Dr. Rumsey's patient

by L. T. Meade; Clifford Halifax

Rumsey did not profess to understand the case, but now that Awdrey had quite come back from the borderland of insanity, he advised that ordinary remedies should immediately be resorted to; he told Margaret that in a few months her husband would be as fully and completely able to attend to the duties of life as any other man of his day and station. He did not believe, he said, that the strange attack through which Awdrey had passed was ever likely to return to him! Margaret and her husband shut up their house in town, and went abroad; they spent the winter on the continent, and day by day Awdrey's condition, both physical and mental, became more satisfactory. He slept well, he ate well; soon he began to devour books and newspapers; to absorb himself in the events of the day; to take a keen interest in politics; the member for Grandcourt died, and Awdrey put up for the constituency. He was obliged to return suddenly to England on this account, and to Margaret's delight elected to come back at once to live at the Court. The whole thing was arranged quickly. Awdrey was to be nominated as the new candidate for Grandcourt; he was to have, too, his rightful position as the Squire on his own property. Friends from all round the country rejoiced in his recovery, as they had sincerely mourned over his strange and inexplicable illness. He was welcomed with rejoicing, and came back something as a king would to take possession of his kingdom.

On the night therefore, that he returned to the Court, the higher part of his being began to stir uneasily within him. He had quite agreed to Margaret's desire to invite Mrs. Everett to meet them on their return, but he read a certain expression in the widow's sad eyes, and a certain look on Hetty's face, which stirred into active remorse the conscience which had suffered more severely than anything else in the ordeal through which he had lived. It was now awake within him, and its voice was very poignant and keen; its notes were clear, sharp, and unremitting.

In his excellent physical and mental health his first impulse was to defy the voice of conscience, and to live down the deed he had committed. His first wish was to hide its knowledge from all the world, and to go down to his own grave in the course of time with his secret unconfessed. He did not believe it possible, at least at first, that the moral voice within could not be easily silenced; but even on the first night of his awakening he was conscious of a change in himself. The sense of satisfaction, of complete enjoyment in life and all its surroundings which had hitherto done so much for his recovery, was now absent; he was conscious, intensely conscious, of his own hypocrisy, and he began vehemently to hate and detest himself. All the same, his wish was to hide the thing, to allow Mrs. Everett to go down to the grave with a broken heart—to allow Everett to drink the cup of suffering and dishonor to the dregs.

Awdrey slept little during the first night of his return home. In the morning he arose to the full fact that he must either carry a terrible secret to his grave, or must confess all and bear the punishment which was now awarded to another. His strong determination on that first morning was to keep his secret. He went downstairs, putting a full guard upon himself. Margaret saw nothing amiss with him—his face was full of alertness, keenness, interest in life, interest in his fellow-creatures. Only Mrs. Everett, at breakfast that morning, without understanding it, read the defiance, the veiled meaning in his eyes. He went away presently, and spent the day in going about his property, seeing his constituents, and arranging the different steps he must take to insure his return at the head of the poll. As he went from house to house, however, the new knowledge which he now possessed of himself kept following him. On all hands he was being welcomed and rejoiced over, but he knew in his heart of hearts he was a hypocrite of the basest and lowest type. He was allowing another man to suffer in his stead. That was the cruellest stab of all; it was that which harassed him, for it was contrary to all the traditions of his house and name. His mental health was now so perfect that he was able to see with a wonderfully clear perception what would happen to himself if he refused to listen to the voice of conscience. In the past, while the cloud was over his brain, he had undergone terrible mental and physical deterioration; he would now undergo moral deterioration. The time might come when conscience would cease to trouble him, but then, as far as his soul was concerned, he would be lost. He knew all this, and hated himself profoundly, nevertheless his determination grew stronger and stronger to guard his secret at all hazards. The possibility that the truth might out, notwithstanding all his efforts to conceal it, had not occurred to him, to add to his anxieties.

The day, a lovely one in late spring, had been one long triumph. Awdrey was assured that his election was a foregone conclusion. He tried to think of himself in the House; he was aware of the keenness and freshness of his own intellect; he thought it quite possible that his name might be a power in the future government of England. He fully intended to take his rightful position. For generations men of his name and family had sat in the House and done good work there—men of his name and family had also fought for their country both on land and sea. Yes, it was his bounden duty now to live for the honor of the old name; to throw up the sponge now, to admit all now would be madness—the worst folly of which a man could be capable. It was his duty to think of Margaret, to think of his property, his tenants, all that was involved in his own life.

Everett and Mrs. Everett would assuredly suffer; but what of that if many others were saved from suffering? Yes, it was his bounden duty to live now for the honor of the old name; he had also his descendants to think of. True his child was gone, but other children would in all probability yet be his—he must think of them. Yes, the future lay before him; he must carry the burden of that awful secret, and he would carry it so closely pressed to his innermost heart that no one should guess by look, word, manner, by a gloomy eye, by an unsmiling lip, that its weight was on him. He would be gay, he would be brave, he would banish grief, he would try to banish remorse, he would live his life as best he could.

"I must pay the cost some day," he muttered to himself. "I put off the payment, and that is best. There is a tribunal, at the bar of which I shall doubtless receive full sentence; but that is all in the future; I accept the penalty; I will reap the wages by and by. Yes, I'll keep my secret to the death. The girl, Hetty, knows about it, but she must be silenced."

Awdrey rode quickly home in the sweet freshness of the lovely spring evening. He remembered that he was to meet Hetty; the meeting would be difficult and also of some importance, but he would be guarded, he would manage to silence her, to quiet her evident fears. Hetty was a guileless, affectionate, and pretty girl; she had been wonderfully true to him; he must be good to her, for she had suffered for his sake. It would be best to make an excuse to send Hetty and her husband to Canada; Vincent, who was a poor man, would doubtless be glad to emigrate with good prospects. Yes, they must go; it would be unpleasant meeting Hetty, knowing what she knew. Mrs. Everett must also not again be his guest; her presence irritated him, he disliked meeting her eyes; and yet he knew that while she was in the house he dared not shirk their glance; her presence and the knowledge that her pain was killing her made the sharp voice within him speak more loudly than he could quite bear. Yes, Mrs. Everett must go, and Hetty must go, and—what was this memory which made him draw up his horse abruptly?—his lost walking-stick. Ridiculous that such a trifle should worry a man all through his life; how it had haunted him all during the six years when the cloud was over his brain. Even now the memory of it came up again to torment him. He had murdered his man with that stick; the whole thing was the purest accident, but that did not greatly matter, for the man had died; the ferrule of Awdrey's stick had entered his brain, causing instant death.

"Afterward I hid it away in the underwood," thought Awdrey. "I wonder where it is now—doubtless still there—but some day that part of the underwood may be cut down and the stick may be found. It might tell tales, I must find it."

He jogged his horse, and rode slowly home under the arching trees of the long avenue. He had a good view of the long, low, rambling house there—how sweet it looked, how homelike! But for this secret what a happy man he would be to-night. Ah, who was that standing at his office door? He started and hastened his horse's steps. Hetty Vincent was already there waiting for him.