Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1889 — TOO LATE. [ARTICLE]

TOO LATE.

; A Story of St. Valentine’s Day, CHAPTER VII (Continued). Fifteen minutes later, and the deadly bullet lay in Nell Thanet’s slight hand, which then, and not till then, showed signs of tremor. - ~—r- ——— Sir William eyed her keenly, Her ■eye sank beneath his searching look; ®he turned -hastily away and applied herself to- the dressing of the patient’s wound; but she was not as deft as usual; somehow her sight seemed at fault, and some large tears fell. Sir William quickly took the appliances from her hand. “Let me finish,” he said. “You have done enough for one day—you have made yourself a name. And now,” he continued, bending over the ■Colenel, “all you have to do is to get well. You have plenty of strength for that, thanks to Dr. Thanet.” “Doctor who?” asked the sick man ■quickly. “Thanet,” answered Sir William—- •“ Doctor Thanet.” ■- “Oh, why did you?” cried Nell suddenly. “He has fainted.” She spoke in her natural voice, not in the rougher tone she • had assumed. Only Sir William noted the change; but he made no remark. He administered a stimulant, and in a little while Lyon Leslie returned to consciousness. He looked eagerly round; but Nell had drawn back; only Sir William’s great form was visible. “Your life depends on absolute quiet,” he said. “Take this, and «leep.” Sir William was not a man to be disobeyed; the Colonel was fain to do his bidding, and, in a few minutes, as from very weariness, his eyes closed, and he slept. Nell then left some directions with Mrs. Mctan, and followed Sir William into another room. Mr. Parr was in haste to be gone, to carry the glad tidings to Lady Masters. “You are an ornament, sir, to the profession, r ” he said, shaking Nell’s hand warmly. “You’ll be a great man some day.”

Nell’s heart sank within her as the door closed, and she was alone with Sir William. She was afraid, she scarcely knew why. He did not leave her long in suspense. He came up to her, took her passive hands in his firm .grasp. “Young lady,” he said kindly, “I have penetrated your secret ’ You know I am an inapproachable anatomfst”—smiling. “You are safe with ■me, and I wish you all success. Greater skill I never witnessed than I witnessed to-day; and I have had much •experience. Tell me one thing—l do not ask from idle curiosity—did you know Colonel Gordon before?” “Yes,” she answered, trembling; “but I did not know it was he at first. I begged my brother to let me see the case, as I had made surgery a more particular study than he had, and so I was led on. He does not recognize me, and did not know my name—l was only ‘the doctor’ to him till you told him. Sir William, you will not betray ■me? Randall can do all that is necessary now.”

“Doctor Helen Thanet,” he said, “you see I know all about you-—l’ve heard a good deal. Your secret, whatever it is, is safe with me; but I refuse to give Dr. Randall Thanet the credit of what you have done. No one need know how you managed it; but the vase and your name must be in the medical journals. And, take my advice, my dear young lady and fellowworker—take your brother’s name off your door. You can only injure each other. This is not a sort of thing you can do again with impunity. I’ve been told quite lately a good deal about your brother; he is young enough to choose another career. I speak to you as I would to my own daughter. I only vish I hud such a one. Tfien he raised Nell’s hand to his lips and took his 1 departure. The. adv*ee given by Sir William <heque was followed. Randall’s ijamo d isappeared from his door; only his lister’s remained. He had retired from the medical prflfesssion to follow that of literature, that was the simple c.tinouncvment made—he preferred \ ooks. But a great care was taken off Nell’s Apprehensive heart, and an intoleraVlc load off Randall’s. He could be himiclf now. live Lis own life, and feel to bis fcllow-mun. It was of necessity a titter disappointment to his father, who was at, first disposed to resent it an Nell, and Inclined to regard her success as an vctual injustice to her brother. It took time to force the conviction on

him of, in this instance, at any rata, female supremacy; and, when at last he grudgingly admitted that his daughter had won what his son had lost, and that by superior acquirements, he qualified the acknowledgement by asserting that the latter had failed,.not from lack of capacity, but because he had obstinately elected to become that “devious and indefinable thing a litterateur,''' Prudent Mrs. Thanet never once said, “I told you so!” She was more than satisfied that for her boy the strain of a distasteful calling was at an end, and she wrote some words of approval and cheer, urging him to justify the step he had taken by doing what she was sure he would do, making the same mark in his new profession his sister had in the one of which she was such an ornament. And in time, in very despite of himself, her husband took an increasing interest in his daughter’s career, and pride in her triumphs; but, by a strange contradiction, as it seemed, but in reality only in simple conformity to a nature given to fixed idoas, when the son, who had disappointed him so keenly did make the mark his mother predicted he would in the world of. letters, he felt neither pride nor satisfaction, and acknowledged no merit. A great eagerness seemed to have come on Doctor Randall Thanet’s patient, an eagerness to recover. He was no longer quiet and enduring, he was restless and unsatisfied. “I did not know that you were my old acquaintance Randall Thanet,” he said to the latter, the evening of the operation. “You have placed me under a life-long obligation.” Randall chafed at the undesired acknowledgement.

“I only discovered your identity,” he said ha—ly, “by accident; but you take a wrong view of the matter; it is my profession that is under obligation to you. You have afforded it one of the most interesting cases of the day; to me personally you owe nothing, absolutely nothing on the score of skill.” “Nurse,, said the colonel, a few days later, “Doctor Thanet has npver boon the same since the operation—l mean at night. I used to watch for his night-visits—he seemed to bring an atmosphere of soothing calm with him—he never now arranges my pillow’—l asked him once; but he was so awkward—and then his voice seemed to be so soft. It is such a strange metamorphosis. I can’t account for it. ” Mrs. Mcllan thought how easily she could; but she only smiled, and said the Colonel was getting well and seeing things as they were, and not as he fancied. But the Colonel was not satisfied.

At last the day came when it was pronounced safe for Colonel LeslieGordon to be moved to the country. He was to go to his sister’s countryseat. Randall came to bid him goodbye, and to see him safely conveyed to the station. He did not seem to require much care and he said so. Wasted still, and worn-looking, there were evidences of quickly returning strength. He had that morning dressed himself without assistance—he told Randall so with satisfaction—and the day before had taken a half-hour’s walk in the Green Park without much fatigue, “I’m naturally strong,” he said. “A week of country air will set me on my legs. You’ll see that I’ll be at the opening of Parliament.” Then he paused, and added hesitatingly—“ How is your sister, Randall? I can’t forget you were only a lad when I was at—at Thorpe.”

“My sister is well,” Randall replied, a little stifly. “She lives with me”— he did not add she practised. “She—she went in for medicine, didn’t she?—to be a—a nurse, I suppose?” , ~ / "My sister, Colonel Gordon, is one of the most rising physicians of the day. I hear the carriage—you mustn’t be late for the train;” and, with an air of hauteur, Randall lifted the Colonel’s wraps and led the way to the door. It had been on Lyon Leslie’s tongue to ask if his old acquaintance, the pretty Nell, still held him in remembrance; but the flush on her brother’s cheek warned him that he was on dangerous ground, With a heavy sigh, a feeling of intolerable smallness, a sudden swelling up of a yearning regret, a dissatisfaction with himself and with Randall, he followed the latter to the carriage. “I will come and see you,” he said, as he took Randall’s reluctant hand. “Will you remember me to your sister?” Randall bowed gravely, but said nothing.