Master of His Fate

by J. Maclaren Cobban

"Yes, sir," said the policeman.

"Give him my compliments, then, and say I shall see him presently."

Yet, he thought, how could he speak to the official, with all that he suspected, all that he feared, in his heart? With his attention on the qui vive with his experiences and speculations of the night, he was seized, as we have seen, by the conclusion that the "strange, dark, foreign-looking gentleman" of the park-keeper's story was the same whose steps he had followed the evening before, without guessing that the man was perambulating the pavement and passing among the crowd in search, doubtless, of a fresh victim for occult experiment or outrage! That conclusion once determined, shock after shock smote upon his sense. What if the mysterious person were really proved to be Julius's father? What if he had entered upon a course of experiment or outrage (he passed in rapid review the mysteries of the Paris pavement and the Brighton train, and this of the Park)—outrage yet unnamable because unknown, but which would amaze and confound society, and bring signal punishment upon the offender? And what—what if Julius knew all that, and therefore sought to keep his parentage hidden?

"She is ready, doctor," said the Sister of the ward at his elbow, adding with a touch of excitement in her manner as he turned to her, "do you know who she is? Look at this card; we noticed the name first on her linen."

Dr Lefevre looked at the card and read, "Lady Mary Fane, Carlton Gardens, S.W."

"I suspected as much," said he. "Lord Rivercourt's daughter. It's a bad business. She has been learning at St Thomas's the duties of nurse and dresser, which accounts for her being in that uniform."

He went to the bed on which his new patient had been laid, and very soon satisfied himself that her case was similar to that of the young officer, though graver much than it. He wrote a telegram to Lord Rivercourt, sent the house-physician for his electrical apparatus, and returned to the bedside. He looked at his patient. He had not remarked her hitherto more than other women of his acquaintance, though he had sometimes sat at her father's table; but now he was moved by a beauty which was enhanced by helplessness—a beauty stamped with a calm disregard of itself—the manifest expression of a noble and loving soul, which had lived above the plane of doubt and fear and gusty passion. Her wealth of lustrous black hair lay abroad upon her pillow, and made an admirable setting for her finely-modelled head and neck. As he looked at this excellent presentment, and thought of the intelligence and activity which had been wont to animate it, resentment rose in him against the man who, for whatever end, had subdued the noble woman to that condition, and a deep impatience penetrated him that he had not discovered—had even scarcely guessed—the purpose or the method of the subjugation!

It was, however, not speculation but action that was needed then. The apparatus described in the case of the young officer was ready, and the house-physician was waiting to give his assistance. The stimulation of Will and Electricity was applied to resuscitate the patient—but with the smallest success: there was only a faint flutter, a passing slight rigidity of the muscles, and all seemed again as it had been. The exhausting nature of the operation or experiment forbade its immediate repetition. Disappointment pervaded the doctor's being, though it did not appear in the doctor's manner.

"We'll try again in half an hour," said he to his assistant, and turned away to complete his round of the ward.

At the end of the half-hour, Lefevre and the house-physician were again by Lady Mary's bedside. Again, with fine but firm touch, Lefevre stroked nerves and muscles to stimulate them into normal action; again he and his assistant put out their electrical force through the electrode; and again the result was nothing but a passing galvanic quiver. The doctor, though he maintained his professional calm, was smitten with alarm,—as a man is who, walking through darkness and danger to the rescue of a friend, finds himself stopped by an unscalable wall. While he sought fresh means of help, his patient might pass beyond his reach. He did not think she would—he hoped she would not; but her condition, so obstinately resistant to his restoratives, was so peculiar, that he could not in the least determine the issue. Imagination and speculation were excited, and he asked himself whether, after all, the explanation of his failure might not be of the simplest—a difference of sex! The secrets of nature, so far as he had discovered, were of such amazing simplicity, that it would not surprise him now to find that the electrical force of a man varied vitally from that of a woman. He explained this suspicion to his assistant.