The girl walked firmly on, but with downcast eyes, hardly seeing whither she went, but guiding herself in some strange way by the consciousness of the one who walked by her side.
After a pause he continued: "Mary, you know that I love you. I must know--you must tell me--if it is altogether impossible for you to return that love."
"Altogether impossible," she replied, in a scarcely audible voice.
"Altogether!" he repeated after her in a dazed way. "Then I have nothing more to live for. Oh, pardon me, Miss King! Why should I speak to you of my happiness or misery? What a selfish being I am, even in my love for you? And yet I do not think that it is altogether selfish. I know that I would willingly endure endless misery if by that I could lighten your burden, my child. Mine is a love that, be it selfish or unselfish, fills my whole being. Oh, Mary! cannot you love me a little? I would so endeavour to make your life a happy one."
His voice was subdued, but full of profound tenderness, and it pierced Mary"s heart with a sharp pain.
"I know it--I know it," she whispered; "but, oh! it is impossible, quite impossible."
They were now on a lonely path among the bushes of the park. They came to a seat under a tree; Dr. Duncan sat down on it and Mary sat by him.
"I cannot at all understand your meaning, Mary," he said sadly.
"Oh why do you love me?" she cried in tones of anguish, "why do you love me? Try and put me out of your heart. If you only knew my heart you would do so at once."
He looked at her for a few moments, then asked in despair, "Do you dislike me?"
"Dislike you!" and she raised her head and looked into his eyes as she exclaimed the words. "Dislike you! How can I dislike you who are so kind to me? Ah no! Dr. Duncan--it is not that; but have mercy on me--you are torturing me. It can never be--never--never--I cannot love you. There is something between us, something awful, and you must not ask me what it is!"
She looked so wildly as she spoke that the suspicion of insanity again flashed across the doctor"s mind, but he felt that whatever this burden of hers might be, it could only increase the vehemence of his love by deepening his pity.
"Mary!" he said, "this love is too great a matter to be trifled with. We must understand each other. Are you right in throwing this love of mine away? Oh think! if you do love me--and I sometimes half believe you do--is it right to allow this fearful something whatever it is to separate us? Why, what should separate us? If you have any great sorrow, if you are persecuted by any enemy, if there is any horrible secret that torments you, so much the more reason that you should allow the one who loves you, and whom you love, to help you, to defend you, and ward these off. Mary! Mary! believe me, you said the other day that I should loathe you did I know what this secret of yours was. Believe me, whatever it was, I could do no less than feel for you the more, love you the more.
For heaven"s sake, Mary! let nothing stand between us."
She looked at him with a terrified air, and said, "And supposing that I had committed some abominable crime--what then?"
"What then? I should protect you, fold you to my arms, and help to soften your bitter remorse into sweet repentance. I would share your agony and delight in doing so. Whatever this secret is, it would but deepen the sympathy between us. Oh, Mary! Love can cure every wound."
"Oh, mercy!" she cried in tones of anguish. "Dr. Duncan! Dr. Duncan! do not talk to me like this. I shall go mad if you do. I tell you again I can never know love--never! never! I am the most miserable creature on earth, and I cannot tell you why."
He seized her arm in his pa.s.sion, and said in a voice fierce and tremulous: "Mary! Mary! this is all wrong. You are throwing away your whole life"s happiness for an utterly false idea. Oh, my sweet love, tell me all! tell me all! I repeat from my heart, that nothing you could possibly disclose can lessen my affection. Put the idea altogether out of your mind that whatever you tell me can make any difference. Mary!
were you the lowest of creatures, I would love you all the more. It would be all the sweeter to know that I had saved you. Whatever you are, I am your lover, your slave. Ah, Mary! with such a love as ours will be, we will be the happiest of people. In spite of anything that has been, you will be all the world to me until death, Mary!--until death."
The man had made the girl"s heart thrill responsive to his own great pa.s.sion, and she could conceal this no longer. "Oh, spare me! spare me!"
she whispered.
"Then you do love me," he exclaimed.
She closed her eyes as she spoke in a dreamy voice. "Oh, spare me! this will kill me. Oh, my love! for I do love you--as I can scarcely believe woman ever loved man before--you don"t know what you ask."
He folded her in his arms and kissed her lips, but she turned from him, and rising from the seat stood before him very pale, and trembling, while the secret thoughts of her heart, that she would fain have hidden for ever, but could not in that weak moment conceal, were revealed to him in her pa.s.sionate words. "Yes, I love you! I will die soon, so it cannot matter much that I tell you this. I love you! but this must be the last time I see you. We two cannot love each other--oh, that I could tell you: and then be clasped in your arms and die there straightaway--die in your arms dear!--for I cannot tell you and live.
Oh, how delicious it would be--oh, my love!" she clenched her fists and looked up to the skies--"do not raise these visions of Paradise to me--only to madden me with the contrast between them and what must be--glimpses of Heaven through the black clouds of h.e.l.l."
She paused and began to weep.
Her lover stood by her with both her hands in his.
He was about to say what little he could to comfort her, when she s.n.a.t.c.hed her hands from his and exclaimed, as she wiped her eyes with her handkerchief, "Come away, let us go, Dr. Duncan. I can bear no more of this."
They walked along the path in silence for a few minutes, she with a heart aching with its misery, he puzzled, not knowing what to make of her behaviour, and feeling a strange mixture of joy and sorrow.
At last he spoke, and there was a triumphant ring in his voice. "Mary, you _shall_ be mine! We love each other. In that all-absorbing love we will forget all your secret whatever it may be." He went on in fierce accents, carried away by his pa.s.sion. "Yes, Mary! in spite of crime, or madness, or the power of h.e.l.l, it shall be--Oh, my dear! my dear!..."
At that moment Mary interrupted him with a slight exclamation, and at the same time put her hand on his arm in order to draw his attention.
He looked up and saw very inopportunely tripping towards them, with her usual jaunty step, the plump figure of Susan Riley.
This young lady"s keen glance detected in the looks of the two lovers that some serious conversation had been going on.
"Good morning, doctor," she said as he lifted his hat and bowed. "Good morning, Mary. Good gracious! how glum you look. You seem quite ill; doesn"t she, doctor? Why, what"s the matter with you?"
"I am perfectly well, thank you, Susan."
"I think Miss King requires a change."
"I have told her so," remarked Dr. Duncan.
"By-the-bye, Mary!" exclaimed Susan, "something very curious has happened which concerns you. An old friend of yours has been asking for you."
"An old friend of mine?"
"Yes! and a gentleman, too; but I will not keep you in suspense. They brought in a man suffering from delirium tremens last night, a very bad case. He is a young man, and has the appearance of a gentleman. No one knows who he is. He has no card on him: his linen is unmarked. Well, he called out your name several times this morning."
"My name!"
"Yes; called out "Mary Grimm!" "Mary Grimm!" a dozen times, at least.
Now, yours is not such a common name, is it?" As she spoke the woman"s eyes twinkled with malice.
Dr. Duncan looked from one to the other. What Susan had said puzzled and disturbed him. Was this the clue to Mary"s secret, he wondered. She called her Mary Grimm, too; why _Grimm_?
Mary divined his thoughts, and turning to him said simply, "I _was_ called "Grimm." That was my real name, but when my aunt adopted me I took her name." Then addressing Susan, "I cannot conceive who this poor man can be, for I am not aware that I know any gentlemen, even by sight, except the doctors and students at the hospital."
Mary instinctively knew what suspicions were pa.s.sing through her lover"s mind, but conscious of her innocence she spoke without exhibiting any signs of confusion. His mind was much relieved by her words. "No, it is not a man that is between us," he said to himself.
Then suddenly he called to mind the adventures of the previous night.
"How old would you take this man to be?" he asked anxiously of Susan.
"About thirty," was the reply.
He quickened his pace unconsciously, and did not speak again till they were at the gate of the hospital.
Then he turned to Mary and said, "I will go and see this poor fellow myself first; then I will come for you. You may be able to identify him."
The three entered the hospital together.