“But my good young lady, you must have some very strong incentive for all this exertion.” Blushing deeply, Helen acknowledged that she had. “Is it a secret, my dear child?”
For a minute she hesitated, then frankly told her story. The Doctor was so much affected by it as to surprise her, and expressed the most unfeigned regret that he had not known it before.
Not a fortnight afterwards, Mr. Grey sought an interview with Miss Langley: he wished, he said, to monopolize her talents, and offered, in consequence, with sufficient liberality as to tempt her to adhere to his employment, instead of taking the chance of larger remuneration for occasional designs. It was for this Helen had worked and prayed and hoped—this which she had looked to, to follow even as a wife, and in her husband’s house; and therefore we leave to our reader’s imagination the gratitude with which it was accepted, the joy with which she wrote to her parents, to George, to whom her woman’s heart so yearned in that moment of rejoicing, that for the first time since she had loved him she could scarcely write for tears. But the letters she received in reply sadly alloyed this dawning happiness. Her sister Fanny was dangerously ill; the same age, the same disease which had been so fatal to her family. All George’s skill, and it was great, had been ineffectual; nothing could save her, the distracted father wrote; she was doomed like all the rest. But to Helen there was no such word as doom. She flew to the Doctor, repeated to him as well as she could the symptoms, and the remedies applied, conjuring him to think of something which would alleviate, if it could not cure. What could she write?
“Write, my dear child! that will be of little use; we will go together.” And though there were no railroads in that direction, man’s omnipotent will carried Helen and the Doctor to Mr. Langley’s cottage in so short a space, that it seemed to Helen like the transfigurations of a dream.
For four days fearful were the alternations of hope and dread; the fifth, hope predominated, and by the end of the week, promptness and skill in the adoption of an entirely new mode of treatment were so successful, that Dr. Murray was blessed again and again by the enraptured parents as, under heaven, the preserver of their child. But, though all danger was over, the Doctor did not offer to quit the cottage for another week, which time he spent mostly in his patient’s room, and in earnest conversation with young Ashley. Helen had intended to remain in his family till he could meet with some one to supply her place; but this he now declared should not be. She must be wanted at home, at least till she could finish her preparations for entering another; for, if he were George, he would not wait another month; she had had her own will too long already, and the future was bright enough now to permit him to have his. Helen’s hand was clasped in her young sister’s as the good Doctor spoke, but George’s arm was round her, and her reply seemed to satisfy all parties.
All Mr. Langley’s attempts to obtain a private interview with his guest were ineffectual until the day of his intended departure, when, with trembling hands and swimming eyes, he tried to press a pocket-book into the Doctor’s hand. “It is inadequate, wholly inadequate,” he said, with emotion. “You have saved my child; so restored her, that she is better than she has been since her birth. You have given us your time, your skill, and you shrink even from my thanks. Were I a rich man, I should feel as I do now, that a fortune could not repay you; but, as a poor man, do not insult me by refusing the fee I can bestow.”
“Mr. Langley,” was the reply, “I tell you truth, when I assure you that you owe me nothing. I am in your debt far more, far more than my professional skill ever could repay.”
“In my debt, Doctor? Ah, you mean my Helen’s services; but those you have so liberally remunerated, and treated her with such kindness, that you have made me your debtor even there. No, no, I cannot allow Helen, precious as she is, to come between me and justice.”
“I do not allude to Miss Langley, sir,” and the Doctor spoke as if addressing a superior. “Her inestimable services to me and mine, indeed nothing can repay; but it was not for her sake I came to you. The debt I allude to is of more than thirty years’ standing, and is due to you alone. On my first return to England, your position was higher, your fortune far superior to mine; and had I then sought you, it might still have been to receive benefits at your hand. In your noble endurance of misfortune, it would have been an insult to have discharged my debt, and therefore I waited and prayed for some opportunity not only to do justice, but to evince gratitude. If I have made your child happy, and shortened the term of her heroic exertions, you owe it to yourself. I could not take from you even the full amount of this visit, regarding it merely as professional, for I owe you in actual money more than that.” Mr. Langley looked and expressed bewilderment; the Doctor’s manner was too earnest to permit a doubt; but he tried in vain to recall to what he could allude.
“Have you so completely forgotten Willie Murray, Mr. Edward?” continued his companion, much agitated. “Willie Murray, the poor boy you not only saved from sin, but made so happy by your generous kindness to his family. Mr. Langley, I am that boy; my character, my success I owe to you. How can such a debt ever be repaid?”