Shortly after this, my last, visit I was glancing rapidly over the paper at breakfast when I was shocked to see among the list of deaths the name of Charles ——, aged twenty-four. Strange enough; I had been dreaming of him much the night previous. What was my surprise and dismay when, looking lower down the column, I saw also the death of Edith L——. I looked at the date of both deaths. To my still further surprise, both lovers had departed this life at exactly the same hour—at midnight, October 12th, 17—.
"What a strange coincidence," I thought. "What strange beings both of them were! They did not appear either to belong to or to be fitted for this world. They were evidently never destined for an earthly lot together."
"The hand of providence is in this," I muttered.
I grieved much for the loss of my two patients, for I had conceived quite a fatherly affection for them both. As soon as decency would permit, I called upon the parents of Charles. The account they gave of the reason of his death caused me no little surprise. It appeared that on the eve of his marriage his mother received a badly-written and ill-spelt letter from a person who professed to have known the family a long time, begging her to call upon the writer, who was then in a dying state, and had an important communication to make.
Mrs. ——, curious to know who the writer could be, called at the address given in the letter, which proved to be a miserable hovel in one of the back slums of London. There, stretched upon a wretched pallet, lay the squalid and emaciated form of an old woman, whom, after some difficulty, Mrs. —— recognised as the monthly nurse who attended her four and twenty years ago, during her confinement.
"Who are you?" asked Mrs. ——.
"Look at me. Do you recollect me now?" inquired the hag.
"How should I? I never saw you before. Stay, your features seem to grow more familiar to me, now my eyes get accustomed to the light. Is it possible you can be Sarah Maclean, the midwife who——"
"The same," responded the hag.
"What would you of me?" inquired Mrs. ——.