Mrs. Dorriman Volume Ii Part 29

Grace stared at him for a moment, and then she laughed wildly and hysterically.

"Poor Paul!" she said; "imagine, only imagine, being taken for Margaret's lover!"

Doctor Jones rose; he was exceedingly affronted.

"You and your sister, madam, must find a less honest man to help you carry out your wicked plans against poor Mr. Drayton's happiness. I am incorruptible!" and, with his head well in the air and a strong sense of virtuous resistance to beauty and blandishments, he prepared to go.

"Doctor Jones," said Grace, her burst of laughter over, "you have said a very wicked and a very ridiculous thing, but you had better go away.

After your fancying anything wrong about Margaret I cannot bear seeing you. Why, the only excuse for you is, that you are probably as mad as Mr. Drayton."

"Madam, you may throw off the mask now and be impertinent, but nothing you say will move me. I am not going to declare a man mad when I believe him to be sane, to suit you or any one else."

"It does not in the least matter," said Grace, coolly, and speaking from the inspiration of the moment, "for the man whom I shall probably marry if I get strong, the man you imagine to be my sister's lover, will be here soon, and he will most likely bring Sir Augustus Jermyn down with him. I have great faith in _him_, and Sir Augustus will probably prefer naming the second medical man himself."

Doctor Jones was very much taken aback. It was hard that being an honest man should prevent his being thrown with so eminent a man.

"I--I should have no objection to meeting Sir Augustus and giving him my opinion. I should feel proud to a.s.sist him in forming a judgment."

"I have no doubt of it," said Grace, sarcastically, "but nothing will induce me now to mention your name to Sir Augustus. You have too completely prejudged and misjudged my dearest sister. You see her meet a friend, a friend much attached to us both, and jump immediately to iniquitous conclusions. Leave me! I never will forgive you, and if anything happens to my sister on you will the whole responsibility fall."

Doctor Jones retired, endeavouring to comfort himself with the reflection that he had acted purely from a sense of right. But that small, still voice--that voice that may be listened to or not but is always there--convicted him. He knew that because he thought Margaret in the wrong he had been resolved not to agree with her. He got positively hot with sudden tremor. What if Sir Augustus came, and found the man really mad! His opinion would henceforth be valueless, and, just as he thought this, the remembrance of Mr. Drayton's laugh was most uncomfortably present to him.

He said nothing to his wife of this; he must not lower himself in her opinion at any rate.

When he left the room Grace began to try and think if Paul had ever spoken of meeting Margaret. By degrees then it all came to her. Sir Albert Gerald must have met her, and that reptile of a doctor had seen them speak to each other. At the time she had forgotten this.

How difficult life was to her just now, and the fears for Margaret came to her in fuller force than ever.

Jean came into the room, her big Bible under her arm, her eyes s.h.i.+ning with a look of content and peace. She noticed Grace's troubled expression, and she stroked her long hair.

"My bairn," she said, "it's a troublous world at times I know."

"It is all sent for the best," said Grace, giving utterance to the plat.i.tude nearest her lips at the moment.

"Oh! do not say that. You must na say that. We make evil to ourselves, G.o.d does _not_ send it."

"He allows it," murmured Grace.

"Bairn, I ask you, and answer from your own conscience: Who brought all this weary trouble upon us?"

She stood like an inspired sybil, her brown face and homely features lighted by a Divine truth, and Grace, looking up, conscience-stricken, could only answer the truth, slowly and solemnly,

"It was I, Jean, I myself."

END OF VOL. II.