The Vicar's People Part 59

"What, Miss Mullion? No."

"Ho!" said the old man, gruffly.

"Now, Trethick," came from above; and Geoffrey hastily made his way up the rugged steps to where the doctor was waking.

"How is she?" he cried eagerly.

"Better: going on well," said the doctor, shortly.

"And in no danger?"

"None whatever, if she is kept quiet, and her mind set at ease."

"Poor la.s.s, I'll do all I can," said Geoffrey, earnestly. "I'll have a long talk to Mrs Mullion and Paul in the morning--well, it is morning now--after breakfast. I'll soon set it right. I think I can."

"That's well," said the doctor, as they walked on along the dark path.

"You seem tired," said Geoffrey, for the doctor was singularly reserved.

"Very."

"So am I."

There was another silence for some time.

"What are you thinking about, doctor?" said Geoffrey, at last.

"About Madge Mullion. Look here, Trethick, I like you--"

"Thanky, doctor, I like you, and I'm glad you've taken my hint about those shares."

"Hang the shares!" said the doctor. "Let me finish what I was going to say."

"Go ahead."

"d.a.m.n it, man, don't be so cool and unconcerned."

"All right," said Geoffrey.

"I say I like you for some things, Trethick, and I'm by profession tolerably hard and callous; but it frets me, sir, to have seen that poor girl lying there, after trying in her despair to throw away her life, and you as cool and cavalier as can be."

"Well," said Geoffrey, laughing, "I may be calm, but I was not, though, when I fetched you. As to my coolness, I haven't changed my wet things after getting nearly drowned to save her, and I'm cheery because you told me there was no danger."

"No, but she's very ill. And as to your saving the poor la.s.s, it was no more than your duty. You needn't brag about that."

"I don't brag, doctor, so you need not be so peppery. I say, calling you up in the night don't improve your temper."

"Hang it, Trethick, don't be a brute," cried the doctor. "I've known you nearly nine months, and I never liked you less than now."

"Thankye, doctor, but you'll be better when you've had your breakfast.

Come, don't let's part huffily. I am sorry I had to call you up, but you must charge extra."

"Look here, Trethick," said the doctor, who was now regularly roused by the other's coolness, "we don't set ourselves up out here for a particularly moral people, but, hang it all, we have got hearts, and when a wrong is done to any one we try to repair it."

"Yes, and a very good plan, too," said Geoffrey. "Why, doctor, you're as huffy as can be."

"Trethick! There, I can't keep it back," cried the doctor, the last words having let loose the flood of his wrath. "How a man who is not a callous scoundrel can treat this affair so coolly, I don't know."

"I don't treat it coolly," cried Geoffrey, surprised at the other's warmth.

"You do, sir; your conduct is blackguardly--cruel in the extreme. Have you no heart at all?"

"Plenty, I hope," cried Geoffrey, now growing warm in turn. "Look here, doctor, I don't allow any man to call me a scoundrel and blackguard, without saying a word in reply. Please explain what you mean."

"What do I mean, sir; why, that poor girl."

"Well, what about her?"

The doctor stopped short in the dark upon that shelf of cliff, and faced Geoffrey.

"Look here! are you a fool, or a knave, or a scoundrel, Trethick, or all three?" he cried, angrily.

"If you dare to say--Bah?" cried Geoffrey, "I won't quarrel. You're hipped, doctor--tired--upset--but don't call a man names. It stirs up a fellow's bile, as old Paul says."

The doctor panted in his anger, for calm, peaceable Dr Rumsey seemed quite transformed.

"And you can talk like this?" he cried, "with that poor girl, the mother of your new-born child, lying an outcast from her home!"

"_What_?" roared Geoffrey, catching at the doctor's arm.

"He is a fool!" exclaimed Dr Rumsey; and, wrenching away his arm, he strode off towards the town, leaving Geoffrey staring as if he were stunned.

He was stunned mentally, and for a few minutes he felt as if he could not collect his thoughts. Then his first impulse was to run after the doctor.

"Oh, it's too absurd," he cried; and at last, sick at heart, uneasy, and disgusted with his late companion, and not even yet fully realising his position in the tragedy of the night, he walked stiffly up to the cottage, hesitated for a few moments as to whether he should enter, and ended by letting himself in, and going to his room, to try and secure a few hours' rest.

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.

A STORMY INTERVIEW.

Geoffrey Trethick's slumbers were very short and disturbed, and, after tossing about for some time, he got up to think out his position. The events of the past night seemed dream-like now, and there were times when he was ready to treat them as hallucinations; but the sea-soaked suit of clothes thrown over a chair were proof positive of the reality of poor Madge Mullion's attempted suicide, and his brow contracted as he thought of the wretched girl's state.

"Poor la.s.s!" he muttered; and by the light of the doctor's charge he read a score of trifles which had been sealed to him before.

"I'll go straight down to him, and have it out as soon as he's up. An idiot! What the deuce does he mean? However, I'll soon put that right."

He looked at his watch and found it was only seven, so that it would be of no use to go down yet to Rumsey's. He could not sleep, and he did not feel disposed to read, so he determined to go for a walk till breakfast-time, and then he would have a talk to Mrs Mullion and Uncle Paul.