given up a certain amount of their time regularly to attending to her--it would have been of little use, as her symptoms were for ever varying, and wanted constant watching. And as for the general run of the profession, even men so well thought of as Whittaker or Perkins, he--stay, a good thought--old Sir Saville Rowe would probably be coming to town for the winter; and the old gentleman, though he had retired from active practice, would, Wilmot made sure, look after Madeleine for him as a special case. Sir Saville's brain was as clear as ever; and though his strength was insufficient to enable him to continue his practice, this one case would be an amusement rather than a trouble to him. Yes, that was the best way of meeting this part of the difficulty. Wilmot could go away at least without the additional anxiety of his darling's being without competent advice. So much of his burden could be lightened by Sir Saville; and he would sit down at once and write to the old gentleman, asking him to undertake the charge.