The Road to Mandalay Part 35

But Shafto had not come to "Heidelberg" to discuss FitzGerald and his affairs; he wanted to talk to Sophy about herself.

"I do wish you would confide in Mrs. Gregory," he urged. "She is a tower of strength. I don't think you are strong enough to tackle the situation here."

"Oh, yes I am," she answered, rising; "it's just a question of will-power and holding out. It was good of you to come like this, but now I'm afraid I must send you away. This is the time I always sit with my aunt." As she spoke she approached nearer to the long gla.s.s door and, coming out of the gloom of the drawing-room, he saw by the unsparing light the startling alteration in her appearance; she looked so thin and worn, her eyes so large, her face so small--her whole appearance wilted! When he thought of Mrs. Krauss, with her deadly secret, her vampire hold on this girl; then of Krauss and his secret, he could no longer restrain himself. All those influences which stir the deepest emotions of the heart were silently operating on Shafto's.

His face a.s.sumed a set expression and bad grown suddenly pale.

"Sophy!" he exclaimed.

The word sent her heart galloping.

"I am sure you know that I--I adore you, but somehow I've never ventured to tell you this till now----" He paused, as if the words stuck in his throat, and meanwhile a huge brown insect of the bee tribe entered, booming alarmingly, and knocking itself about the room. "But now I've got to speak out and take risks. There is a terrible cloud over this house--a cloud of shame! I know I am saying all this most awfully badly, but I ask you to let me take you away from 'Heidelberg.'" He broke off abruptly and stood looking into her eyes.

Sophy, no longer pale, returned his gaze steadily. It was not now a question of her aunt's secret, but of her own future. She cared very much for her companion--why deceive herself?--and with the instinct common to her s.e.x, had been aware of his feelings for a long time. All the same, she could not desert her post. She put up her thin hand (it was trembling, Shafto could see) with the gesture of one who was thrusting aside temptation.

"I don't understand about the cloud, but even so, my place is here.

Surely you will see that--and--I am, all the same, very--grateful.

I"--her voice shook and sank almost to a whisper---"I am glad that you care for me."

At this moment a curtain was hastily swung aside and Lily appeared.

"Missy, the mem-sahib asking for you now; please to come quickly," and with a swift glance at her "missy" obeyed; the _purdah_ fell heavily behind her slim, white figure and Shafto was alone. His mission had been fruitless, and yet when he rode away from "Heidelberg" in his heart he carried the flower of Hope.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

ALL IS OVER

That same evening, as Sophy was sitting alone in the veranda after dinner, Lily ayah appeared, her fat arms uplifted in eloquent appeal.

"Oh, missy--you come with me--I think our mem-sahib soon, soon _die_!"

"Die!" exclaimed Sophy, springing to her feet.

"Yes, somehow these drug people are too clever--she has got cocaine. I think that water man bring it; anyhow, mem-sahib has taken one big, big dose, and lies as one gone from the world."

"Send at once for Herr Krauss--he is in his office," and Sophy ran towards her aunt's room and found, as Lily had described, that her relative was pa.s.sing away; indeed, save for her faint breathing, one would have supposed that she had already crossed the border.

Herr Krauss cast one hurried glance, thundered out of the room, and rang up the telephone; then he returned and stood gazing at his wife, his face working with emotion.

"What has happened?" he asked, turning abruptly to Sophy. "_Why_ is she like this? What does it mean?"

"I cannot tell." A reply which could be taken in two ways.

"It must have been some sudden attack--her heart, I suppose. Marling, the nearest doctor, will be here instantly." And as he spoke a square-shouldered, severe-looking man entered. Without a word, but in a most business-like manner, he made an examination of the patient, felt her pulse, turned back her eyelids, and then e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed an ominous:

"Ha!"

"What is it?" inquired Krauss; "what is the matter with my wife? Is it serious?"

"Don't you know?" demanded the doctor, turning on him sharply, "it is cocaine poisoning--the stage."

"Cocaine!" echoed Krauss, and his large buff-coloured face turned to a leaden hue. "You are mistaken. That is not _possible_!"

"Well, if you don't believe me, get another opinion," retorted the doctor brusquely. "Judging from the slight examination I have made, your wife has been taking the drug for _years_."

"Impossible!" almost shouted Krauss.

"Not at all," rejoined the doctor. "Cocaine has been poisoning people in Rangoon by hundreds. Mrs. Krauss is not the only victim."

Krauss, great heavy man that he was, was now trembling so violently that he was obliged to lean against the wall for support, and, pointing to the bed, he said:

"I had not the slightest suspicion--Gott bewahre, I had not. I thought her ailment was neuralgia. I will pay any money, no matter what fee.

Surely, you can do something for her?"

"I am afraid not; Mrs. Krauss is beyond help, and can never recover consciousness. She has been taking quant.i.ties of the drug for a long time. Look at her arm!"--turning back the sleeve and revealing an emaciated tell-tale limb.

"Did _you_ know?" said Krauss, appealing to Sophy, who stood at the other side of the bed. The words came in short savage jerks.

"Yes," she replied, "I only discovered it six weeks ago."

"And never told _me_!" glaring at her with a furious expression.

"No--because Aunt Flora implored me to be silent. I was doing my best to stop it and minimising the doses."

"Ah!" exclaimed the doctor, "that accounts for this. She has been starved and, with the cunning of these morphia maniacs, found means to get a supply, and has absorbed an enormous quant.i.ty."

"Ach Gott! it seems incredible," moaned Krauss, now rising and coming towards the bed, and lifting his wife's limp hand. "What could have made her take to it?"

"Illness--loneliness--depression; this enervating climate; having nothing particular to do; an idle woman of forty has no business in Burma."

"But surely you have some remedy?--something that will bring her to?

Gott in Himmel! you don't tell me that she will _never_ see me, or speak to me again!"

"No; cocaine is one of the most powerful drugs--the greatest curse in our pharmacopoeia. It is better that she should go like this. Even if she were to survive for a week, she would be a mere inanimate shadow."

"Oh, my poor Flora, my heart's joy! You must not go; you shall not leave me without one word!" And Herr Krauss tumbled down upon his knees and sobbed stertorously.

The doctor, who was surveying him with frigid amazement, suddenly turned and, seizing Sophy by the arm, said:

"You can do no good here now; this is no place for you."

Leading her to the door he closed it inexorably behind her.

Half an hour later she was joined by Lily, her round face wet with tears.

"All is over now, Miss Sahib. My missis always so good to me--my missis done die."