Sometimes when a man’s mind is firmly fixed upon an object the events of his daily life curiously tend towards it. Have you never experienced that strange phenomenon for which medical science has never yet accounted, namely, the impression of form upon the imagination? You have one day suddenly thought of a person long absent. You have not seen him for years, when, without any apparent cause, you have recollected him. In the hurry and bustle of city life a thousand faces are passing you hourly. Like a flash one man passes, and you turn to look, for the countenance bears a striking resemblance to your absent friend. You are disappointed, for it is not the man. A second face appears in the human phantasmagoria of the street, and the similarity is almost startling. You are amazed that two persons should pass so very like your friend. Then, an hour after, a third face—actually that of your long-lost friend himself. All of us have experienced similar vagaries of coincidence. How can we account for them?
And so it was in my own case. So deeply had my mind been occupied by thoughts of my love that several times that day, in London and in Brighton, I had been startled by striking resemblances. Thus I wondered whether that voice I had heard was actually hers, or only a distorted hallucination. At any rate, the woman had expressed hatred of Sir Bernard just as Ethelwynn had done, and further, the old man had openly defied her, with a harsh laugh, which showed confidence in himself and an utter disregard for any statement she might make.
At Victoria the pale-faced girl descended quickly, and, swallowed in a moment in the crowd on the platform, I saw her no more.
She had, before descending, given me a final glance, and I fancied that a faint smile of recognition played about her lips. But in the uncertain light of a railway carriage the shadows are heavy, and I could not see sufficiently distinctly to warrant my returning her salute. So the wan little figure, so full of romantic mystery, went forth again into oblivion.
I was going my round at Guy’s on the following morning when a telegram was put into my hand. It was from Ethelwynn’s mother—Mrs. Mivart, at Neneford—asking me to go down there without delay, but giving no reason for the urgency. I had always been a favourite with the old lady, and to obey was, of course, imperative—even though I were compelled to ask Bartlett, one of my colleagues, to look after Sir Bernard’s private practice in my absence.
Neneford Manor was an ancient, rambling old Queen Anne place, about nine miles from Peterborough on the high road to Leicester. Standing in the midst of the richest grass country in England, with its grounds sloping to the brimming river that wound through meadows which in May were a blaze of golden buttercups, it was a typical English home, with quaint old gables, high chimney stacks and old-world garden with yew hedges trimmed fantastically as in the days of wigs and patches. I had snatched a week-end several times to be old Mrs. Mivart’s guest; therefore I knew the picturesque old place well, and had been entranced by its many charms.
Soon after five o’clock that afternoon I descended from the train at the roadside station, and, mounting into the dog-cart, was driven across the hill to the Manor. In the hall the sweet-faced, silver-haired old lady, in her neat black and white cap greeted me, holding both my hands and pressing them for a moment, apparently unable to utter a word. I had expected to find her unwell; but, on the contrary, she seemed quite as active as usual, notwithstanding the senile decay which I knew had already laid its hand heavily upon her.
“You are so good to come to me, Doctor. How can I sufficiently thank you?” she managed to exclaim at last, leading me into the drawing-room, a long old-fashioned apartment with low ceiling supported by black oak beams, and quaint diamond-paned windows at each end.
“Well?” I inquired, when she had seated herself, and, with the evening light upon her face, I saw how blanched and anxious she was.
“I want to consult you, Doctor, upon a serious and confidential matter,” she began, leaning forward, her thin white hands clasped in her lap. “We have not met since the terrible blow fell upon us—the death of poor Mary’s husband.”