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The Doctor's Dilemma by Hesba Stretton

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"Yes," answered Johanna, while Julia hid her face in her hands, "she
would marry my brother."

Captain Carey! I fairly gasped for breath. Such an idea had never once
occurred to me; though I knew she had been spending most of her time
with the Careys at the Vale. Captain Carey to marry! and to marry Julia!
To go and live in our house! I was struck dumb, and fancied that I had
heard wrongly. All the pleasant, distant vision of a possible marriage
with Julia, when my passion had died out, and I could be content in my
affection and esteem for her--all this vanished away, and left my whole
future a blank. If Julia wished for revenge--and when is not revenge
sweet to a jilted woman?--she had it now. I was as crestfallen, as
amazed, almost as miserable, as she had been. Yet I had no one to blame,
as she had. How could I blame her for preferring Captain Carey's love to
my _rechauffe_ affections?

"Julia," I said, after a long silence, and speaking as calmly as I
could, "do you love Captain Carey?"

"That is not a fair question to ask," answered Johanna. "We have not
been treacherous to you. I scarcely know how it has all come about. But
my brother has never asked Julia if she loves him; for we wished to see
you first, and hear how you felt about Olivia. You say you shall never
love again as you love her. Set Julia free then, quite free, to accept
my brother or reject him. Be generous, be yourself, Martin."

"I will," I said.--"My dear Julia, you are as free as air from all
obligation to me. You have been very good and very true to me. If
Captain Carey is as good and true to you, as I believe he will be, you
will be a very happy woman--happier than you would ever be with me."

"And you will not make yourself unhappy about it?" asked Julia, looking
up.

"No," I answered, cheerfully, "I shall be a merry old bachelor, and
visit you and Captain Carey, when we are all old folks. Never mind me,
Julia; I never was good enough for you. I shall be very glad to know
that you are happy."

Yet when I found myself in the street--for I made my escape as soon as I
could get away from them--I felt as if every thing worth living for were
slipping away from me. My mother and Olivia were gone, and here was
Julia forsaking me. I did not grudge her her new happiness. There was
neither jealousy nor envy in my feelings toward my supplanter. But in
some way I felt that I had lost a great deal since I entered their
drawing-room two hours ago.




CHAPTER THE THIRTY-EIGHTH.

OLIVIA'S HUSBAND.


I did not go straight home to our dull, gloomy, bachelor dwelling-place;
for I was not in the mood for an hour's soliloquy. Jack and I had
undertaken between us the charge of the patients belonging to a friend
of ours, who had been called out of town for a few days. I was passing
by the house, chewing the bitter cud of my reflections, and, recalling
this, I turned in to see if any messages were waiting there for us.
Lowry's footman told me a person had been with an urgent request that he
would go as soon as possible to No. 19 Bellringer Street. I did not know
the street, or what sort of a locality it was in.

"What kind of a person called?" I asked.

"A woman, sir; not a lady. On foot--poorly dressed. She's been here
before, and Dr. Lowry has visited the case twice. No. 19 Bellringer
Street. Perhaps you will find him in the case-book, sir."

I went in to consult the case-book. Half a dozen words contained the
diagnosis. It was the same disease, in an incipient form, of which my
poor mother died. I resolved to go and see this sufferer at once, late
as the hour was.

"Did the person expect some one to go to-night?" I asked, as I passed
through the hall.

"I couldn't promise her that, sir," was the answer. "I did say I'd send
on the message to you, and I was just coming with it, sir. She said
she'd sit up till twelve o'clock."

"Very good," I said.

Upon inquiry I found that the place was two miles away; and, as our old
friend Simmons was still on the cab-stand, I jumped into his cab, and
bade him drive me as fast as he could to No. 19 Bellringer Street. I
wanted a sense of motion, and a chance of scene. If I had been in
Guernsey, I should have mounted Madam, and had another midnight ride
round the island. This was a poor substitute for that; but the visit
would serve to turn my thoughts from Julia. If any one in London could
do the man good. I believed it was I; for I had studied that one malady
with my soul thrown into it.

"We turned at last into a shabby street, recognizable even in the
twilight of the scattered lamps as being a place for cheap
lodging-houses. There was a light burning in the second-floor windows of
No. 19; but all the rest of the front was in darkness. I paid Simmons
and dismissed him, saying I would walk home. By the time I turned to
knock at the door, it was opened quietly from within. A woman stood in
the doorway; I could not see her face, for the candle she had brought
with her was on the table behind her; neither was there light enough for
her to distinguish mine.

"Are you come from Dr. Lowry's?" she asked.

The voice sounded a familiar one, but I could not for the life of me
recall whose it was.

"Yes," I answered, "but I do not know the name of my patient here."

"Dr. Martin Dobree!" she exclaimed, in an accent almost of terror.

I recollected her then as the person who had been in search of Olivia.
She had fallen back a few paces, and I could now see her face. It was
startled and doubtful, as if she hesitated to admit me. Was it possible
I had come to attend Olivia's husband?

"I don't know whatever to do!" she ejaculated; "he is very ill to-night,
but I don't think he ought to see _you_--I don't think he would."

"Listen to me," I said; "I do not think there is another man in London
as well qualified to do him good."

"Why?" she asked, eagerly.

"Because I have made this disease my special study," I answered. "Mind,
I am not anxious to attend him. I came here simply because my friend is
out of town. If he wishes to see me, I will see him, and do my best for
him. It rests entirely with himself."

"Will you wait here a few minutes?" she asked, "while I see what he
will do?"

She left me in the dimly-lighted hall, pervaded by a musty smell of
unventilated rooms, and a damp, dirty underground floor. The place was
altogether sordid, and dingy, and miserable. At last I heard her step
coming down the two flights of stairs, and I went to meet her.

"He will see you," she said, eying me herself with a steady gaze of
curiosity.

Her curiosity was not greater than mine. I was anxious to see Olivia's
husband, partly from the intense aversion I felt instinctively toward
him. He was lying back in an old, worn-out easy-chair, with a woman's
shawl thrown across his shoulders, for the night was chilly. His face
had the first sickly hue and emaciation of the disease, and was probably
refined by it. It was a handsome, regular, well-cut face, narrow across
the brows, with thin, firm lips, and eyes perfect in shape, but cold and
glittering as steel. I knew afterward that he was fifteen years older
than Olivia. Across his knees lay a shaggy, starved-looking cat, which
he held fast by the fore-paws, and from time to time entertained himself
by teasing and tormenting it. He scrutinized me as keenly as I did him.

"I believe we are in some sort connected. Dr. Martin Dobree," he said,
smiling coldly; "my half-sister, Kate Daltrey, is married to your
father, Dr. Dobree."

"Yes," I answered, shortly. The subject was eminently disagreeable to
me, and I had no wish to pursue it with him.

"Ay! she will make him a happy man," he continued, mockingly; "you are
not yourself married, I believe, Dr. Martin Dobree?"

I took no notice whatever of his question, or the preceding remark, but
passed on to formal inquiries concerning his health. My close study of
his malady helped me here. I could assist him to describe and localize
his symptoms, and I soon discovered that the disease was as yet in a
very early stage.

"You have a better grip of it than Lowry," he said, sighing with
satisfaction. "I feel as if I were made of glass, and you could look
through me. Can you cure me?"

"I will do my best," I answered.

"So you all say," he muttered, "and the best is generally good for
nothing. You see I care less about getting over it than my wife does.
She is very anxious for my recovery."

"Your wife!" I repeated, in utter surprise; "you are Richard Foster, I
believe?"

"Certainly," he replied.

"Does your wife know of your present illness?" I inquired.

"To be sure," he answered; "let me introduce you to Mrs. Richard
Foster."

The woman looked at me with flashing eyes and a mocking smile, while Mr.
Foster indulged himself with extorting a long and plaintive mew from the
poor cat on his knees.

"I cannot understand," I said. I did not know how to continue my speech.
Though they might choose to pass as husband and wife among strangers,
they could hardly expect to impose upon me.

"Ah! I see you do not," said Mr. Foster, with a visible sneer. "Olivia
is dead."

"Olivia dead!" I exclaimed.

I repeated the words mechanically, as if I could not make any meaning
out of them. Yet they had been spoken with such perfect deliberation and
certainty that there seemed to be no question about the fact. Mr.
Foster's glittering eyes dwelt delightedly upon my face.

"You were not aware of it?" he said, "I am afraid I have been too
sudden. Kate tells us you were in love with my first wife, and
sacrificed a most eligible match for her. Would it be too late to open
fresh negotiations with your cousin? You see I know all your family
history."

"When did Olivia die?" I inquired, though my tongue felt dry and
parched, and the room, with his fiendish face, was swimming giddily
before my eyes.

"When was it, Carry?" he asked, turning to his wife.

"We heard she was dead on the first of October," she answered. "You
married me the next day."

"Ah, yes!" he said; "Olivia had been dead to me for more than twelve
months and the moment I was free I married her, Dr. Martin. We could not
be married before, and there was no reason to wait longer. It was quite
legal."

"But what proof have you?" I asked, still incredulous, yet with a heart
so heavy that it could hardly rouse itself to hope.

"Carry, have you those letters?" said Richard Foster.

She was away for a few minutes, while he leaned back again in his chair,
regarding nic with his half-closed, cruel eyes. I said nothing, and
resolved to betray no emotion. Olivia dead! my Olivia! I could not
believe it.

"Here are the proofs," said Mrs. Foster, reentering the room. She put
into my hand an ordinary certificate of death, signed by J. Jones, M.D.
It stated that the deceased, Olivia Foster, had died on September the
27th, of acute inflammation of the lungs. Accompanying this was a letter
written in a good handwriting, purporting to be from a clergyman or
minister, of what denomination it was not stated, who had attended
Olivia in her fatal illness. He said that she had desired him to keep
the place of her death and burial a secret, and to forward no more than
the official certificate of the former event. This letter was signed E.
Jones. No clew was given by either document as to the place where they
were written.

"Are you not satisfied?" asked Foster.

"No," I replied; "how is it, if Olivia is dead, that you have not taken
possession of her property?"

"A shrewd question," he said, jeeringly. "Why am I in these cursed poor
lodgings? Why am I as poor as Job, when there are twenty thousand pounds
of my wife's estate lying unclaimed? My sweet, angelic Olivia left no
will, or none in my favor, you may be sure; and by her father's will, if
she dies intestate or without children, his property goes to build
almshouses, or some confounded nonsense, in Melbourne. All she bequeaths
to me is this ring, which I gave to her on our wedding-day, curse her!"

He held out his hand, on the little finger of which shone a diamond,
which might, as far as I knew, be the one I had once seen in Olivia's
possession.

"Perhaps you do not know," he continued, "that it was on this very
point, the making of her will, or securing her property to me in some
way, that my wife took offence and ran away from me. Carry was just a
little too hard upon her, and I was away in Paris. But consider, I
expected to be left penniless, just as you see me left, and Carry was
determined to prevent it."

"Then you are sure of her death?" I said.

"So sure," he replied, calmly, "that we were married the next day.
Olivia's letter to me, as well as those papers, was conclusive of her
identity. Will you like to see it?"

Mrs. Foster gave me a slip of paper, on which were written a few lines.
The words looked faint, and grew paler as I read them. They were without
doubt Olivia's writing:

"I know that, you are poor, and I send you all I can spare--the ring you
once gave to me. I am even poorer than yourself, but I have just enough
for my last necessities. I forgive you, as I trust that God forgives
me."

* * * * *

There was no more to be said or done. Conviction had been brought home
to me. I rose to take my leave, and Foster held out his hand to me,
perhaps with a kindly intention. Olivia's ring was glittering on it, and
I could not take it into mine.

"Well, well," he said, "I understand; I am sorry for you. Come again,
Dr. Martin Dobree. If you know of any remedy for my ease, you are no
true man if you do not try it."

I went down the narrow staircase, closely followed by Mrs. Foster. Her
face had lost its gayety and boldness, and looked womanly and careworn,
as she laid her hand upon my arm before opening the house-door.

"For God's sake, come again," she said, "if you can do any thing for
him! We have money left yet, and I am earning more every day. We can pay
you well. Promise me you will come again."

"I can promise nothing to-night," I answered.

"You shall not go till you promise," she said, emphatically.

"Well, then, I promise," I answered, and she unfastened the chain almost
noiselessly, and opened the door into the street.




CHAPTER THE THIRTY-NINTH.

SAD SEWS.


A fine, drizzling rain was falling; I was just conscious of it as an
element of discomfort, but it did not make me quicken my steps. I
wanted no rapidity of motion now. There was nothing to be done, nothing
to look forward to, nothing to flee away from. Olivia was dead!

I had said the same thing again and again to myself, that Olivia was
dead to me; but at this moment I learned how great a difference there
was between the words as a figure of speech and as a terrible reality. I
could no longer think of her as treading the same earth--the same
streets, perhaps; speaking the same language; seeing the same daylight
as myself. I recalled her image, as I had seen her last in Sark; and
then I tried to picture her white face, with lips and eyes closed
forever, and the awful chill of death resting upon her. It seemed
impossible; yet the cuckoo-cry went on in my brain, "Olivia is dead--is
dead!"

I reached home just as Jack was coming in from his evening amusement. He
let me in with his latch-key, giving me a cheery greeting; but as soon
as we had entered the dining-room, and he saw my face, he exclaimed.
"Good Heavens! Martin, what has happened to you?"

"Olivia is dead," I answered.

His arm was about my neck in a moment, for we were like boys together
still, when we were alone. He knew all about Olivia, and he waited
patiently till I could put my tidings into words.

"It must be true," he said, though in a doubtful tone; "the scoundrel
would not have married again if he had not sufficient proof."

"She must have died very soon after my mother," I answered, "and I never
knew it!"

"It's strange!" he said. "I wonder she never got anybody to write to you
or Tardif."

There was no way of accounting for that strange silence toward us. We
sat talking in short, broken sentences, while Jack smoked a cigar; but
we could come to no conclusion about it. It was late when we parted, and
I went to bed, but not to sleep.

For as soon as the room was quite dark, visions of Olivia haunted me.
Phantasms of her followed one another rapidly through my brain. She had
died, so said the certificate, of inflammation of the lungs, after an
illness of ten days. I felt myself bound to go through every stage of
her illness, dwelling upon all her sufferings, and thinking of her as
under careless or unskilled attendance, with no friend at hand to take
care of her. She ought not to have died, with her perfect constitution.
If I had been there she should not have died.

About four o'clock Jack tapped softly upon the wall between our
bedrooms--it was a signal we had used when we were boys--as though to
inquire if I was all right; but it was quiet enough not to wake me if I
were asleep. It seemed like the friendly "Ahoy!" from a boat floating on
the same dark sea. Jack was lying awake, thinking of me as I was
thinking of Olivia. There was something so consolatory in this sympathy
that I fell asleep while dwelling upon it.

Upon going downstairs in the morning I found that Jack was already off,
having left a short note for me, saving he would visit my patients that
day. I had scarcely begun breakfast when the servant announced "a lady,"
and as the lady followed close upon his heels, I saw behind his shoulder
the familiar face of Johanna, looking extremely grave. She was soon
seated beside me, watching me with something of the tender, wistful gaze
of my mother. Her eyes were of the same shape and color, and I could
hardly command myself to speak calmly.

"Your friend Dr. John Senior called upon us a short time since," she
said; "and told us this sad, sad news."

I nodded silently.

"If we had only known it yesterday," she continued, "you would never
have heard what we then said. This makes so vast a difference. Julia
could not have become your wife while there was another woman living
whom you loved more. You understand her feeling?"

"Yes," I said; "Julia is right."

"My brother and I have been talking about the change this will make,"
she resumed. "He would not rob you of any consolation or of any future
happiness; not for worlds. He relinquishes all claim to or hope of
Julia's affection--"

"That would be unjust to Julia," I interrupted. "She must not be
sacrificed to me any longer. I do not suppose I shall ever marry--"

"You must marry, Martin," she interrupted in her turn, and speaking
emphatically; "you are altogether unfitted for a bachelor's life. It is
all very well for Dr. John Senior, who has never known a woman's
companionship, and who can do without it. But it is misery to you--this
cold, colorless life. No. Of all the men I ever knew, you are the least
fitted for a single life."

"Perhaps I am," I admitted, as I recalled my longing for some sign of
womanhood about our bachelor dwelling.

"I am certain of it," she said. "Now, but for our precipitation last
night, you would have gone naturally to Julia for comfort. So my brother
sends word that he is going back to Guernsey to-night, leaving us in
Hanover Street, where we are close to you. We have said nothing to Julia
yet. She is crying over this sad news--mourning for your sorrow. You
know that my brother has not spoken directly to Julia of his love; and
now all that is in the past, and is to be as if it had never been, and
we go on exactly as if we had not had that conversation yesterday."

"But that cannot be," I remonstrated. "I cannot consent to Julia wasting
her love and time upon me. I assure you most solemnly I shall never
marry my cousin now."

"You love her?" said Johanna.

"Certainly," I answered, "as my sister."

"Better than any woman now living?" she pursued.

"Yes," I replied.

"That is all Julia requires," she continued; "so let us say no more at
present, Martin. Only understand that all idea of marriage between her
and my brother is quite put away. Don't argue with me, don't contradict
me. Come to see us as you would have done but for that unfortunate
conversation last night. All will come right by-and-by."

"But Captain Carey--" I began.

"There! not a word!" she interrupted imperatively. "Tell me all about
that wretch, Richard Foster. How did you come across him? Is he likely
to die? Is he any thing like Kate Daltrey?--I will never call her Kate
Dobree as long as the world lasts. Come, Martin, tell me every thing
about him."

She sat with me most of the morning, talking with animated perseverance,
and at last prevailed upon me to take her a walk in Hyde Park. Her
pertinacity did me good in spite of the irritation it caused me. When
her dinner-hour was at hand I felt bound to attend her to her house in
Hanover Street; and I could not get away from her without first speaking
to Julia. Her face was very sorrowful, and her manner sympathetic. We
said only a few words to one another, but I went away with the
impression that her heart was still with me.




CHAPTER THE FORTIETH.

A TORMENTING DOUBT.


At dinner Jack announced his intention of paying a visit to Richard
Foster.

"You are not fit to deal with the fellow," he said; "you may be sharp
enough upon your own black sheep in Guernsey, but you know nothing of
the breed here. Now, if I see him, I will squeeze out of him every
mortal thing he knows about Olivia. Where did those papers come from?"

"There was no place given," I answered.

"But there would be a post-mark on the envelop," he replied; "I will
make him show me the envelop they were in."

"Jack," I said, "you do not suppose he has any doubt of her death?"

"I can't say," he answered. "You see he has married again, and if she
were not dead that would be bigamy--an ugly sort of crime. But are you
sure they are married?"

"How can I be sure?" I asked fretfully, for grief as often makes men
fretful as illness. "I did not ask for their marriage-certificate."

"Well, well! I will go," he answered.

I awaited his return with impatience. With this doubt insinuated by
Jack, it began to seem almost incredible that Olivia's exquisitely
healthy frame should have succumbed suddenly under a malady to which she
had no predisposition whatever. Moreover, her original soundness of
constitution had been strengthened by ten months' residence in the pure,
bracing air of Sark. Yet what was I to think in face of those undated
documents, and of her own short letter to her husband? The one I knew
was genuine; why should I suppose the others to be forged? And if
forgeries, who had been guilty of such a cruel and crafty artifice, and
for what purpose?

I had not found any satisfactory answer to these queries before Jack
returned, his face kindled with excitement. He caught my hand, and
grasped it heartily.

"I no more believe she is dead than I am," were his first words. "You
recollect me telling you of a drunken brawl in a street off the Strand,
where a fellow, as drunk as a lord, was for claiming a pretty girl as
his wife; only I had followed her out of Ridley's agency-office, and was
just in time to protect her from him--a girl I could have fallen in love
with myself. You recollect?"

"Yes, yes," I said, almost breathless.

"He was the man, and Olivia was the girl!" exclaimed Jack.

"No!" I cried.

"Yes!" continued Jack, with an affectionate lunge at me; "at any rate I
can swear he is the man; and I would bet a thousand to one that the girl
was Olivia."

"But when was it?" I asked.

"Since he married again," he answered; "they were married on the 2d of
October, and this was early in November. I had gone to Ridley's after a
place for a poor fellow as an assistant to a druggist; and I saw the
girl distinctly. She gave the name of Ellen Martineau. Those letters
about her death are all forgeries."

"Olivia's is not," I said; "I know her handwriting too well."

"Well, then," observed Jack, "there is only one explanation. She has
sent them herself to throw Foster off the scent; she thinks she will be
safe if he believes her dead."

"No," I answered, hotly, "she would never have done such a thing as
that."

"Who else is benefited by it?" he asked, gravely. "It does not put
Foster into possession of any of her property; or that would have been a
motive for him to do it. But he gains nothing by it; and he is so
convinced of her death that he has married a second wife."

It was difficult to hit upon any other explanation; yet I could not
credit this one. I felt firmly convinced that Olivia could not be guilty
of an artifice so cunning. I was deceived in her indeed if she would
descend to any fraud so cruel. But I could not discuss the question even
with Jack Senior. Tardif was the only person who knew Olivia well enough
to make his opinion of any value. Besides, my mind was not as clear as
Jack's that she was the girl he had seen in November. Yet the doubt of
her death was full of hope; it made the earth more habitable, and life
more endurable.

"What can I do now?" I said, speaking aloud, though I was thinking to
myself.

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