"They are sometimes fatal," he said. "You would require skillful treatment, and careful nursing. I must obtain a good nurse for you, at once, and I would like to call in Dr. Manville."
Dr. Manville, after a thorough examination, and diagnosis of the case, agreed with Dr. Sydney in relation to the symptoms of the disease.
"They are obscure, and it is at this time difficult to locate the abcess," he said to Percy, who insisted upon knowing his exact condition. "But I am convinced that an operation must take place before long. Your case is serious; and I would advise you to send for your relatives."
Percy shook his head sadly.
"I have only one relative in the world," he said, "and she is now in Europe with her husband and children. But I have friends I wish to send for at once. Will you kindly give me the utensils to write out a telegram, Doctor?"
The telegram, when completed, was addressed to "Mr. Thomas Griffith, Centerville, N. Y.," and read: "Come at once. Bring your wife and Helena. A matter of life and death." Then followed his name and address.
A few hours later, they came--startled, wondering, anxious. Dr. Sydney was alone with the patient, awaiting the arrival of the nurse. He ushered the pale trio to Percy"s bed-side, and was about to retire to an adjoining room, when Percy detained him.
"Wait!" he said. "I want you to tell my friends, Doctor, my exact condition, just as you have told me. Spare nothing."
Dr. Sydney did as Percy requested. "And now," added Percy, "I wish to say for myself that I have no expectations of recovery. I do not want to live, and I shall make no effort to a.s.sist my medical advisers in restoring me to health. And since I must die, Helena, let me make you my wife. Let me leave you the lawful heir of my otherwise useless wealth--and let your hands minister to my last wants while on earth. It will not be long; but that brief time will be rendered the happiest of my whole life, if I can have your care, and companionship. Helena will you not consent?"
Mrs. Griffith was sobbing and Mr. Griffith and Dr. Sydney were wiping their eyes.
Helena alone was tearless. But her heart seemed dying within her, so sudden, so terrible, so unexpected was this situation.
"Helena, will you consent?" Percy repeated.
"I cannot, oh, I cannot!" she cried.
"Helena!" It was Mrs. Griffith who spoke now through her sobs. "Helena, you are cruel. Don"t you know it is a dying man you are refusing to make happy upon his death-bed?"
"There may be one chance for his life, and you are ruining that. It is murder!" Mr. Griffith added.
"He needs some tender woman"s care--he must have it!" said the Doctor.
"No money can buy the kind of care and nursing he needs during the next month or six weeks."
Helena put her hands to her temple, with a distracted gesture. "Oh--you do not any of you understand!" she cried; "it is not my place--Percy, may I see you alone a moment?"
"H"m--h"m! quite a romance here!" mused Dr. Sydney, as he trotted out of the room with his hands clasped under his coat-tails. "Liver trouble and love affairs together--bad complication--very bad. Enough to pull any man down. Hope the girl will marry him and nurse him. She has the look of a born _mother_ in her face. Some women have. They always make good nurses."
Meanwhile, Helena was kneeling by Percy"s bed-side, her hands clasping his, her face luminous with love and her heart torn with conflicting emotions.
"Oh, my darling, my darling!" she cried, pa.s.sionately, "it is not that I do not love you enough to forgive all that has occurred, in this solemn hour, and devote myself to your care. But I think of _her_--you have belonged to her--she has loved you and shared your life; and now, to come suddenly forward, to displace her, to take your name, your fortune, and the sad, sacred duty of ministering to perhaps your last wants on earth--oh, it seems cruel--heartless! It is her right--not mine."
"And now listen to me quietly," Percy answered, as he stroked her hair gently. "She whom you mention is not within call, even if I desired her presence. When I returned from Centerville, I found her all packed to go to California. I bade her adieu--with the understanding that it was our last farewell--and she supposes me now preparing for a trip to Europe.
She does not need my fortune, and she never desired my name. I shall die happier to bestow both on you. If I believed there remained one possibility of recovery for me, I would never ask you to be my wife, Helena. I am not, I never can be worthy of you here. But I think I shall make greater progress in the spirit world, and be better fitted to journey on beside you there, if I die knowing you are my wife. Will you consent, Helena?"
"I will," she said, solemnly; and leaned her face, wet now with tears, upon his breast. And that was their betrothal.
Then, as gently as he could, he told her of the strange discovery he had made during his last interview with Dolores: a discovery Helena"s clairvoyant perceptions had already half divined. From the hour he first told her his story, she had constantly a.s.sociated his unknown and unnamed friend with the thought of Dolores.
Though bitter and painful the actual knowledge of the truth, she was yet spared the ordeal of a stunning surprise as she listened to his revelation.
An hour later, the always solemn and now doubly-impressive marriage service was responded to by a bride clothed all in black, and a pallid groom lying upon his death-bed.
Scarcely was the ceremony concluded, when Percy was seized by a violent chill, followed by intense pain, and other alarming symptoms. The morning found him greatly reduced in strength, and unable to move upon the pillow without a groan of agony; throughout the day he grew rapidly worse, and every hope of ultimate recovery was abandoned.
"I doubt if he lives to endure the operation which must take place shortly," Dr. Sydney said to Mr. Griffith in the afternoon, as he paused by the door before descending the stairs. "He has pa.s.sed through too much mental excitement during the last twenty-four hours. He has developed most alarming symptoms since midnight, which complicate the case seriously. Permit no one to see him to-day; leave this door open occasionally to allow circulation of fresh air."
As he turned to go, a boy in messenger"s costume, presented himself at the door. "Message for Mr. Durand," he said, smartly. "Thirty cents due."
Dr. Sydney gave the boy a slight push.
"Go along with you," he growled. "Mr. Durand is sick--he may not live till morning. Go tell your employer not to bother us at such a time with messages."
The boy hurried away, as if frightened at the close proximity of death to the locality.
"I shall call again this evening," Dr. Sydney added, as he went slowly down the stairs; and then he muttered to himself: "A serious case, a serious case."
CHAPTER XXII.
DEAD IN HER BED.
As the door closed upon Percy after that tragic interview, Dolores stood and listened to his departing footsteps, until the last echo died away.
Then she flung herself down among the objects which were all a.s.sociated with their happy hours of love and companionship, while dry despairing sobs shook her frail form.
"Oh, Christ, pity me! my life is all in ruins, all in ruins!" she moaned, "Father--Mother--_G.o.d_, why did you curse me with the existence I never desired?"
After a time, she rose up and tried to set her apartment in order. Every where she turned her eyes, they were greeted with some reminder of her life with Percy. Here was a souvenir of the happy bohemian days, in Paris. There a momento of that fatal ice-boat journey. Fatal, because she believed it was during that dangerous experience that Mrs. Butler contracted the illness which resulted in her death; and because on that day, Percy really pa.s.sed from the position of friend to lover. Then, as she opened a book, trying to divert her tortured mind from these memories, out dropped a pressed fern, gathered in the Andean valley. She covered her face with her hands; she seemed to see again the fading glory of that wonderful sunset, the towering steeples of granite, and again she could hear the saucy Ta-ha-ha of the arajojo bird.
It was more than she could bear. She rose hurriedly, and walked across the room, weeping silently.
Suddenly her eyes fell upon the old faded photograph, which Percy had dropped beside the chair he occupied. She picked it up and gazed upon it with pa.s.sionate fury, distorting her beautiful face.
"Curse you, curse you!" she almost shrieked, and tearing the card in a thousand fragments, she trampled them under her feet, and fell in a dead swoon upon the floor beside them.
It was dark when she returned to consciousness. She groped her way toward her couch, and, throwing herself upon it, fell into a troubled sleep, which lasted until the entrance of Lorette the following day.
She awoke to renewed suffering, and spent wretched hours in forming a thousand futile plans of revenge. Scarcely having tasted food since Percy"s departure, she felt her strength leaving her. And with her strength, went her anger, resentment and pride. During the long sleepless night, of the second day, the desire to see Percy again overmastered every other feeling. The intensity of her love seemed to increase, as her physical vigor lessened. The knowledge that, no matter how she destroyed his happiness, or ruined his hopes in life, she must still love him, and live without him, bore down upon her heart like a burning weight, and put to flight all desire for revenge. The one thing, the only thing which made the future worth living, was a reconciliation with Percy.
She rose and sat by her window in the chill, gray dawn.
"He must come back to me, he must," she whispered, "_at any cost_! I have given up the whole world for his love, for his companionship. Even if his love has been given to another, he must still give me his companionship. I will see him--I will send for him to-day, and tell him so."
A strange idea had presented itself to her feverish, suffering heart. An idea born of her wild love and her crushed and ruined pride. In the silent watches of the night, the thought had come to her, that even if Percy made Helena his wife, he might still give her (his comrade, _his_ long-time confidant and friend)--his occasional affectionate companionship. If she submitted quietly and pa.s.sively to his marriage, he might not wholly cast her off. She believed that society was full of men, respectable citizens in the eyes of the world--who retained their intimate lady friends after marriage. And she knew that the United States Government permitted a large and increasing colony to exist, where men retained any number of wives.
Surely, if any woman on earth had the right to be so retained, it was she. And Percy would see it so--and he would not cast her off. She could scarcely wait for the day to advance, to send for him and lay the plan before him.