She started to her feet. She had felt just the least motion of the heart, but it had been enough to tell her that life still remained. She hastily rang the bell and bade the servant who answered it to send two men to her without delay, and to go himself for a physician.
When the men came she assisted them in getting Andrew to bed. He knew nothing, and she watched beside him, applying all sorts of restoratives, but without avail, until the doctor came. Andrew moaned incessantly, but further than that had shown no signs of consciousness. The doctor took several moments in thoroughly examining his patient, while Victoria watched him breathlessly. Those few moments seemed like hours to her.
“This has been coming on him for some time,” said the doctor at last. “His brain shows a severe mental strain. I would not like to express my opinion too hastily. To-morrow will determine it, but I fear, Mrs. Willing, that your husband will have an attack of brain fever, and it will be almost certain death, owing to the overworked state of the brain.”
And so it proved. Andrew became violent through the night, and as morning dawned his ravings were such that Victoria had to be taken from the room prostrated. She had confided in the doctor as they watched beside the sick man, and he had at once shown her that now was not the time to disclose to the world the skeleton which had been concealed for so long. Andrew’s severe illness could be a pretext for shutting the doors against all intruders, and with the help of two faithful nurses, they could still retain the secret until a more suitable time, and if Andrew should die, the doctor saw no use of ever unfolding a tale which could only bring upon the survivors shame and ridicule, and upon the name of the dead a tarnished reputation; whereas, keeping the secret could injure nobody. Together they read the few words which expressed so much of what was in Andrew’s heart; which told of the boundless love for the woman whom he had called wife, and of the terrible remorse which haunted him day and night, and which, like an incurable disease, was slowly eating his life away.
“The man has suffered agonies,” said the doctor, holding Andrew’s hand firmly as he struggled and writhed with the pain. “If he were tortured with knives, or his body was put to the rack, he could not begin to suffer what he has undergone mentally during these few past years. The wonder is, how he has borne up so long. Most men would have succumbed long ere this.” And then, as Andrew’s ravings became more violent, they used their united strength in quieting him, until Victoria succumbed to a nervous fit, and the doctor ordered her to be taken from the room.
In a few hours she was again herself, and insisted upon returning to Andrew, who had become more quiet, and seemed to rest contented while her hand was within his. The sick room being next to the study made deception more easy, as the doctor took the study for his retiring room, having promised Victoria not to leave her so long as Andrew lived, for they looked upon his death as a certainty. Here all the doctor’s meals were sent, and much comment was indulged in by the servants in the kitchen over the enormous appetite of the “medicine man,” as he was called.
“I tought Marse Andrew had a comin’ appetite,” said old Chloe, the cook, as she was one day arranging the doctor’s dinner on a tray, “but golly me! I neber did see sech a gormad as dat yer medicine man. Nuffin eber comes back. Now, Marse Andrew, his midnight supper was de only one he car’d fer. He neber teched anythin’ trough de day scasely, but de Lord save us! dis yer man ull eat us yout o’ house an’ home. Heyar yo’ Sam, stir yer stumps lively now, an’ flax roun’ an’ kill two more o’ dem settin’ chicks. We’ll need em all fo’ mawnin. Ya, ya, ya.”
Aunt Chloe chuckled as she placed a plate of steaming hoe cake on the tray, beside a delicately broiled steak garnished with plenty of vegetables. “Don’t spose dar’s nigh ’nough,” she added, thoughtfully, “bet a cookie he’ll be sendin’ down fer mo’; he gen’lally do. Heyar, you Pete, lazy bones, tak’ dis up to Marse Doctor, un don’ drap it on yo’ big feet.”
Pete took the tray, and with a flourish which bid fair to land the whole contents just where Aunt Chloe had admonished him not, he placed it on his head, laughing at her horrified gestures and loud exclamations.
“I is all hunkey, Aunty; don’ you go for to cuttin’ up like dat now. You’ll git de runktums agin suah, hark wat I’se tellin’ ye. Ef dat ar docta wants mo’ stuff, he kin jes’ ma’ch down an’ git it fer hisself. Don’ he tink I’se got nuffin else to do, ’cept wait on his bread basket? Well, I reckon I has. As fer totin’ up and down star’s mor’en fifty times, ter fetch tings ter stuff inter his big jaw, I’se done. Why don’ he keep me dar till he’s done? Den I could go arfter wat he wants, but no, he jes’ sayes, ‘Lay de cloth, Pete, dat’s a good boy; and den yer kin detire.’ In five minutes he wants mo’ bread. In five minutes mo’ he dequests mo’ coffee, and den he only opens de do’ a little teenty crack, jes’ ’nough to git my han’ in. You’se hearn o’ tape-worms, Aunt Clo? By gollys! I tinks dat yer mans got a dozen.”