That was what they called him at the hotel, which had been to him a home for years, and you would know by the intonation of their voices that he was a favorite with all. He was very sick, burning with fever, and talking at intervals of his mother, of Dick, and of another whose name the attendants could not well make out. It was of his sweetheart, the chamber-maid surmised, for in the pocket of his vest, which she hung away, she had found a daguerrotype of a young girl, whose marvellous beauty she had never seen excelled.
“Poor Mr. Max! he must have loved her so much! I wonder where she is to-day?” she said, softly, as she continued to scan the lovely face smiling upon her from the worn, old-fashioned case.
Alas! the original of that picture had for many a year been mouldering back to dust, and poor Max, who had loved and wronged her so much, was whispering her name in vain. He was growing worse, his nurse feared, and so at last she sent for Dr. West, of whose skill she had heard so much, and who in a few minutes stepped into the closely darkened room.
“It seemed as if the light worried him,” the nurse said, in a whisper, as she saw the doctor glance towards the curtained windows.
“Very likely; but I should like to see him for once,” was the doctor’s reply, as he took the hot hand in his.
Max’s face, which, within a day or two, had grown very thin and was now purple with fever, was turned away from the doctor, who counted the rapid pulse, while the nurse admitted a ray of light, which shone full upon the sick man’s pillow, and made Dr. West start suddenly, and turn whiter even than the broad forehead round which the damp brown hair was curling. Then he bent anxiously over his patient, turning him more to the light, where he could see him distinctly. Did he recognize anything familiar in that sunken face, where the beard was growing so heavily,—anything which carried him back to his Northern home, where in his childhood every pastime had been shared by another, and that other his twin brother? Did he see anything which brought to him thoughts of Anna, dead so long ago, or of Robin, who died when the last summer flowers were blooming? Yes; and kneeling by the bedside he whispered, “Robert, Robert, is it you?”
The bright eyes were open and fixed upon him, but with a vacant stare, while a second look at the flushed face brought a doubt into the doctor’s mind.
“He is like my brother Robert, and yet he is not like him,” he thought, as he continued to scrutinize the features which puzzled him so much.
“Mother will know,” he said at last; and going to his mother, he said to her hurriedly, “Come with me, and tell if you ever saw this Max before.”
He was greatly excited, but not more so than his mother, who felt intuitively the shock awaiting her.