True to his determination, Dr. Girvan, spite of all entreaties to the contrary, broke the news of Mr. Moffat’s danger to his daughter, accusing himself, at the same time, with having been the cause of that danger.
“Ye trusted me,” he said, in that homely Irish accent which is never so sweet as when the speaker is in trouble and breathes a pathetic tone with every word,—“Ye trusted me, and this is how I’ve recompensed ye; and all because of my own hatred—God forgive me!—and my own conceit. Had it been Dr. Murney or Connelley that said I was wrong, I’d have listened to either of them; but as it is, my heart is breaking to think about you and him.”
Into the old, honest face, puckered with emotion, into the eyes that had looked at her with a kindly light in them so often, Grace gazed for a minute. She was not so besotted with her own grief that she failed to see the bitterer grief of another, that she could note unmoved the anguish of repentance that had rendered this old man who made his tremulous confession almost beside himself with remorse; and though tears lay too high for her to trust herself to answer him verbally, she took his hand in both of hers, with a pitying gesture, more eloquent than any form of speech.
Had Doctor Girvan been the most consummate diplomatist, instead of an honest, well-meaning, behind-the-age old man, he could not have hit on a plan better calculated to retain Grace’s kindly feeling than that of a free and open confession.
After all, it is never what a person tells of himself, but what others say of him, that damages him materially. The frank plea of guilty takes the worst of the sting out of many a social as well as legal crime.
It may not be the highest nature which is ready to confess to man, but it is nevertheless the sort of nature man likes best; and whereas, had Dr. Girvan failed to take the whole of the blame on his own shoulders, she would have retained an exceeding bitter remembrance of his determined rejection of Mr. Hanlon’s opinion, she never, as matters now stood, thought in the future of her father’s life sacrificed as it was to old tradition, without at the same time recalling the picture of an aged man’s anguished face while he in the same breath entreated her forgiveness and blamed himself for having caused her such misery.
Further, Drs. Murney and Connelley, shocked at so open a display of professional insufficiency, lack of reticence, and disregard of medical etiquette, deeming it best to make out as good a case for their fellow-practitioner as his imbecile and indiscreet revelations left possible, took immediate opportunity to efface as far as might be the impression such a direful abuse of common discretion was calculated to produce.
Between them they succeeded in sketching and filling in a very creditable series of facts founded on fiction; that is to say, the general conclusion at which they arrived was right, though the premises on which those conclusions were founded were wrong.
The case, they assured her, was a most obscure one. How far Dr. Girvan had been right in his course of treatment they could not tell, owing to the length of time which elapsed between Mr. Moffat’s attack and their own arrival; but there was no doubt he had medical precedent of the highest authority for all he did, and if he erred, it was from no lack of skill or prudence, but simply because nature had chosen to clothe the complaint in a dress similar to that worn by a totally distinct disease; Mr. Hanlon’s diagnosis of the case might not really have been one whit more correct than Dr. Girvan’s; and finally they assured Miss Moffat that everything which could be done had been done, and should be done. “If skill and attention can save him,” said Dr. Murney, “he will be spared to you.” And they left Grace, thinking they had glossed over the little error in judgment very neatly.
Mr. Hanlon lingered behind them for a moment. He had all a young man’s enthusiasm for truth being always presented as a nude figure, and his public experiences of stating unpleasant facts without the slightest atom of clothing veiling their deformity tended undoubtedly to encourage this outspoken frankness on disagreeable topics.