The applicant folded her cotton gloves one over the other, and met the doctor"s gaze with composed green gla.s.ses.
"The country is no objection, sir. I"m used to quiet, and all places are alike to me."
"You have your credentials with you, I suppose?"
"I have, sir. Here they are."
She handed two or three certificates of capability to the toxicologist.
He glanced them lightly over, and saw that Mrs. Susan Sharpe was all that heart could desire in the way of sick-nurse.
"These are satisfactory," handing them back. "But I have one fact to mention that may discourage you: the lady--the patient--is insane."
Mrs. Susan Sharpe heard this startling statement without moving a muscle of her dull, white face.
"Indeed, sir! A violent lunatic, sir?"
"Oh, dear, no! merely insane. Subject to occasional fits of violence, you understand, but quiet generally. But even in her most violent fits she would be nothing in your hands--a strong, large woman like you. She is little more than a child in years, and quite a child in weakness. If you don"t mind the dullness of the country, you would suit admirably, I think."
"I don"t in the least mind, sir. The situation will suit me very well."
"I am very glad to hear it," said the doctor, immensely relieved. "We may consider it a bargain, then?"
"If you please, sir," rising quietly. "When will you want me to go?"
"To-morrow morning. By the way, Mrs. Sharpe," said the doctor, eying the obnoxious lunettes, "why do you wear green gla.s.ses?"
"My eyes are weak, sir." Mrs. Sharpe removed the spectacles as she spoke, and displayed a pair of dull gray eyes with very pink rims. "The light affects them. I hope my gla.s.ses are no objection, sir?"
"Oh, not in the least! Excuse my question. Very well, then, Mrs. Sharpe; just give me your address, and I"ll call round for you to-morrow forenoon."
Mrs. Sharpe gave him the street and number--a dirty locality near the East River. Dr. Oleander "made a note of it," and the new nurse made her best obeisance and departed.
And, to inform Mme. Blanche of his success in this matter, Dr. Guy presented himself at the Walraven mansion just as the misty twilight was creeping out and the stars and street lamps were lighting up.
He found the lady, as usual, beautiful and elegant, and dressed to perfection, and ready to receive him alone in the drawing-room.
"I"ve been seriously anxious about you, Guy," Mrs. Walraven said. "Your prolonged absence nearly gave me a nervous fit. I had serious ideas of calling at your office this afternoon. Why were you not here sooner?"
"Why wasn"t I? Because I couldn"t be in half a dozen places at once,"
answered her cousin, rather crossly. "I"ve been badgered within an inch of my life by confounded women in shabby dresses and poky bonnets all day. Out of two or three bushels of chaff I only found one grain of wheat."
"And that one?"
"Her earthly name is Susan Sharpe, and she rejoices in red hair and green gla.s.ses, and the blood and brawn and muscle of a gladiator--a treasure who doesn"t object to a howling wilderness or a raving-mad patient. I clinched her at once."
"And she goes with you--when?"
"To-morrow morning. If Mollie"s still obdurate, I must leave her in this woman"s charge, and return to town. As soon as I can settle my affairs, I will go back to the farm and be off with my bride to Havana."
"Always supposing she will not consent to return with you to New York in that character?"
"Of course. But she never will do that," the doctor said, despondently.
"You don"t know how she hates me, Blanche."
Blanche shrugged her graceful shoulders.
"Do you implicitly trust this woman you have hired?"
"I trust no one," responded Dr. Guy, brusquely. "My mother and Sally and Peter will watch her. Although, I dare say, there may be no necessity, it is always best to be on the safe side."
"How I should like to see her--to triumph over her--to exult in her misery!" Blanche cried, her eyes sparkling.
"I dare say," said Dr. Oleander, with sneering cynicism. "You would not be a woman, else. But you will never have the chance. I don"t hate my poor little captive, remember. There! is that the dinner-bell?"
"Yes--come! We have Sir Roger Trajenna to-day, and Mr. Walraven detests being kept waiting."
"Poor Sir Roger!" with a sneering laugh. "How does the lovesick old dotard bear this second loss?"
"Better than he did the first; his pride aids him. It is my husband who is like a man distraught."
"The voice of Nature speaks loudly in the paternal-breast," said Dr.
Oleander. ""Nater will caper," as Ethan Spike says. Mollie"s mamma must have been a very pretty woman, Blanche."
Mrs. Walraven"s black eyes snapped; but they were at the dining-room door, and she swept in as your tall, stately women in trailing silks do sweep, bowing to the baronet, and taking her place, and, of course, the subject of the interesting captive down in Long Island was postponed indefinitely.
Dr. Oleander dined and spent the evening at the Walraven palace, and talked about his ward"s second flight with her distressed guardian, and opined she must have gone off to gratify some whim of her own, and laughed in his sleeve at the two anxious faces before him, and departed at ten, mellow with wine and full of hope for the future.
Early next morning Dr. Oleander called round for Susan Sharpe, and found that treasure of nurses ready and waiting. All through the long drive she sat by his side in his light wagon, never opening her discreet lips except to respond to his questions, and gazing straight ahead through her green gla.s.ses into the world of futurity, for all her companion knew.
"Among your charge"s hallucinations," said Dr. Oleander, just before they arrived, "the chief is that she is not crazy at all. She will tell you she has been brought here against her will; that I am a tyrant and a villain, and the worst of men; and she will try and bribe you, I dare say, to let her escape. Of course you will humor her at the time, but pay not the least attention."
"Of course," Mrs. Susan Sharpe answered.
There was a pause, then the nurse asked the first question she had put:
"What is my patient"s name, sir?"
Dr. Oleander paused an instant, and mastered a sudden tremor. His voice was quite steady when he replied:
"Miss Dane. Her friends are eminently respectable, and have the utmost confidence in me. I have every reason to hope that the quiet of this place and the fresh sea air will eventually effect a cure."
"I hope so, sir," Mrs. Susan Sharpe said; and the pink-rimmed eyes glowed behind the green gla.s.ses, and into the tallow-candle complexion crept just the faintest tinge of red.
It was an inexpressibly lonely place, as Mrs. Sharpe saw it. A long stretch of bleak, desolate, windy road, a desolate, salty marsh, ghostly woods, and the wide, dreary sea. Over all, this afternoon, a sunless sky, threatening rain, and a grim old pile of buildings fronting the sea view.
"A lonesome place," Mrs. Susan Sharpe said, as if in spite of herself--"an awfully lonesome place!"
Dr. Oleander looked at her suspiciously as he drew up before the frowning gate.