Mr. Claghorn's Daughter Part 42

"My wife!" He uttered the words with a long-drawn sigh, of such sweet content that in that sigh she believed he had breathed his life out.

Soon he spoke again. "Now I can sleep," he said, and freed her from his embrace. She rose gently and stood watching him; he slept without the stertorous breathing of before. Looking up, she saw the physician in the doorway. He beckoned to her. She rose and quietly left the room.

"Madam," said the doctor, "this is wonderful. That natural sleep may portend recovery."

"Then I can go," she said.

The doctor looked at her gravely, not approvingly. But it was not as he supposed; she was not hard-hearted; but the woman! Leonard had written that his conscience and his honor demanded that he marry the woman. If he were to live, there was no place at his bedside for her, who had once been his wife.

"Mrs. Claghorn," said the doctor, "your companion, Miss--ah--Miss Cone, has informed me of the existing relations between you and your husband.

As a stranger I can give no advice, can only tell you that the woman who has been his companion has left your husband forever."

"Left him to die!" she exclaimed.

"Precisely. It need not surprise you. It is barbarous; but such women are barbarous. I shall be surprised if one who has displayed so much magnanimity should fail now. Pardon me, Mrs. Claghorn, but your place is by your husband's side. One woman has basely left him to die. Should you leave him now, you repeat the act."

The doctor silently withdrew. Natalie sank into a chair. Her mind was confused. Her place by her husband's side! Had she then a husband? The scenes in which she had been an actor had numbed her faculties, strained by the long watch by the bedside she had left. A feeling of suffocation was stealing over her; instinctively she loosened her dress at the throat. The letter she had written to Mark fell upon the floor, and she sat staring at it, dumb.

It became evident that her husband, as all in the house believed him to be, would live. Over and over again the doctor congratulated her on the wonderful influence of her presence upon the sick man. Naturally, he was glad to have rescued a patient from the very jaws of death; and though, since he had learned more of her history from Tabitha Cone, he had slight sympathy for the man, yet he believed that even under the untoward circ.u.mstances existing, forgiveness and reconciliation was the course which promised most for future happiness.

"It is the best thing for her," he said to Tabitha. "She will withdraw the divorce proceedings and forgive him. She can never be happy unless she does."

Tabitha, though sure that she herself would never have forgiven her mariner under similar circ.u.mstances, which, however, she admitted were unthinkable in that connection, agreed with the physician.

"He will be long in getting well," said the physician; "if, indeed, he ever recovers completely. If he has the heart of a man he must appreciate what she has done for him; literally brought him back to life."

"He was a good man, once," observed Tabitha, her eyes filling. "Oh, Doctor! The most beautiful, the sweetest; the most frank and loving boy----"

"And a brilliant theologian, you tell me. Well, well, Miss Cone, in my profession we learn charity. It is astounding what an evil influence some women can gain over men. And this one was not even beautiful."

"The hussy!"

"Quite so. Ah, Miss Cone, our s.e.x must ever be on guard," and the doctor laughed a little. He was feeling triumphant over the recovery of his patient.

Yet in watching that recovery his face was often very grave. Natalie was sharp-eyed. "Is your patient getting well?" she asked.

"He improves hourly," was the answer, but the tone was not cheerful. He looked at Natalie anxiously.

"Physically, yes. His mind, Doctor?"

"His mental faculties are failing fast."

"How long has this been going on?" He was surprised at her equable tones. Evidently she had nerved herself for this disclosure.

"A brave woman," he thought.

"That is a hard question to answer."

"Do you think it the result of drink? He had never touched liquor two years since."

"I should hardly ascribe it to liquor entirely. Doubtless, over-indulgence of that nature has been a force, a great force. The delirium in which you found him may be directly ascribed to drink."

"If he had been greatly hara.s.sed, say two years since, having been up to that time a good man--if then he had suddenly fallen into evil--would you ascribe such a fall to the mental strain consequent upon the worry I have suggested?"

"She seeks every palliation for him," thought the doctor. "Madam, I should say that in the case of a man, such as you have pictured, a sudden lapse into evil courses, courses which belied his training and previous life----"

"Yes?" She was looking steadfastly at him. He little knew the resolve that hung upon his words.

"I should say he was not wholly responsible. I should attribute much to the worry, the vexations, to which you have alluded."

With all her firmness she shrank as from a blow. Thinking to comfort her, he had driven a knife into her heart.

"And now, my dear Mrs. Claghorn, since we are upon this subject--a subject from which I admit I have shrunk--let me tender you some advice.

You have saved your husband's life; let that be your solace. It will not be for his happiness that you sacrifice your own."

"Go on," she said, seeing that he hesitated.

"After awhile--not now," he said, "but after your presence is less necessary to him, you must let me aid you to place him in an establishment where he will have every care----"

"An asylum?"

The doctor nodded.

"I will never leave him, so help me G.o.d in heaven! Never, never, Mark, my darling, for I, and only I, brought him to this pa.s.s!" She cried these words aloud, her hand upraised to heaven.

CHAPTER XLIII.

MONEY, HEAPS OF MONEY.

Mark Claghorn, standing by the window of that room at Stormpoint which was especially set aside as his own, but which, in its luxurious fittings, bore rather the traces of the all-swaying hand of the mistress of the mansion, gazed moodily out toward the tomb, speculating, perhaps, as to the present occupation of the soul that had once been caged in the bones that crumbled there.

To whom entered Mrs. Joe, who silently contemplated him awhile, and then, approaching, touched his shoulder. He turned and smiled, an act becoming rare with him. "Mark," she said, "I am getting old."

"You look as young as my sister might," he said.

"That's nonsense," but she smiled, too. Barring some exaggeration, she knew that his words were true.

"Even so," she urged seriously, "you have wandered enough. You might stay here for my sake."

"Mother, I will stay here for your sake."

"Only that, my son? You know I want more than that."

"Yes," he said, "you want too much. Let us have it out. Believe me, your pleasant dream of a political career for me is hopeless. Granted that I could buy my way to high office--though I do not think so--could I ever respect myself, or command respect? Where, then, would be the honor?"