“Run away upstairs,” he said, controlling his voice, then added to the servant, “Take Miss Dorothy into the nursery.”
The child burst into tears, as the maid led her out. Tender-hearted a man as he was, for all the world he could not have called her back.
CHAPTER V—DE MORTUIS
He received his patients in the consulting-room, visited Leroux, and went on his morning rounds. On his return, he perceived Ella at the gates of Woodlands. He raised his hat and was proceeding to turn into his own little carriage drive, when she made a gesture of arrest. He pulled up, descended from the trap, and went to meet her.
“How is poor Mr. Leroux? we have all been so anxious. Of course the nurse has reported, but we wanted to know from you.”
“I am afraid it's a serious matter,” said Sylvester.
“Do you mean that he may die?”
“Possibly.”
“I am so sorry,” she said, laying a sympathetic touch on his arm. “I know what a dear friend he was.”
“A dear friend,” he assented grimly.
“You are looking so fagged. You have been sitting up all night, I hear. Two nights.” He confessed his vigils, explained Leroux's symptoms, and gave her an authoritative report for his father. If he found any material change since the morning, he would send a message across. The topic exhausted, there was a short silence. She tried to speak, after an embarrassed glance, but his sombreness daunted her. He was taking this danger of his friend greatly to heart.
“You are coming in to see Uncle Matthew some time to-day?” she asked.
“It depends upon my work,” he said. “I have a great deal to occupy me.”
With a word of adieu he left her and went into his own house. Ella passed through the gate of Woodlands and strolled slowly down the shrubbery walk, carrying a little burden of depression. For all his anxiety on Mr. Leroux's behalf, he might have made some reference to his letter, some allusion to the sweet and delicate suspense of their present relations. She felt vaguely disappointed at the lack of appeal to her sympathy. But her spirits revived when Matthew Lanyon, coming briskly home to lunch, overtook her and asked her in his cheery voice for news of the invalid. She took his arm in girlish fashion and gave him Sylvester's message.
“He seems dreadfully distressed,” she said.
“Poor old Syl! But he'll pull him through. He doesn't realise his own powers. I don't think we respect Syl half enough. He's a great physician, you know.”
He rattled on, proud of his son, quite glad to have a pretty girl hanging, in that daughterly way, on his arm. He stopped now and then, pointing to the tiny green shoots on the trees. The fine weather of the last few days was the cause. Did Ella remember how black everything was only a week ago? He spoke as if it were a miracle performed for the first time and not the recurring phenomenon of a million springs. A thrush flew out of a laurel bush. He named it, followed it with his eyes to the elm where it alighted, stooped down and picked a snail from the middle of the gravel, where it might get crushed, and threw it lightly on the grass. The tender simplicities of the old man touched the girl deeply that afternoon, and his steady optimism made her feel ashamed of her misgivings. So the sunshine came into her heart again.
But two days passed before they saw Sylvester. News came frequently. Leroux was sinking. At last Sylvester entered the library at the hour of tea and announced gravely—“He is dead.”
Miss Lanyon uttered a little cry, and tears flooded her eyes. Matthew held out his hand.
“I'm sorry, Syl.”
“He died about half an hour ago,” said Sylvester. “He never recovered consciousness, so what were his last wishes God alone knows. I have put all his papers into a sealed envelope, which I had better hand over to you, father.”
Matthew took the packet in silence and locked it in a drawer of his writing-table.
“You had better let me look after the funeral too, Syl,” said he, kindly. “It's the first chance I 've had of doing anything for the poor fellow.”
“Thank you, father,” said Sylvester.
Miss Lanyon tearfully enumerated Leroux's virtues. What a frank, open-hearted, generous lad! And to be taken away, like this, in his prime! Who could fathom the will of God? Ella remained silent, grieved at Sylvester's loss. But he refused to meet the ready sympathy in her eyes, and looked stonily through the window on the grey March sky. Presently he turned away. To remain there longer was unendurable.
“I have a patient to see, some way out. One mustn't neglect the living for the dead.”
Then for the first time he met Ella's glance, and a special application of his saying occurred to him.
“Good-bye, all,” he said, and strode hurriedly from the room. He drew a deep breath on reaching the open air. It was good to be alone, away from the torturing irony of sympathy. And it was good to be away from the foreshadowing of reproach in a woman's eyes.
That night, before he slept, he shut his teeth upon a horrible repulsion, and went into the death chamber to see that all things had been decently done. The man lay cold and pale, his jaws swathed and his eyes closed, an awful sphinx. Sylvester stood and gazed upon him till his heart grew as cold as the dead man's. It was well that he was dead, so that he could blab the disastrous secret no more. Sylvester had questioned the nurses discreetly. To his relief he had found that the delirious ravings had made no impression on their memories. He alone had been the confidant. He had tended the man with devoted skill. The strain of that terrible task was over. Now the dead past would bury its dead—his own heart and youth therewith. He was glad the man would no longer cumber the earth—and he was glad that his wife was dead.
Three days afterwards, Leroux was buried. A fussy elderly man, Leroux's cousin and sole surviving relative, shared with Sylvester the post of chief mourner, and departed into the unknown whence he came. Sylvester stood by the grave with a set, impassive face, and his father stood by his side, looking strangely like him. On the drive home it was Sylvester who exchanged a few courteous remarks with the cousin; but the old man remained singularly silent.
They sat together alone that evening in the library.
“Leroux died intestate,” said Matthew, breaking a long silence. “He was in a troubled state of mind and was coming to me to help him with his will.”
“He had been drinking heavily,” said Sylvester.
“I presumed so. He had roughed the will out. He only had a few thousands. But Dorothy was to have the greater part. I showed the draft to John Leroux to-day, who is a man of great wealth. He is desirous that his cousin's wishes should be carried out.”
“I can accept no gifts from Mr. John Leroux,” said Sylvester.
The old man argued the point. Morally the money was Dorothy's. Sylvester listened stubbornly. He revolted at the thought of touching Leroux's money. It was a ghastly impossibility. He repeated—
“I cannot accept it.”
“Money is money, Syl, after all; and I may not be able, perhaps, to do what I had hoped for Dorothy.”
“While my daughter bears my name I can support her decently. If Mr. Leroux will not benefit by what is legally his, he can devote it to charity. It is a matter of principle.”
They