M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur."

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

"Let them sleep, monsieur," said the Frenchman, struggling into his great-coat, and hurrying down-stairs. "It will do them more good than all your prevision and all my experience. I will return in the morning, to inquire after madame and to renew my acquaintance with mademoiselle--I should say with 'your charming mees.' Monsieur, you are now father of a family--you should keep early hours. Good-night, then--till to-morrow."

Bruce looked after him with a blessing on his lips, and a fervent thanksgiving in his heart to the Providence that had spared him his treasure. For the moment, I believe, he completely forgot that important personage with whom originated all their anxiety and discomfort. To men, indeed, there is so little individuality about a Baby, that, I fear, it has to be weaned and vaccinated, and to go through many other processes before it ceases to be a thing, and rather an inconvenient one. No; Bruce went to his own sitting-room, with his heart so full of his Nina, there was scarcely place for other considerations; therefore, instead of going to bed, he kicked off his wet boots, turned on a brilliant illumination of gas, and threw himself into an arm-chair--to smoke. After the excitement he had lately passed through, the first few whiffs of his cigar were soothing and consolatory in the extreme, but reflection comes with tobacco, not less surely than warmth comes with fire; and soon he began to see the crowd of fresh difficulties which the events of to-night would bring swarming round his devoted head. How he cursed his foolish calculations, his ill-judged caution, his cowardly scruples, thus to have postponed the ceremony of marriage till too late. How impossible it would be now, to throw dust in the eyes of society as to dates and circumstances! how fruitless the reparation which should certainly be put off no longer, no, not a day! It seemed so hard that he, of all the world, should have injured the woman who loved him, the woman whom he so devotedly loved in return. He almost hated the innocent baby for its inopportune arrival; but remembering how that poor little creature too must bear the punishment of his crime, he flung the end of his cigar against the stove with a curse, and for one moment--only one bitter, painful moment--found himself wishing he had never met, never loved, his darling; had left the lamb at peace in its fold, the rose ungathered on its stalk.

The clock did not tick twice before there came a reaction. It seemed so impossible that they should be independent of each other. He would not be himself without Nina! and the flow of his affection, like the back-water of a mill-stream, returned only the stronger for its momentary interruption. After all, Nina was everything, Nina was the first consideration. Something must be done at once. As soon as she could bear it, that ceremony must be gone through which should have been performed long ago. He was young, he was impatient, he would fain be at work without delay; so he turned to his writing-table, and began opening certain letters that had already followed him into France, but that he had laid aside without examination, in the excitement of the last few hours.

They were not calculated to afford him much distraction. A circular from a coal company, a couple of invitations to dinner, a tailor's bill, and a manifesto from the firm, calling attention to the powers of endurance with which their little account had "made running" for a considerable period, while promising a "lawyer's letter" to enforce payment of the same. Next this hostile protocol lay a business-like missive bearing a Lincoln's Inn look about it not to be mistaken, and which Bruce determined he would leave unopened till the morning, when, if Nina had slept, and was doing well, he felt nothing in the world could make him unhappy.

"Serves me right, though," he yawned, "for deserting Poole. He wouldn't have bothered me for a miserable pony at such a time as this;" and flinging off his clothes, in less than five minutes he was as fast asleep as if he had never known an anxiety in the world, but was lulled by the soothing considerations of a well-spent past, an untroubled conscience, and a balance at his banker's!

So he slept and dreamed not, as those sleep who are thoroughly out-wearied in body and mind, waking only when the sun had been up more than an hour, and the stormy night had given place to a clear, unclouded day.

The Channel was all blue and white now; the rollers, as they subsided into a long heaving ground-swell, bringing in with them a freight of health and freshness to the shore. The gulls were soaring and screaming round the harbour, edging their wings with gold as they dipped and wheeled in the morning light. Everything spoke of hope and happiness and vitality. Bruce opened his window, drew in long breaths of the keen, reviving air, and stole to listen at Nina's door.

How his heart went up in gratitude to heaven! Mother and child were sleeping--so peacefully, so soundly. Mother and child! At that early period the dearest, the sweetest, the holiest link of human love--the gold without the dross, the flower without the insect, the wine without the headache, the full fruition of the feelings without the wear and tear of the heart.

He could have kissed the antiquated French chambermaid, dressed like a Sister of Mercy, who met him in the passage, and wishing "Monsieur" good-morning, congratulated him with tears of honest sympathy in her glittering, bold black eyes. He did give a five-franc piece to the alert and well-dressed waiter, who looked as if he had never been in bed, and never required to go. It may be this impulse of generosity reminded him that five-franc pieces were likely to be scarce with him in future, and an unpleasant association of ideas brought the lawyer's letter to his mind. There it lay, square and uncompromising, between his watch and his cigar-case. He opened it, I am afraid, with a truly British oath.

He turned quite white when he read it the first time, but the blood rushed to his temples on a second perusal, and he flung himself down on his knees at the windowsill, thanking Providence, somewhat inconsiderately, for the benefits that only came to him through another man's death.