There were times when Kelvin's mysterious malady caused him to suffer acutely. At such moments Olive was always by his side, "a ministering angel," as her cousin himself called her one day; soothing him with the gentlest attentions, anticipating each want intuitively, making herself, in fact, so indispensable to him that after a while he could hardly bear to let her go out of his sight, and if, when he woke up, she were not by his side, he would cry, fretfully, "Where's Olive? Why isn't she here?" and toss and turn restlessly till he felt her soft cold hand laid on his brow.
But even Olive's nerves of steel gave way sometimes. When, at midnight, or later than that, she would steal out of her cousin's room in the hope of getting an hour or two's sleep, sleep would not come to her. All tired as she was, she would fling herself on her bed, and, burying her face in her pillow, cry for an hour at a time as if her heart would break. To see the man she loved so passionately suffer as he suffered; to know that she had but to hold up her little finger, as it were, for his sufferings to cease, but that if she were to let her compassion so master her he would be lost to her for ever; to know that her only chance of winning him was to win him through those sufferings which she alone could soothe: to feel and know all this was at times, especially in the midnight darkness of her own room, torture unspeakable. But when, at cockcrow, the ebony gates of the realm of shadows and midnight fancies were silently shut, and when another day looked in at the windows with its clear cold eyes, the purpose of Olive Deane faltered no longer: her strong will re-asserted itself, and tears and compunction alike were for the time being thrust mercilessly out of sight.
"Oh, doctor, doctor, when are you going to get me downstairs again?" the sick man would sometimes wearily ask. "I am so terribly tired of lying here."
To which the old gentleman, tapping his snuff-box, would blandly reply: "That Mr. Liver is a deuce of a fellow to get right again when once he's really put out. So obstinate, you know, and all that. Wants a deal of coaxing. But we shall bring him to his senses by-and-by--yes, yes, by-and-by, never fear."
[CHAPTER XII.]
RECOGNITION.
Three days after Mr. Van Duren's little birthday dinner at Greenwich, the following advertisement appeared in the second column of the Times:--
"Albatross.--Should this meet the eye of any person or persons who happened to be on board the schooner Albatross when she foundered off Marhyddoc Bay on the 18th Oct., 18--, they may hear of something to their advantage, by applying to Messrs. Reed and Reed, Solicitors, Bedford Row, London."
This advertisement was repeated every other day for three weeks. At the end of that time there came a response.
As it happened, Van Duren never saw the advertisement, and there was no one to show it to him; no one who knew what a terrible fascination such an announcement would have had for him. His newspaper reading was generally confined to the money article, the City intelligence, and the latest telegrams. For miscellaneous news and leading articles he cared little Or nothing.