The Threatening Eye Part 29

"Brain fever."

Catherine looked down on the ground, and thought a little before she spoke again. "You say she received a shock. Who gave her a shock?--what was it?--who was it?" and the look of a wild beast that has been robbed of its young came into her eyes, as she waited for his answer.

The doctor knew that she could easily acquire the information from other sources, so thought it best to tell her all that had occurred at once.

"The poor girl has appeared to me to have been unwell for some time, Mrs. King--to have had something on her mind, some great worry that has been destroying her peace and undermining her health."

"Oh, yes! I know all about that," exclaimed Catherine, impatiently; "but the _shock_--what do you mean by that?"

"The shock would not have affected her in the way it did, if she had not been in the unstrung condition I speak of, Mrs. King." Then he told her how a patient suffering from delirium tremens had been brought into the hospital, how his attendants had heard him call out the name of Mary Grimm several times in his delirium, how Mary had been brought into his ward to see if she could identify him, and how she had fainted away on seeing him.

After he had completed his narrative, Catherine rose from the chair and paced up and down the room several times, a deep frown on her brow. Then she stopped, and facing the doctor commenced to question him in a calm but abrupt manner.

"_Did_ she recognise him?"

"I don't know; she is not in a state to explain anything yet."

"Was anybody by when she saw him?"

"Yes, one of our nurses--a Miss Riley."

"Ah!"

After a pause she spoke again:

"Then the man has not been identified."

"Oh yes, he has! I recognised him. He is a barrister; his name is Hudson."

Catherine turned her face away that the doctor might not read the terrible expression that had come to it, and which she could not hide.

She asked one more question:

"You say he was heard to call out the name of Mary Grimm several times--who heard him?"

"I believe it was Miss Riley."

"Ah!"

Any man who has ever been possessed by a mad love for a woman, and suddenly has certain proof brought before him that she has deceived him, that there is another man whom she loves as she never loved him, can to some extent realise what were the feelings of Catherine King, as she listened to the doctor's narrative.

For the love she felt for Mary was of a kind not very uncommon among women, especially when one of the two is of a more masculine nature than the other. It was as the deep tender love of a strong man for a weak timid girl. It was a love accompanied by pa.s.sionate jealousy. This demon of jealousy now possessed Catherine. She choked with rage and vexation.

"What!" she reflected, "this man, this miserable drunkard, has robbed me of Mary's affections! The gross ingrat.i.tude of the girl too, and her deceit!" She remembered Mary's story about the barrister's kindness to her when she first ran away from home. Doubtlessly she had been holding clandestine meetings ever since. This accounted for the treacherous girl's melancholy of late.

As all these thoughts and erroneous though not unnatural suspicions flashed across her brain, she felt so bitter a hatred against the viper she had cherished to her breast, that she could have choked her there and then; but she concealed these emotions as much as possible, and said to the doctor in a calm voice:

"Let me see this man."

A jealous curiosity seized her to discover what this rival of hers was like.

"Certainly! you may see him if you wish to do so," Dr. Duncan replied; and he took her into the special ward where Hudson was lying, insensible just then, enjoying a respite between the horrible visions.

She stood by the bed and looked at the miserable man with an expression of indescribable loathing and hatred which she could not conceal. The doctor observed it.

"Will he live?" she asked turning suddenly to him.

"I think so. It is a bad attack; but then he is a comparatively young man," he replied.

She turned away from the bed with a gesture of disgust.

"Take me out, doctor. I won't see Mary to-day, as you think it better for her to be quiet. Besides, I don't feel well; I am rather dizzy, I should like a gla.s.s of water, if you please."

After her gla.s.s of water, she left the hospital and walked home rapidly, as miserable, as savage, as all the pangs of jealousy could make her.

For several days she endeavoured to come to some resolution concerning Mary. To love, perhaps to marry this barrister, must of course altogether cut the girl off from the Secret Society. Why, there was but one thing to do--Mary must be removed, must be killed. Yes, Mary, the only thing that she loved must be killed--she was a traitor to the Cause!

Catherine's mind was distraught by the conflicting pa.s.sions her discovery had excited in her.

She nearly went mad with them.

At one moment she felt that she hated Mary with the greatest of hates, that she could laugh to see her suffer and die before her sight; at another moment, the woman would lie on her solitary bed moaning in despair over her lost love.

And even when her mind was calmer, it was so miserable to sit in the dark little parlour all alone; there was no Mary there now to caress and converse with.

One day she collected all the girl's little effects, her work-box, her two or three books, and after kissing them each pa.s.sionately a dozen times, put them away together in a cupboard in her own bed-room, where she could visit and kiss them again privately at intervals.

But the next day, the remembrance of the girl's perfidy, of her love for a man, so excited her jealous hatred again, that she turned all the treasures out of the cupboard, tore them up and threw them in the fire, feeling a grim satisfaction in so doing.

But an hour after she repented again with moans and tears for what she had done.

She felt as if she had been tearing her own heart strings out. She hated herself for her cruelty in having destroyed all her darling's little favourite things.

The ruthless Nihilist, in short, acted generally in much the same silly fashion as the greenest school-girl would have acted under similar circ.u.mstances.

Dr. Duncan was very surprised to find that day after day pa.s.sed, and yet Catherine King did not call at the hospital to make inquiries about her niece.

At last he wrote to her. He informed her that Mary's illness had taken the form of brain fever, but that she would in all probability recover.

He also incidentally conveyed to her the same bit of news which had so relieved the fears of Susan Riley--the death of the barrister.

This letter caused a revulsion in the woman's feelings and greatly excited her. She started for the hospital as soon as she received it, and on arriving there asked for Dr. Duncan.

She was shown into a waiting-room and the doctor soon appeared.

"Well, doctor, so she is much better?"

"Not exactly that, Mrs. King, but progressing favourably."

"Can I see her?"

"I think she is asleep. Sleep of course is of the greatest importance just now, but I think if you desire it you might see her without disturbing her."