Part 29 (2/2)

She could not fetch the husband; so the good soul did the next best thing, and sent for the doctor.

When she returned to the bedroom Mrs. Marsden seemed all right again.

”Doctor Eldridge is coming to see you, ma'am.”

”Is he?”

”It's only wise,” said Yates authoritatively, ”that he should take charge of the case now. It's full time we had him in. He knows your const.i.tution--and you can trust him, and feel quite safe to go on just as he advises you.”

Dr. Eldridge was a long time alone with the patient. After Yates had been told to leave them, he talked gently and gravely to his old friend.

He confessed to being rather sceptical by habit of mind; in forming a diagnosis he was perhaps always disposed to err on the side of caution, and thus he often declined to accept what at first sight seemed an obvious inference until it had been corroborated by indisputable evidence;--but then again, all his experience had shown him how prudent, how necessary it is to prepare oneself for disappointment.... He thought that Mrs. Marsden should, if possible, prepare herself for disappointment.

Outside the room, he spoke to Yates with a severity that was only mitigated by contempt.

”What nonsense have you been stuffing her up with? It's too bad of you.”

And then the professional contempt for amateur doctors sounded in the severe tone of his voice. ”You ought to know better at your time of life.”

He came again next day, and told Mrs. Marsden the bitter truth. The correct interpretation of the symptoms was far, very far different from that which she had imagined. And then he p.r.o.nounced the words of doom.

It was not the birth of hope, but the death of hope. Somewhat earlier than one would have predicted as likely, she had pa.s.sed the turning-point in the cyclic history of her existence.

A deadly, numbing apathy descended upon her. She was not ill; but in order to escape the infinitely oppressive duties of dressing, sitting at meals, walking up and down stairs, listening to voices and answering questions, she pretended illness; and, to cover the pretence, Dr.

Eldridge frequently visited her.

Day after day she lay upon her sofa, watching the feeble daylight turn to dusk, staring at the red glow of the coals or the golden flicker of burning wood--feeling too sad to reproach, too weak to curse the inexorable laws of destiny.

Her husband used to enter the room noisily and jovially, with a cigar in his mouth and a s.h.i.+ning silk hat on the back of his head.

”What the d.i.c.kens is the matter with you, Jane?”

He did not guess. He could never read her thoughts.

”I believe you ought to rouse yourself, old girl. I suppose old Eldridge sees a chance of running up a nice little bill--and Yates will have her bit out of it. Between them, they'll persuade you you're going to kick the bucket.”

”I feel so tired, d.i.c.k.”

”Then go on taking it easy,” said Marsden genially. ”But here's my tip--look out for another doctor, and another maid. I wouldn't bid twopence, if both of them were put up to auction.”

Another time he said, ”Jane, do you twig why I am wearing my topper?

That means _business_. Yes, I'm going to throw myself into my work now, heart and soul. Buck up as soon as you can, and come and see how I'm setting about me.”

While he stood by the door, talking and smoking, she looked at him with dull but kind eyes.

Some of the glamour of that vanished hope still hung about him; and the sense of grat.i.tude, although now meaningless, lingered for a long while.

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