"I do not wish you to do so, sir, but it is a very peculiar business, and I hardly know how to begin. The person who sent me, told me that you might be implicitly trusted."
"I hope so, sir!" Dr. Ashleigh said haughtily; "but as I am not fond of secrets or mysteries, I would rather you went to some other medical man. Good morning!"
The man made no motion to go.
"No offence is intended, doctor; but when the safety of three or four men, including perhaps myself, is concerned, one cannot be too careful. At any rate I will give you my message, and if after that you don't come, why I shall have had a ride of nigh thirty miles here, and as much back, for nothing. The words of my message are, 'Sophy's husband, Robert, is dying, and begs you to go and see him.'"
Papa had listened to the first part of the man's speech with evident impatience, but when the message came, his face changed altogether.
"Good heavens!" he exclaimed, "then my suspicions are correct. Unfortunate man! He is dying of a pistol wound, is he not?"
"Something like it," the man answered. "Will you come, sir?"
"Come? Of course I will. I would go to any man to whom my aid could be useful, and to me it is a matter of no consequence whether he is a good or a bad one; in any case I will for Sophy's sake do what I can for her husband, bad as I am afraid he is. And you?" and the doctor shrunk back from the man; "What have you to do with him?"
"Nothing, I am glad to say," the man answered. "Till I got into the town I did not know where or what the job was; but from what every one is talking about at the place where I put up my horse, I am afraid I do know now, and a shocking bad affair it seems; although if what I hear of it be true, I can't make head or tail of what they were up to. Two of the men were at least too old hands to have gone on in the way they did. There is something beyond what one sees."
"You are right!" Dr. Ashleigh said; "they never went for plunder at all. I can guess very well what they did go for, but that is of no consequence now. How, then, are you concerned in the affair?"