she has destroyed herself! that was the keynote to all his thoughts. destroyed herself, made away with herself! destroyed herself! he was not much of a reading man--had not time for it in all his occupations; but what were those two lines which would keep surging up into his beating brain, and from time to time finding expression on his trembling tongue--
"rashly importunate,
gone to her death!"
gone to her death! he repeated the words a thousand times. dead now; gone to her last account, as shakespeare says, "with all her imperfections on her head." gone, without chance or power of recall; gone without a word of explanation between them, without a word of sympathy, without a word of forgiveness on either side. he had often pictured their parting, he dying, she dying, and had imagined the scene; how, whichever of them found life ebbing away, would say that they had misunderstood the other perhaps, and that perhaps life might have been made more to each, had they been more suitable; but that they had been faithful, and so on; and perhaps hereafter they might, &c. he had thought of this often; but the end had come now, and his ideas had not been realised. there had been no parting, no mutual forgiveness, no last words of tenderness and hope. he had not been there to soothe her dying hour; to tell her how he acknowledged all her goodness, and how, though perhaps he had not made much outward manifestation, he had always thoroughly appreciated the discharge of her wifely duties to him. he had not been present to have one whispered explanation of how each had misunderstood the other, and how both had been in the wrong; to share in one common prayer for forgiveness, and one common hope of future meeting. there had been no explanation, no forgiveness; he had parted from her almost as he might from any everyday acquaintance; he had written to her such a letter as he might have written to whittaker, who had taken his practice temporarily; and now he returned to find her dead! worse than dead! dead probably by her own act, by her own hand!
stay! he was losing his head now; his pulse was at fever-heat, his skin dry and hot. why had this terrible supposition taken such fast hold upon him? there was the evidence of the ring and of the leaden seal. certainly practical evidence; but the motive--where was the motive? suppose now--and a horrible shudder ran through him as the supposition crossed his mind--suppose now that this had become a matter for legal inquiry? suppose--heaven knows how--suppose that the servants had suspected, and had talked, and--and the law had interfered--what motive would have been put forward for mabel's self-destruction? he and she had never had a word of contention since their marriage; no one could prove that there had ever been the smallest disagreement between them; her home had been such as befitted her station; no word could be breathed against her husband's character; and yet--
"anywhere, anywhere,
out of the world!"
that was another couplet from the same poem that was fixed in his brain, and that he found himself constantly quoting, when he was trying to assign reasons for his wife's suicide. was henrietta prendergast right, after all? had his whole married life been a mistake, a dead-sea apple without even the gorgeous external, a hollow sham, a delusion, and a mockery culminating in the semblance of a crime? "anywhere out of the world," eh? and "out of the world" had meant at first, in the early days, when the first faint dawnings of discontent rose in her mind,--then "anywhere out of the world" was a poor dejected cry of repining at her want of power to influence her husband, to make herself the successful rival of his profession, to wean him from the constant pursuit of science to the exclusion of all domestic bliss, and to render him her companion and her lover. but if henrietta prendergast were right, that must have been a mere fancy, which, compared to the wild despair that prompted the heart-broken shriek of "anywhere out of the world" at the last, and which, according to that authority, meant--anywhere for rest and peace and quiet, anywhere where i may stifle the love which i bear him, may be no longer a fetter and a clog to him, and might have to suffer the knowledge that though bound to me, he loves madeleine kilsyth.
he loves madeleine kilsyth! as the thought rose in his mind, he found himself audibly repeating the sentence. his dead wife thought that; and in that thought found life insupportable to her, and destroyed herself! his dead wife! straightway his thoughts flew back through a series of years, and he saw himself first married,--young, earnest, and striving. not in love with his wife--that he never had been, he reflected with something like self-excuse--not in love with mabel, but actually proud of her. when he first commenced his connection, and earned the gratitude of the great railway contractor's wife at clapham, and that great dame, who was the ruling star in her own circle, intimated her intention of calling on mrs. wilmot, wilmot remembered how he had thanked his stars that while some of his fellow-students had married barmaids of london taverns, or awkward hoydens from their provincial pasture, he had had the good luck to espouse a girl than whom the great mrs. sleepers herself was not more thoroughly presentable, more perfectly well-mannered. he recollected the first interview at his little, modest, badly-furnished house, with the dingy maid-servant decorated with one of mabel's cast-off gowns (not cast off until every scrap of bloom had been ruthlessly worn off it), and the arrival of the great lady in her banging, swinging barouche, with her tawdry ill-got-up footman, and her evident astonishment at the way in which everything was made the most of, and at the taste which characterised the rooms, and her open-mouthed wonder at mabel herself, in her turned black-silk dress and her neat linen cuffs and collar, and her impossibility to patronise, and her declaration delivered to him the next day, that his wife was "the nicest little woman in the world, and a real lady!"
out of the gloom of long-since vanished days came a thousand little reminiscences, each "garlanded with its peculiar flower," each touchingly remindful of something pleasant connected with the dead woman whom he had lost. long dreary nights which he had passed in reading and working, and which she had spent in vaguely wondering what was to be the purport and result of all his labour. no sympathy! that had been his cry! good god!--as though he had not been demented in fancying that a young woman could have had sympathy with his dry studies, his physiological experiments. no sympathy! what sympathy had he shown to her? the mere physical struggle in the race, the hope of winning, the dawning of success, had irradiated his life, had softened the stony path, and pushed aside the briers, and tempered the difficulties in his career; but how had she benefited? in sharing them? but had he permitted her to share them? had he ever made her a portion of himself? had he not laughed aside the notion of her entering into the vital affairs of his career, and told her that any assistance from her was an impossibility? that she was self-contained and unsympathetic, he had said to himself a thousand times. now, for the first time, he asked himself who had made her so;--and the answer was anything but consoling to him in his then desolate frame of mind.
these thoughts were constantly present to him; he found it impossible to shake them off; in the few minutes' interval between the exit of one patient and the entrance of another, in his driving from house to house, his mind instantly gave up the case with which it had recently been occupied, and turned back to the dead woman. he would sit, apparently looking vacantly before him, but in reality trying to recall the looks, words, ways of his dead wife. he tried--o, how hard!--to recall one look of content, of happiness, of thorough trust and love; but he tried in vain. a general expression of quiet suffering, which had become calm through continuance, varied by an occasional glance of querulous impatience when he might have been betrayed into dilating on the importance of some case in which he happened to be engaged and the interest with which it filled him,--these were his only recollections of mabel's looks. nor did his remembrance of her words and ways afford him any more comfort. true she had never said, certainly had never said to him, that her life was anything but a happy one; but she had looked it often. even he felt that now, reading her looks by the light of memory, and wondered that the truth had never struck him at the time. he remembered how he would look up off his work and see her, her hands lying listlessly in her lap, her eyes staring vacantly before, so entranced, so rapt in her own thoughts, that she would start violently when he spoke to her. she always had the same answer for his questions at those times. what was the matter with her? nothing! what should be the matter with her?--what was she thinking of? nothing, at least nothing that could possibly interest him. did her presence there annoy him, because she would go away willingly if it did? and the voice in which this was said--the cold, hard, dry, unsympathising voice! good god! if he had not been sufficiently mindful of her, if he had not bestowed such attention and affection as is due from a husband to his wife, surely there was some small excuse for him in the manner in which his clumsy approaches had been received!
at times he felt a wild inexplicable desire to have her back again with him, and fell into a long train of thought as to what he should do supposing all the events of the past three months were to turn out to have been a dream--as indeed he often fancied they would; and on his return he were to go up into the drawing-room, whither he had never penetrated since his return, and were to find mabel sitting there, prim and orderly, among the prim and orderly furniture. should he alter his method of life, and endeavour to make it more acceptable to her? how was it to be done? it would be impossible for him now to give up his confirmed ways; impossible for him to give up his reading and his work, and fritter away his evenings in taking his wife to the gaieties to which they were invited. perkins might do that--did it, and found it answer; but the profession knew that perkins was a charlatan, and he--what wild nonsense was he thinking of? it was done--it was over; he should never find his wife waiting for him again when he returned: she was dead; she had destroyed herself!
as this horrible thought burst upon him again with tenfold its original horror, he buried his face in his hands, and bowed his head upon the writing table in front of him in an agony of despair. he could bear it no longer; it was driving him mad. if he only knew--and yet he dared not inquire more closely; the presumptive evidence was horribly strong, was thoroughly sufficient to rob him of his peace of mind, of his clearness of intellect. then the terrible consequences of the discovery, the awful duty which it imposed upon him, flashed upon his labouring consciousness. he dared not inquire more closely? no, not he. as a physician, he knew perfectly well what the result of any such inquiry would be. he knew perfectly well that in any other case, where he was merely professionally and not personally interested, his first idea for the solution of such doubts as then oppressed him, had they existed in anyone else, would have been to suggest the exhumation of the body, and its rigid examination. he knew perfectly well that, harbouring such doubts as were then racking and torturing his distracted mind, it was clearly his duty to insist on such steps being taken. he was no squeamish woman, no nervous man, to be alarmed at the sight of death's dread handiwork; that was familiar to him from constant experience, from old hospital custom, from his education and his studies. should this dread idea of mabel's self-destruction, now ever haunting him, ever present to his mind--should it cross the thoughts of anyone else, would not the necessity for exhumation be the first notion that would present itself? suppose he were to suggest it? suppose he were to profess himself dissatisfied with the accounts of mabel's illness given him by whittaker, and were to insist upon positive proof, professionally satisfactory to him, of his wife's disease? of course he would make a deadly enemy of whittaker; but that he thought but little of: his name stood high enough to bear any slur that might be thrown upon it from that quarter, and his reputation would stand higher than ever from the mere fact of his boldly determining to face a disagreeable inquiry, rather than allow such a case to be slurred over. and the inquiry made, and whittaker's statement proved to be generally correct, at best it would be thought that dr. wilmot was somewhat morbidly anxious as to the cause of his wife's death; an anxiety which would be anything but prejudicial to him in the minds of many of his friends, while the relief to his own overcharged mind would be immediate and complete. relief! ah, once more to feel relief would be worth all the responsibility. he would see about it at once; he would give the necessary information, and--but suppose the result did not turn out as he would hope to see it? suppose all the information given, the coroner's warrant obtained, the exhumation made, the examination complete, and the result--that mabel had destroyed herself? the first step taken in such a matter would be an immediate challenge to public attention; the press would bear the whole matter broadcast on its wings; dr. wilmot and his domestic affairs would become a subject for gossip throughout the land; and if it proved that mabel had destroyed herself, her memory would, at his instance, remain ever crime-tainted. even if the best happened; if whittaker's judgment were indorsed, would not people ask whether it was not odd that a suspicion of foul play should have crossed the husband's mind, whether mrs. wilmot in her lifetime may not have used such a threat; and if so, might not the circumstances which led to the supposed use of the threat be inquired into, the motives questioned, the home-life discussed? hour after hour he revolved this in his mind, purposeless, wavering. finally he decided that he would leave matters as they were, saying to himself that such a course was merely justice to his dead wife, on whose memory, were she guilty of self-slaughter, he should be the last to bring obloquy, or even suspicion. he felt more comfortable after having come to this decision--more comfortable in persuading himself that he was guided by a tender feeling towards the dead woman. he said "poor mabel!" to himself several times in thinking over it, and shook his head dolefully; and actually felt that if she had been prompted by his neglect to take this step, his omitting to call public attention to it was in itself some amende for his neglect. but even to himself he would not allow this soul-guiding influence in the matter. he blinked it, and shut his eyes to it; refused to listen to it, and--was led by it all the same. chudleigh wilmot tried to persuade himself, did persuade himself that he was acting solely in deference to his dead wife's memory; but what really influenced his conduct was the knowledge that the arousal of the smallest suspicion as to the cause of his wife's death, the smallest scandal about himself, would inevitably separate him hopelessly, and for ever, from madeleine kilsyth. the great question as to whether mabel had destroyed herself still remained unanswered. he was powerless to shake off the impression, and under the impression he was useless; he could do justice neither to himself nor his patients. he must get away; give up practice at least for a time, and go abroad; go somewhere where he knew no one, and where he himself was quite unknown--somewhere where he could have rest and quiet and surcease of brainwork; where he could face this dreadful incubus, and either get rid of it, or school himself to bear it without its present dire effect on his life.
he would do that, and do it at once. the death of his wife would afford him sufficient excuse to the world, which knew him as a highly nervous and easily impressible man, and which would readily understand that he had been shattered by the suddenness of the blow. as to his practice, he was well content to give that up for a short time: he knew his own value without being in the least conceited--knew that he could pick it up again just where he left it, and that his patients would be only too glad to see him. he had felt that when he was at kilsyth.
at kilsyth! the word jarred upon him at once. to give up his practice even for a time meant a temporary estrangement from madeleine; meant a shutting out, so far as he was concerned, of sun and warmth and light and life, at the very time when his way was darkest and his path most beset. his mind had been so fully occupied since his return, that he had only been able to give a few fleeting thoughts to madeleine. he felt a kind of horror at permitting her even in his thoughts to be connected with the dreadful subject which filled them. but now when the question of departure was being considered by him, he naturally turned to madeleine.
to leave london now would be to throw away for ever his chance with madeleine kilsyth. his chance with her? yes, his chance of winning her! he was a free man now--free to take his place among her suitors, and try his chance of winning her for himself. how wonderful that seemed to him, to be unfettered, to be free to woo where he liked! last time he had drifted into marriage carelessly and without purpose--it should be very different the next time. but to leave london now would be throwing away for ever his chance with madeleine. he knew that; he knew that he had established a claim of gratitude on the family, which kilsyth himself, at all events, would gladly allow, and which lady muriel would probably not be prepared to deny. as for madeleine herself, he knew that she was deeply grateful to him, and thoroughly disposed to confide in him. this was all he had dared to hope hitherto; but now he was in a position to try and awaken a warmer feeling. gratitude was not a bad basis to begin on, and he hoped, he did not know it was so long since the days of maria strutt--and thinking it over, he looked blankly in the glass at the crows'-feet round his eyes and the streaks of silver in his dark hair; but he thought then that he had the art of pleasing women, unfortunate as was the result of that particular case. but if he were to go away, the advantageous position he had so luckily gained would be lost, the ground would be cut away from under his feet, and on his return he would have great difficulty in being received on a footing of intimacy by the family; while it would probably be impossible for him to regain the confidence and esteem he then enjoyed from all of them.
was, then, madeleine kilsyth a necessary ingredient in his future happiness? that was a new subject for consideration. hitherto, while that--that barrier existed, he had looked upon the whole affair merely as a strange sort of romance, in which ideas and feelings of which he had never had much experience, and that experience long ago, had suddenly revived within him. pleasantly enough; for it was pleasant to know that his heart had not yet been enough trodden down and hardened by the years which had gone over it to prevent it receiving seed and bearing fruit;--pleasantly enough; for an exchange of the stern reality of his work, a dry world with the bevy of cares which are ready waiting for you as you emerge from your morning's tub, and which only disappear--to change into nightmares--as you extinguish your bedroom gas--an exchange of this for a little of that glamour of love which he thought never to meet with again, could not fail to be pleasant. but the affair was altered now; the occurrence which had made him free had at the same time rendered it necessary that he should use his freedom to a certain end. under former circumstances he could have been frequently in madeleine's company,--happy as he never had been save when with her,--and the world would have asked no question, have lifted no eyebrow, have shrugged no shoulder. dr. wilmot was a married man, and his professional position warranted his visiting miss kilsyth, who was his patient, as often as he thought necessary. but now it was a very different matter. here was a man, still young, at least quite young enough to marry again; and if it were said, as it would be, that he was "constantly at the house," people---those confounded anonymous persons, the on who do such an enormous amount of mischief in the world--would begin to talk and whisper and hint; and the girl's name might be compromised through him, and that would never do.
did he love her? did he want to marry her? as he asked himself the question, his thoughts wandered back to kilsyth. he saw her lying flushed and fevered, her long golden hair tossing over her pillow, a bright light in her blue eyes, her hot hands clasped behind her burning head--or, better still, in her convalescence, when she lay still and tranquil, and looked up at him timidly and softly, and thanked him in the fullest and most liquid tones for all his kindness to her. and he remembered how, gazing at her, listening to her, the remembrance of what love really was had come to him out of the faraway regions of the past, and had moved his heart within him in the same manner, but much more potently than it had been moved in the days of his youth. yes; the question that he had put to himself admitted but of one answer. he did love madeleine kilsyth; he did want to marry her! to that end he would employ all his energies; to secure that he would defer everything. what nonsense had he been talking about giving up his practice and going away? he would remain where he was, and marry madeleine!
and henrietta prendergast? the thought of that woman struck him like a whip. if he were to marry madeleine kilsyth, would not that woman, henrietta prendergast, mabel's intimate and only friend--would not she proclaim to the world all that she knew of the jealousy in which the dead woman held the young girl? would not his marriage be a confirmation of her story? might it not be possible that the existence of such a talk might create other talk; that the manner of her death might be discussed; that it might be suspected that, driven to it by jealousy--that is how they would put it--mrs. wilmot had destroyed herself? and if "they" put it so, it would be in vain to deny it. the mere fact of his having been successful in his profession had created hosts of enemies, who would take advantage of the first adverse wind, and do their best to blast his renown and bring him down from the pedestal to which he had been elevated. then bit by bit the scandal would grow--would permeate his practice--would become general town-talk. he would see the whispers and the shoulder-shrugs and the uplifted eyebrows, and perhaps the cool manner or the possible cut. could he stand that? could a man of his sensibility endure such talk? could he bear to feel that his domesticity was being laid bare before the world for the comment of each idler who might choose to wile away his time in discussing the story? impossible! no; sooner keep in his present dreary, hopeless, isolated position, sooner give up all chances of winning madeleine, sooner even retrograde. he had no children to provide for, and could always have enough to support him in a sufficient manner. he would give it all up; he would go away; he would banish for ever that day-dream which he had permitted himself to enjoy, and he would--
a letter was brought in by his servant--an oblong note, sealed with black wax, in an unfamiliar handwriting. he turned it over two or three times, then opened it, and read as follows:
"brookstreet, thursday.
"dear dr. wilmot,--we have heard with very great regret of your sad loss, and we all, lady muriel, papa, and myself, beg you to receive our sincere condolence. i know how difficult it is at such a time to attempt to offer consolation without an appearance of intrusion; but i think i may say that we are especially concerned for you, as it was your attendance on me which kept you from returning home at the time you had originally intended. i can assure you i have thought of this very often, and it has given me a great deal of uneasiness. pray understand that we can none of us ever thank you sufficiently for your kindness to us at kilsyth. with united kind regards, dear dr. wilmot, your grateful patient,
"madeleine kilsyth.
"p.s. i have a rather troublesome cough, which worries me at night. you recollect telling me that you knew about this?"
so the kilsyths were in town. his grateful patient! he could fancy the half-smile on her lips as she traced the words. no; he would give up his notion of going away--at least for the present!.
