Book: THE TWO DESTINIES

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It is a peculiarity of most of the soporific drugs that they not
only act in a totally different manner on different
constitutions, but that they are not even to be depended on to
act always in the same manner on the same person. I had taken
care to extinguish the candles before I got into my bed. Under
ordinary circumstances, after I had lain quietly in the darkness
for half an hour, the draught that I had taken would have sent me
to sleep. In the present state of my nerves the draught stupefied
me, and did no more.

Hour after hour I lay perfectly still, with my eyes closed, in
the semi-sleeping, semi-wakeful state which is so curiously
characteristic of the ordinary repose of a dog. As the night wore
on, such a sense of heaviness oppressed my eyelids that it was
literally impossible for me to open them--such a masterful
languor possessed all my muscles that I could no more move on my
pillow than if I had been a corpse. And yet, in this somnolent
condition, my mind was able to pursue lazy trains of pleasant
thought. My sense of hearing was so acute that it caught the
faintest sounds made by the passage of the night-breeze through
the rushes of the lake. Inside my bed-chamber, I was even more
keenly sensible of those weird night-noises in the heavy
furniture of a room, of those sudden settlements of extinct coals
in the grate, so familiar to bad sleepers, so startling to
overwrought nerves! It is not a scientifically correct statement,
but it exactly describes my condition, that night, to say that
one half of me was asleep and the other half awake.

How many hours of the night had passed, when my irritable sense
of hearing became aware of a new sound in the room, I cannot
tell. I can only relate that I found myself on a sudden listening
intently, with fast-closed eyes. The sound that disturbed me was
the faintest sound imaginable, as of something soft and light
traveling slowly over the surface of the carpet, and brushing it
just loud enough to be heard.

Little by little, the sound came nearer and nearer to my bed--and
then suddenly stopped just as I fancied it was close by me.

I still lay immovable, with closed eyes; drowsily waiting for the
next sound that might reach my ears; drowsily content with the
silence, if the silence continued. My thoughts (if thoughts they
could be called) were drifting back again into their former
course, when I became suddenly conscious of soft breathing just
above me. The next moment I felt a touch on my forehead--light,
soft, tremulous, like the touch of lips that had kissed me. There
was a momentary pause. Then a low sigh trembled through the
silence. Then I heard again the still, small sound of something
brushing its way over the carpet; traveling this time _from_ my
bed, and moving so rapidly that in a moment more it was lost in
the silence of the night.

Still stupefied by the drug that I had taken, I could lazily
wonder what had happened, and I could do no more. Had living lips
really touched me? Was the sound that I had heard really the
sound of a sigh? Or was it all delusion, beginning and ending in
a dream? The time passed without my deciding, or caring to
decide, those questions. Minute by minute, the composing
influence of the draught began at last to strengthen its hold on
my brain. A cloud seemed to pass softly over my last waking
impressions. One after another, the ties broke gently that held
me to conscious life. I drifted peacefully into perfect sleep.


Shortly after sunrise, I awoke. When I regained the use of my
memory, my first clear recollection was the recollection of the
soft breathing which I had felt above me--then of the touch on my
forehead, and of the sigh which I had heard after it. Was it
possible that some one had entered my room in the night? It was
quite possible. I had not locked the door--I had never been in
the habit of locking the door during my residence under Mr.
Dunross's roof.

After thinking it over a little, I rose to examine my room.

Nothing in the shape of a discovery rewarded me, until I reached
the door. Though I had not locked it overnight, I had certainly
satisfied myself that it was closed before I went to bed. It was
now ajar. Had it opened again, through being imperfectly shut? or
had a person, after entering and leaving my room, forgotten to
close it?

Accidentally looking downward while I was weighing these
probabilities, I noticed a small black object on the carpet,
lying just under the key, on the inner side of the door. I picked
the thing up, and found that it was a torn morsel of black lace.

The instant I saw the fragment, I was reminded of the long black
veil, hanging below her waist, which it was the habit of Miss
Dunross to wear. Was it _her_ dress, then, that I had heard
softly traveling over the carpet; _her_ kiss that had touched my
forehead; _her_ sigh that had trembled through the silence? Had
the ill-fated and noble creature taken her last leave of me in
the dead of night, trusting the preservation of her secret to the
deceitful appearances which persuaded her that I was asleep? I
looked again at the fragment of black lace. Her long veil might
easily have been caught, and torn, by the projecting key, as she
passed rapidly through the door on her way out of my room. Sadly
and reverently I laid the morsel of lace among the treasured
memorials which I had brought with me from home. To the end of
her life, I vowed it, she should be left undisturbed in the
belief that her secret was safe in her own breast! Ardently as I
still longed to take her hand at parting, I now resolved to make
no further effort to see her. I might not be master of my own
emotions; something in my face or in my manner might betray me to
her quick and delicate perception. Knowing what I now knew, the
last sacrifice I could make to her would be to obey her wishes. I
made the sacrifice.

In an hour more Peter informed me that the ponies were at the
door, and that the Master was waiting for me in the outer hall.

I noticed that Mr. Dunross gave me his hand, without looking at
me. His faded blue eyes, during the few minutes while we were
together, were not once raised from the ground.

"God speed you on your journey, sir, and guide you safely home,"
he said. "I beg you to forgive me if I fail to accompany you on
the first few miles of your journey. There are reasons which
oblige me to remain with my daughter in the house."

He was scrupulously, almost painfully, courteous; but there was
something in his manner which, for the first time in my
experience, seemed designedly to keep me at a distance from him.
Knowing the intimate sympathy, the perfect confidence, which
existed between the father and daughter, a doubt crossed my mind
whether the secret of the past night was entirely a secret to Mr.
Dunross. His next words set that doubt at rest, and showed me the
truth.

In thanking him for his good wishes, I attempted also to express
to him (and through him to Miss Dunross) my sincere sense of
gratitude for the kindness which I had received under his roof.
He stopped me, politely and resolutely, speaking with that
quaintly precise choice of language which I h ad remarked as
characteristic of him at our first interview.

"It is in your power, sir," he said, "to return any obligation
which you may think you have incurred on leaving my house. If you
will be pleased to consider your residence here as an unimportant
episode in your life, which ends--_absolutely_ ends--with your
departure, you will more than repay any kindness that you may
have received as my guest. In saying this, I speak under a sense
of duty which does entire justice to you as a gentleman and a man
of honor. In return, I can only trust to you not to misjudge my
motives, if I abstain from explaining myself any further."

A faint color flushed his pale cheeks. He waited, with a certain
proud resignation, for my reply. I respected her secret,
respected it more resolutely than ever, before her father.

"After all that I owe to you, sir," I answered, "your wishes are
my commands." Saying that, and saying no more, I bowed to him
with marked respect, and left the house.

Mounting my pony at the door, I looked up at the center window,
as she had bidden me. It was open; but dark curtains, jealously
closed, kept out the light from the room within. At the sound of
the pony's hoofs on the rough island road, as the animal moved,
the curtains were parted for a few inches only. Through the gap
in the dark draperies a wan white hand appeared; waved
tremulously a last farewell; and vanished from my view. The
curtains closed again on her dark and solitary life. The dreary
wind sounded its long, low dirge over the rippling waters of the
lake. The ponies took their places in the ferryboat which was
kept for the passage of animals to and from the island. With
slow, regular strokes the men rowed us to the mainland and took
their leave. I looked back at the distant house. I thought of her
in the dark room, waiting patiently for death. Burning tears
blinded me. The guide took my bridle in his hand: "You're not
well, sir," he said; "I will lead the pony."

When I looked again at the landscape round me, we had descended
in the interval from the higher ground to the lower. The house
and the lake had disappeared, to be seen no more.

CHAPTER XXIV.

IN THE SHADOW OF ST. PAUL'S.

In ten days I was at home again--and my mother's arms were round
me.

I had left her for my sea-voyage very unwillingly--seeing that
she was in delicate health. On my return, I was grieved to
observe a change for the worse, for which her letters had not
prepared me. Consulting our medical friend, Mr. MacGlue, I found
that he, too, had noticed my mother's failing health, but that he
attributed it to an easily removable cause--to the climate of
Scotland. My mother's childhood and early life had been passed on
the southern shores of England. The change to the raw, keen air
of the North had been a trying change to a person at her age. In
Mr. MacGlue's opinion, the wise course to take would be to return
to the South before the autumn was further advanced, and to make
our arrangements for passing the coming winter at Penzance or
Torquay.

Resolved as I was to keep the mysterious appointment which
summoned me to London at the month's end, Mr. MacGlue's
suggestion met with no opposition on my part. It had, to my mind,
the great merit of obviating the necessity of a second separation
from my mother--assuming that she approved of the doctor's
advice. I put the question to her the same day. To my infinite
relief, she was not only ready, but eager to take the journey to
the South. The season had been unusually wet, even for Scotland;
and my mother reluctantly confessed that she "did feel a certain
longing" for the mild air and genial sunshine of the Devonshire
coast.

We arranged to travel in our own comfortable carriage by
post--resting, of course, at inns on the road at night. In the
days before railways it was no easy matter for an invalid to
travel from Perthshire to London--even with a light carriage and
four horses. Calculating our rate of progress from the date of
our departure, I found that we had just time, and no more, to
reach London on the last day of the month.

I shall say nothing of the secret anxieties which weighed on my
mind, under these circumstances. Happily for me, on every
account, my mother's strength held out. The easy and (as we then
thought) the rapid rate of traveling had its invigorating effect
on her nerves. She slept better when we rested for the night than
she had slept at home. After twice being delayed on the road, we
arrived in London at three o'clock on the afternoon of the last
day of the month. Had I reached my destination in time?

As I interpreted the writing of the apparition, I had still some
hours at my disposal. The phrase, "at the month's end," meant, as
I understood it, at the last hour of the last day in the month.
If I took up my position "under the shadow of Saint Paul's," say,
at ten that night, I should arrive at the place of meeting with
two hours to spare, before the last stroke of the clock marked
the beginning of the new month.

At half-past nine, I left my mother to rest after her long
journey, and privately quit the house. Before ten, I was at my
post. The night was fine and clear; and the huge shadow of the
cathedral marked distinctly the limits within which I had been
bid to wait, on the watch for events.

The great clock of Saint Paul's struck ten--and nothing happened.

The next hour passed very slowly. I walked up and down; at one
time absorbed in my own thoughts; at another, engaged in watching
the gradual diminution in the number of foot passengers who
passed me as the night advanced. The City (as it is called) is
the most populous part of London in the daytime; but at night,
when it ceases to be the center of commerce, its busy population
melts away, and the empty streets assume the appearance of a
remote and deserted quarter of the metropolis. As the half hour
after ten struck--then the quarter to eleven--then the hour--the
pavement steadily became more and more deserted. I could count
the foot passengers now by twos and threes; and I could see the
places of public refreshment within my view beginning already to
close for the night.

I looked at the clock; it pointed to ten minutes past eleven. At
that hour, could I hope to meet Mrs. Van Brandt alone in the
public street?

The more I thought of it, the less likely such an event seemed to
be. The more reasonable probability was that I might meet her
once more, accompanied by some friend--perhaps under the escort
of Van Brandt himself. I wondered whether I should preserve my
self-control, in the presence of that man, for the second time.

While my thoughts were still pursuing this direction, my
attention was recalled to passing events by a sad little voice,
putting a strange little question, close at my side.

"If you please, sir, do you know where I can find a chemist's
shop open at this time of night?"

I looked round, and discovered a poorly clad little boy, with a
basket over his arm, and a morsel of paper in his hand.

"The chemists' shops are all shut," I said. "If you want any
medicine, you must ring the night-bell."

"I dursn't do it, sir," replied the small stranger. "I am such a
little boy, I'm afraid of their beating me if I ring them up out
of their beds, without somebody to speak for me."

The little creature looked at me under the street lamp with such
a forlorn experience of being beaten for trifling offenses in his
face, that it was impossible to resist the impulse to help him.

"Is it a serious case of illness?" I asked.

"I don't know, sir."

"Have you got a doctor's prescription?"

He held out his morsel of paper.

"I have got this," he said.

I took the paper from him, and looked at it.

It was an ordinary prescription for a tonic mixture. I looked
first at the doctor's signature; it was the name of a perfectly
obscure person in the profession. Below it was written the name
of the patient for whom the medicine had been prescribed. I
started as I read it. The name was "Mrs. Brand."

The idea instantly struck me that this (so far as sound went, at
any rate) was the English equivalent of Van Brandt.

"Do you know the lady who sent you for the medicine?" I asked.

" Oh yes, sir! She lodges with mother--and she owes for rent. I
have done everything she told me, except getting the physic. I've
pawned her ring, and I've bought the bread and butter and eggs,
and I've taken care of the change. Mother looks to the change for
her rent. It isn't my fault, sir, that I've lost myself. I am but
ten years old--and all the chemists' shops are shut up!"

Here my little friend's sense of his unmerited misfortunes
overpowered him, and he began to cry.

"Don't cry, my man!" I said; "I'll help you. Tell me something
more about the lady first. Is she alone?"

"She's got her little girl with her, sir."

My heart quickened its beat. The boy's answer reminded me of that
other little girl whom my mother had once seen.

"Is the lady's husband with her?" I asked next.

"No, sir--not now. He was with her; but he went away--and he
hasn't come back yet."

I put a last conclusive question.

"Is her husband an Englishman?" I inquired.

"Mother says he's a foreigner," the boy answered.

I turned away to hide my agitation. Even the child might have
noticed it!

Passing under the name of "Mrs. Brand"--poor, so poor that she
was obliged to pawn her ring--left, by a man who was a foreigner,
alone with her little girl--was I on the trace of her at that
moment? Was this lost child destined to be the innocent means of
leading me back to the woman I loved, in her direst need of
sympathy and help? The more I thought of it, the more strongly
the idea of returning with the boy to the house in which his
mother's lodger lived fastened itself on my mind. The clock
struck the quarter past eleven. If my anticipations ended in
misleading me, I had still three-quarters of an hour to spare
before the month reached its end.

"Where do you live?" I asked.

The boy mentioned a street, the name of which I then heard for
the first time. All he could say, when I asked for further
particulars, was that he lived close by the river--in which
direction, he was too confused and too frightened to be able to
tell me.

While we were still trying to understand each other, a cab passed
slowly at some little distance. I hailed the man, and mentioned
the name of the street to him. He knew it perfectly well. The
street was rather more than a mile away from us, in an easterly
direction. He undertook to drive me there and to bring me back
again to Saint Paul's (if necessary), in less than twenty
minutes. I opened the door of the cab, and told my little friend
to get in. The boy hesitated.

"Are we going to the chemist's, if you please, sir?" he asked.

"No. You are going home first, with me."

The boy began to cry again.

"Mother will beat me, sir, if I go back without the medicine."

"I will take care that your mother doesn't beat you. I am a
doctor myself; and I want to see the lady before we get the
medicine."

The announcement of my profession appeared to inspire the boy
with a certain confidence. But he still showed no disposition to
accompany me to his mother's house.

"Do you mean to charge the lady anything?" he asked. "The money
I've got on the ring isn't much. Mother won't like having it
taken out of her rent."

"I won't charge the lady a farthing," I answered.

The boy instantly got into the cab. "All right," he said, "as
long as mother gets her money."

Alas for the poor! The child's education in the sordid anxieties
of life was completed already at ten years old!

We drove away.

CHAPTER XXV.

I KEEP MY APPOINTMENT.

THE poverty-stricken aspect of the street when we entered it, the
dirty and dilapidated condition of the house when we drew up at
the door, would have warned most men, in my position, to prepare
themselves for a distressing discovery when they were admitted to
the interior of the dwelling. The first impression which the
place produced on _my_ mind suggested, on the contrary, that the
boy's answers to my questions had led me astray. It was simply
impossible to associate Mrs. Van Brandt (as _I_ remembered her)
with the spectacle of such squalid poverty as I now beheld. I
rang the door-bell, feeling persuaded beforehand that my
inquiries would lead to no useful result.

As I lifted my hand to the bell, my little companion's dread of a
beating revived in full force. He hid himself behind me; and when
I asked what he was about, he answered, confidentially: "Please
stand between us, sir, when mother opens the door!"

A tall and truculent woman answered the bell. No introduction was
necessary. Holding a cane in her hand, she stood self-proclaimed
as my small friend's mother.

"I thought it was that vagabond of a boy of mine," she explained,
as an apology for the exhibition of the cane. "He has been gone
on an errand more than two hours. What did you please to want,
sir?"

I interceded for the unfortunate boy before I entered on my own
business.

"I must beg you to forgive your son this time," I said. "I found
him lost in the streets; and I have brought him home."

The woman's astonishment when she heard what I had done, and
discovered her son behind me, literally struck her dumb. The
language of the eye, superseding on this occasion the language of
the tongue, plainly revealed the impression that I had produced
on her: "You bring my lost brat home in a cab! Mr. Stranger, you
are mad."

"I hear that you have a lady named Brand lodging in the house," I
went on. "I dare say I am mistaken in supposing her to be a lady
of the same name whom I know. But I should like to make sure
whether I am right or wrong. Is it too late to disturb your
lodger to-night?"

The woman recovered the use of her tongue.

"My lodger is up and waiting for that little fool, who doesn't
know his way about London yet!" She emphasized those words by
shaking her brawny fist at her son--who instantly returned to his
place of refuge behind the tail of my coat. "Have you got the
money?" inquired the terrible person, shouting at her hidden
offspring over my shoulder. "Or have you lost _that_ as well as
your own stupid little self?"

The boy showed himself again, and put the money into his mother's
knotty hand. She counted it, with eyes which satisfied themselves
fiercely that each coin was of genuine silver--and then became
partially pacified.

"Go along upstairs," she growled, addressing her son; "and don't
keep the lady waiting any longer. They're half starved, she and
her child," the woman proceeded, turning to me. "The food my boy
has got for them in his basket will be the first food the mother
has tasted today. She's pawned everything by this time; and what
she's to do unless you help her is more than I can say. The
doctor does what he can; but he told me today, if she wasn't
better nourished, it was no use sending for _him_. Follow the
boy; and see for yourself if it's the lady you know."

I listened to the woman, still feeling persuaded that I had acted
under a delusion in going to her house. How was it possible to
associate the charming object of my heart's worship with the
miserable story of destitution which I had just heard? I stopped
the boy on the first landing, and told him to announce me simply
as a doctor, who had been informed of Mrs. Brand's illness, and
who had called to see her.

We ascended a second flight of stairs, and a third. Arrived now
at the top of the house, the boy knocked at the door that was
nearest to us on the landing. No audible voice replied. He opened
the door without ceremony, and went in. I waited outside to hear
what was said. The door was left ajar. If the voice of "Mrs.
Brand" was (as I believed it would prove to be) the voice of a
stranger, I resolved to offer her delicately such help as lay
within my power, and to return forthwith to my post under "the
shadow of Saint Paul's."

The first voice that spoke to the boy was the voice of a child.

"I'm so hungry, Jemmy--I'm so hungry!"

"All right, missy--I've got you something to eat."

"Be quick, Jemmy! Be quick!"

There was a momentary pause; and then I heard the boy's voice
once more.

"There's a slice of bread-and-butter, missy. You must wait for
your egg till I can boil it. Don't you eat too fast, or you'll
choke yourself. What's the matter with your mamma? Are you
asleep, ma'am?"

I could bar ely hear the answering voice--it was so faint; and it
uttered but one word: "No!"

The boy spoke again.

"Cheer up, missus. There's a doctor outside waiting to see you."

This time there was no audible reply. The boy showed himself to
me at the door. "Please to come in, sir. _I_ can't make anything
of her."

It would have been misplaced delicacy to have hesitated any
longer to enter the room. I went in.

There, at the opposite end of a miserably furnished bed-chamber,
lying back feebly in a tattered old arm-chair, was one more among
the thousands of forlorn creatures, starving that night in the
great city. A white handkerchief was laid over her face as if to
screen it from the flame of the fire hard by. She lifted the
handkerchief, startled by the sound of my footsteps as I entered
the room. I looked at her, and saw in the white, wan, death-like
face the face of the woman I loved!

For a moment the horror of the discovery turned me faint and
giddy. In another instant I was kneeling by her chair. My arm was
round her--her head lay on my shoulder. She was past speaking,
past crying out: she trembled silently, and that was all. I said
nothing. No words passed my lips, no tears came to my relief. I
held her to me; and she let me hold her. The child, devouring its
bread-and-butter at a little round table, stared at us. The boy,
on his knees before the grate, mending the fire, stared at us.
And the slow minutes lagged on; and the buzzing of a fly in a
corner was the only sound in the room.

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