Part 11 (1/2)
”I am Julius Courtney--”
He paused, for Lefevre had put his head in his hands, shaken with a silent paroxysm of grief. It wrung the doctor's heart, as if in the person that sat opposite him, all that was n.o.blest and most gracious in humanity were disgraced and overthrown.
”Yes,” continued the voice, ”I am Julius; there is no other Courtney that I know of, and soon there will be none at all.” The doctor listened, but he could not endure to look again. ”I am dying--I have been dying for a dozen years, and for a dozen years I have resisted and overcome death; now I surrender. I have come to my period. I shall never enter your house again. I have only come now to confess myself, and to ask a last favour of you--a last token of friends.h.i.+p.”
”I will freely do what I can for you, Julius,” said the doctor, still without looking at him, ”though I am too overcome, too bewildered, yet to say much to you.”
”Thank you. You will hear my story and understand. It contains a secret which I, like a blind fool, have only used for myself, but which you will apply for the wide benefit of mankind. The request I have to make of you is small, but it may seem extraordinary,--be my companion for twelve hours. I cannot talk to you here, enclosed and oppressed with streets of houses. Come with me for a few hours on the water; I have a fancy to see the sun rise for the last time over the sea. I have my yacht ready near London Bridge, and a boat waiting at the steps by Cleopatra's Needle; a cab will soon take us there. Will you come?”
Lefevre did not look up. The voice of Julius sounded like an appeal from the very abode of death. Then he glanced in spite of himself in his face, and was moved and melted to unreserved compa.s.sion by the strained weariness of his expression--the open, luminous wistfulness of his eyes.
”Yes; I'll go,” said he. ”But can't I do something for you first? Let me consider your case.”
”There's nothing now to be done for me, Lefevre,” said Julius, shaking his head. ”You will perceive that when you have heard me out.”
The doctor went to find his man and tell him that he was going out for the night to attend on an urgent case. When he returned he stood a moment touched with misgiving. He thought of Lady Mary--he thought of his mother and sister. Ought he not to leave some hint behind him of the strange adventure upon which he was about to embark, and which might end he knew not how or where? Julius was observing him, and seemed to divine his doubt.
”You need have no hesitation,” said he. ”I ask you only for twelve hours. You can easily get back here by noon to-morrow. There is a south-west wind blowing, with every prospect of settled weather. I am quite certain about it.”
Fortified with that a.s.surance, Lefevre put on a thicker overcoat and an old soft hat, turned out the lights in the dining-room and in the hall, closed the door with a slam, and stood with the new, the strange Julius in the street, fairly embarked upon his adventure. It was only with an effort that he could realise he was in the company of one who had been a familiar friend. They walked towards Regent Street without speaking. At the corner of Savile Row they came upon a policeman, and Lefevre had a sudden thrill of fear lest his companion should, at length, be recognised and arrested. Courtney himself, however, appeared in no wise disturbed. In Regent Street he hailed a pa.s.sing four-wheeler.
”Wouldn't a hansom be quicker?” said Lefevre.
”It is better on your account,” said Julius, ”that we should sit apart.”
When they entered the cab, Courtney ensconced himself in the remote corner of the other seat from Lefevre; and thus without another word they drove to the Embankment. At the foot of the steps by Cleopatra's Needle, they found a waterman and a boat in waiting. They entered the boat, Lefevre going forward while Julius sat down at the tiller. The waterman pulled out. The tide was ebbing, and they slipped swiftly down the dark river, with broken reflections of lamps and lanterns on either bank streaming deep into the water like molten gold as they pa.s.sed, and with tall buildings and chimney-shafts showing black against the calm night sky. Lefevre found it necessary at intervals to a.s.sure himself that he was not drifting in a dream, or that the ghastly, burning-eyed figure, wrapped in a dark cloak in the stern, was not a strange visitor from the nether world.
Soon after they had shot through London Bridge they were alongside a yacht almost in mid-stream. It was clear that all had been prearranged for Julius's arrival; for as soon as they were on board, the yacht (loosed from her upper mooring by the waterman who had brought them down the river) began to stand away.
”We had better go forward,” said Courtney. ”Are you warm enough?”
The doctor answered that he was. Courtney gave an order to one of the men, who went below and returned with a fur-lined coat which his master put on. That little incident gave a curious shock to Lefevre: it made him think of the mysterious stranger who had sat down opposite the young officer in the Brighton train, and it showed him that he had not been completely satisfied that his friend Julius and the person he had been wont to think of as Hernando Courtney were one and the same.
They went forward to be free of the sail and its tackling. Courtney, wrapped in his extra, his fur-lined coat, pointing to a low folding-chair for Lefevre, threw himself on a heap of cordage. He looked around and above him, at the rippling, flas.h.i.+ng water and the black hulls of s.h.i.+ps, and at the serene, starlit heavens stretching over all.
”How wonderful!--how beautiful it all is!” he exclaimed. ”All, all!--even the dullest and deadest-seeming things are vibrating, palpitating with the very madness of life! He set the world in my heart, and oh, how I loved!--how I loved the world!”
”It is a wonderful world,” said Lefevre, trying to speak cheerfully; ”and you will take delight in it again when this abnormal fit of depression is over.”
”Never, Lefevre!--never, never!” said Courtney in strenuous tones. ”I regret it deeply, bitterly, madly,--but yet I know that I have about done with it!”
”Julius,” said Lefevre, ”I have been so amazed and bewildered, that I have found little to say: I can scarcely believe that you are in very deed the Julius I have known for years. But now let me remind you I am your friend--”
”Thank you, Lefevre.”
”--And I am ready to help you to the uttermost in this crisis, which I but dimly understand. Tell me about yourself, and let me see what I can do.”
”You can do nothing,” said Julius, sadly shaking his head. ”Understand me; I am not going to state a case for diagnosis. Put that idea aside; I merely wish to confess myself to my friend.”
”But surely,” said Lefevre, ”I may be your physician as well as your friend. As long as you have life there is hope of life.”