Dead Man's Love

by Tom Gallon

"You can go, John New," said the man harshly, turning towards me. "I want to talk to Miss Matchwick alone."

"No, no!" exclaimed the girl, stretching out her hands towards me; and on the instant I stopped on my way to the door, and faced about.

But the doctor took a quick step towards me, and opened the door, and jerked his head towards the hall. "I am master here," he said. "Go!"

I saw that I should not mend matters by remaining, but I determined to be within call. I passed quickly along the hall after the door was closed; I knew that just within the great hall door itself was another smaller door, opening to a verandah which ran round the front of the dining-room windows, on the old-fashioned early Victorian model. I knew that the windows were open, and I thought that I might by good fortune both see and hear what went on in the room.

And so it turned out. I slipped through that smaller door, and came on to the verandah; and so stood drawn up in the shadows against the side of the window, looking in and listening.

"I have given you the last chance," the doctor was saying, "and now I shall trouble you no more. There is another way, and perhaps a better one. I have treated you well. I have offered to make you my wife—to place you in the position your father would have been glad to see you occupy. Now I have done with you, and we must try the other way. Look into my eyes!"

Then I saw a curious thing happen. At first, while the man looked intently at her with those extraordinarily bright eyes of his, she covered her own with her hands, and strove to look away; but after a moment or two she dropped her hands helplessly, and shivered, and looked intently at him full. It was like the fascination of some helpless bird by a snake. I saw her sink slowly into a chair behind her; and still she never took her eyes from those of the doctor, until at last her lids fell, and she seemed to lie there asleep. Then I heard the man's voice saying words that had no meaning for my ears at that time.

"You will not sleep well to-night, little one," he said, in a curious crooning voice. "You will rise from your bed, and you will come out in search of something. Is it not so?"

Very softly she answered him: "Yes, I understand."

"You will be restless, and you will seek to get out into the air. But all the doors will be bolted, and the windows fastened. So you will turn to the eastern corridor and will pass along there to the end wall. Do you understand?"