There is no need to dwell on it all. I got him in and he lived for five days. Fever didn’t kill him; it couldn’t have; he was too strong and too stout-hearted. It was haemorrhage resulting from some old injury received in an accident years before. The doctor told me that when the artery had gone Cassidy knew he would be dead in a few minutes. He begged the doctor to leave him, and turning to Mrs Mallandane, asked her to cover his face with a handkerchief, and to hold his hand. He said to her, “God bless you, Molly! Good-bye!” and died like the man he was.
Mrs Chauncey was the real friend in that time of need. It was she who had supplied everything that an invalid could want; it was she who stayed all that long night through with Mrs Mallandane, who went with her to the funeral and stood by her, and stayed with her when all was over.
The day after the funeral I sat in my office dazed and stupefied with worrying and puzzling over many things in connection with these people whose affairs and whose lives seemed to have become suddenly entangled with mine. Not the least of my worries was the document before me, which was Cassidy’s will: “I give everything absolutely to Mary Mallandane,” and nominating me as his executor.
I dreaded the first interview—so much so, in fact, that I got Mrs Chauncey to go with me. The tall black figure and the excessive pallor of her face smote very hard on my heart, but I was relieved by the presence of little Molly, who stuck to me from the time I entered the room until Mrs Mallandane sent her away. I had already stated my object in calling when she sent Molly out, and I was about to resume, when she asked me abruptly:
“Do you know anything of his past life?”
“Nothing whatever,” I said. “Nor of mine?”
“No, Mrs Mallandane.”
She laid a hand on one of Mrs Chauncey’s, who was sitting near, and said gravely:
“You, who have been my friend, know nothing either. It is right that you should—that you both should.”
We were sitting at a table in the parlour; the writing materials were lying on it ready for my use. The two ladies sat close together opposite me.