Dead Man's Love. Gallon Tom
this house ever since, with one short interval."
"And the interval?" I asked.
"We went down to a country house belonging to the doctor – a place in Essex, called Green Barn. It's a gloomy old house – worse than this one; the doctor goes there to shoot."
"But you haven't told me yet why you were running away from him," I reminded her.
She bent her head, so that I could not see her face. "Lately," she said in a low voice, "his manner to me has changed. At first he was courteous and kind – he treated me as though I had been his daughter. But now it's all different; he looks at me in a fashion I understand – and yet don't understand. To-day he tried to put his arm round me, and to kiss me; then when I ran away he ran after me."
I felt that I hated the doctor very cordially; I had an insane desire to be present if by any chance he should repeat his conduct. I felt my muscles stiffen as I looked at the girl; in my thoughts I was like some knight of old, ready to do doughty deeds for this fair, pretty girl, who was so ready to confide in me. I forgot all about who I was, or what had happened to me; I had only strangely come out into the world again – into a world of love.
But the fact that it was a world of love reminded me that I had had a rival – another man who had held her hands and looked into her eyes, and pleaded that he might help her. I could not, of course, ask about him, because I held the key to his fate, and that fate intimately concerned my own safety; but I was consumed with curiosity, nevertheless. Strangely enough, she voiced my thoughts by beginning to speak of him.
"There is something else that troubles me," she said earnestly. "I have one friend – a dear, good, loyal fellow; but he has unaccountably gone away, and I can hear nothing of him."
I felt myself turning hot and cold; I blessed the darkness of the summer-house. "What was his name?" I asked.
"Gregory Pennington," she answered softly.
"He was my friend before my father died; he followed me here when the doctor took charge of me. He was afraid of the doctor – not for himself, but on my account; he had a strange idea, and one that I have tried to laugh at, that the doctor wanted to kill me."
She looked at me with smiling eyes, laughing at such a suggestion; but I, remembering the earnestness of Gregory Pennington's words to the girl on that first occasion of my coming to the house, seemed now to hear that warning as though it came indeed from the dead. And I could not answer her.
"That was foolish, wasn't it?" she said, with a little laugh. "But then, I think poor Gregory loves me, and that made him afraid for me. You have been in the house here for some days; have you seen nothing of him?"
I was obliged to lie; there was nothing else for it. I shook my head, and lied stoutly. "No," I replied, "I have never seen him."
"It's all so strange," she said, as she got to her feet. "The doctor did not like him, and had forbidden him the house, in spite of my remonstrances. As he was my friend, Gregory and I used to meet secretly in these grounds in the evening."
I remembered how I had seen them together; I remembered, with a shudder, all that had happened afterwards. But still I said nothing; for what could I say?
"It was all so strange," she went on; and her voice sounded ghostly in the darkness. I had risen, and was standing opposite to her; I seemed to feel that the air had grown suddenly very chill. "The last time I saw him he told me that he would go to the house, and would see my guardian. I did all I could," she proceeded helplessly, "to dissuade him, but he would not listen. He said he must have an understanding with Dr. Just, and must take me away; although I think I should never have consented to that, in any case – because, you see, I did not really love him. He had always been like a good, kind brother to me, but nothing more."
"And did he go to the house?" I asked, for the want of something better to say.
She nodded. "I would not go in with him," she replied, "but I saw him go towards the doctor's study. I went off to my own room."
"And you heard nothing, and saw nothing after that?" I asked breathlessly.
"Nothing at all," she whispered. "Early the next morning the doctor sent me off to Green Barn, with a woman who is his housekeeper; I only came back to-day. I expected a letter from Gregory – even expected to see him. It's all so funny; it is just as though he had walked into that study – and had disappeared from that time."
"You mustn't think such things as that," I exclaimed hurriedly. "A dozen things may have happened; he may have been repulsed by the doctor, and so have decided to go away. If he knew you did not love him, he would feel pretty hopeless about the matter."
"That is possible, perhaps," she said. Then, suddenly, she held out her hand to me. "I have one friend at least," she said, "and his name is Mr. John New. It's a curious name, and I shan't forget it. You tell me that you are in trouble, too: so that is a bond between us. Good-night!"
I watched her as she flitted away through the garden. Even in my relief at the thought that she did not love Gregory Pennington, there was the dismal feeling that some day she must learn the truth – the ghastly thought that I stood there, actually in the clothes of the dead man. The whole business was a nightmare from beginning to end, in which alone she stood out as something bright, and fair, and unsullied.
We were a curious household. There were one or two rather scared-looking servants, presided over by a woman to whom the doctor referred always as "Leach"; in fact, he called her by that name when speaking to her. As she was destined to play rather an important part in that strange business upon which we were all entering, she deserves a word or two of description.
She must have been about forty years of age, and had once been, and still was, in a way, astonishingly handsome. She was tall and very dark; she had hair of that blue-black quality that is so rarely seen. Her eyes were as brilliant as those of Dr. Bardolph Just himself, save that there was in hers a curious slumbrous quality, quite unlike the sparkle in the man's. I may best describe her by saying that she suggested to me that in the very soul of her was something lurking and waiting for expression – some smouldering fire that a touch or a word might start into flame.
So far as I could gather, Dr. Just was exceedingly contemptible of her, and treated her with a sort of bitter playfulness. He seemed to take a delight in making her perform the most menial offices; and to me it was rather pitiful to see the eagerness with which she anticipated his every wish or command. I did not know at that time what bond there was between them; only, whenever I think of them in this later time one scene always rises before my memory.
It was on a morning soon after I had arrived at the house, and the doctor was in a ferocious mood. Everything had gone wrong, and I had seen the woman Leach, who ordinarily waited behind his chair, and by quick signs directed the servants what to do, cower under the lash of his words more than once. It happened to be at the breakfast table, and I was seated at one end, facing the doctor. It was the morning after that memorable night when I had talked with the girl Debora in the grounds; and now she sat on my right hand, at one side of the table, between the doctor and myself.
Absurd as the suggestion is, it almost seemed to me that the doctor was striking a balance between the two women for the mortification of them both. He pressed dishes upon the girl, with suave compliments at one moment, and in the next turned to Leach behind him with what was almost a coarse threat.
"Why the devil don't you wait on your young mistress?" he snapped. "What do you think I keep you here for? What do I pay you for?"
He turned to the table again, and, looking down the length of it, I saw the woman swiftly clench and unclench her hands behind him, as though she would have struck him. And if ever I saw murder in a face I saw it then; yet she looked not at the doctor, but at the bowed head of the girl beside me.
"Come – move – stir yourself!" cried the man, bringing down his fist with a bang on the table beside him. "Don't wait for the servants to carry things; carry them yourself. Take this dish to your mistress – Miss Debora Matchwick."
It was the first time I had heard the girl's name in full; but I took but little notice of it then, so interested was I in watching the little scene that was going forward. While