Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1901 — The Doctor’s Dilemma [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Doctor’s Dilemma

By Hesba Stretton

CHAPTER XVHL—(Continued.) “Why, Martin,” she said, averting her face from me, “you know I should never consent to marry you, with the idea of your caring most for that girl. No, I could never do that. If I believed you would ever thinly of me as you used to do before you saw her, well, I would keep true to you. But is there any hope of that?” “Let us be fr«nk with one another,” I answered; “tell me, is there any one else •whom you would marry if I released you from this promise, which was only given, perhaps, to soothe my mother’s last hours?” “Yes,” answered Johanna, whilst Julia hid her face in her hands, “she would marry my brother.” ■ Captain Carey!l fairly gasped for breath. Such an idea had never once occurred to me, though I knew she had been spending most of her time with the Careys at the Vale. Captain Carey to marry! and to marry Julia! To go and live in our house! I was struck dumb, and fancied that I had heard vrrpngly. If Julia wished for revenge—and when is not revenge sweet to a jilted woman? —she had it now. - I was as crestfallen, as amazed, almost as miserable as she had been. Yet I had no one to blame as she had. How could I blame her for preferring Captain Carey’s love to my poor affections?” “Julia,” I said, after a long silence, and speaking as calmly as I could, “do you love Captain Carey?” “That is not a fair question to ask,” answered Johanna. “We have not been treacherous to you. I scarcely know how it has all come about. But my brother has never asked Julia if she loves him; for we wished to see you first, and hear how you felt about Olivia. You say you 'shall never love again as you love her. Set Julia free, then, quite free, to accept my brother or reject him. Be generous, be yourself, Martin.” “I will,” I said; “my dear Julia, you •re as free as air from all obligation to me. You have been very good and very true to me. If Captain Carey is as good and true to you, as I believe he will be, you will be a very happy woman— -happier than you would ever be with me.” “And you will not make yourself unhappy about it?” asked Julia, looking up. “No,” I answered cheerfully; “I shall be a merry old bachelor, and visit you and Captain Carey, when we are all old folks. Never mind me, Julia; I never was good enough for you. I shall be very glad to know that you are happy.” Yet when I found myself in the street —for I made my escape as soon as 1 could get away from them —I felt as if everything worth living for were slipping away from me. My mother and Olivia were gone, and here was Julia forsaking me. I did not grudge her the new happiness. There was neither jealousy nor envy in my feelings towards my supplanter. But in some way I felt that I had lost a great deal since I entered their drawing room two hours ago.

CHAPTER XIX. I did not go straight home to our dull, gloomy bachelor dwelling place, for I was not in the mood for an hour's soliloquy. I was passing by the house, chewing thfc bitter cud of my reflections, and turned in to see if any messages were waiting there. The footman told me a person had been with an urgent request that a doctor would go as soon as possible to No. 19 Bellringer street. I did not know the street, or what sort of a locality it was in. “What kind of a person called?” I asked. “A woman, sir; not a lady. On foot — poorly dresseS. She’s been here before, and Dr. Lowry has visited the case twice.” “Very good,” I said. Upon inquiry I found that the place was two miles away; and as our old friend Simmons was still on the cabstand, I jumped into his cab, and bade him drive me as fast as he could. I wanted a sense of motion, and a change of scene. If I had been in Guernsey I should have mounted Madam, and had another midnight ride round the island. This was a poor substitute for that; but the visit would serve to turn my thoughtstfrom Julia. We turned at last into a shabby street, recognizable wen in the twilight of the scattered lamps as being a place for cheap lodging-houses. There was a light burning in the second-floor' windows of No. 19; but all the rest of the front was in darkness. I paid Simmons and dismissed him, saying I would walk home. By the time I turned to knock at the door, it was opened quietly from within. A woman stood in the doorway; I could not see her face, for the candle she had brought with her was on the table behind her; neither was there light enough for her to distinguish mine. “Are you come from Dr. Lowry’s?” she asked. The voice sounded a familiar one, but I could not for the lite of me recall whose It was. • “Yes,” I answered, “but I do not know the name of my patient here.” “Dr. Martin Dobree!” she exclaimed. I recollected her then as the person who had been in search of Olivia. She had fallen baek a few paces, and I could now see her face. It was doubtful, as If she hesitated to admit me. Was it possible I had come to attend Olivia's husband? “I don't know whatever to do!” she ejaculated; "he Is very ill to-night, but I don't think he ought to see you—l don’t think he would.” “I am not anxious to attend him. I ' came here simply because my friend is out of town. If he wishes to see me I will see him, and do my best. It rests entirely with himself.” “Will you wait here a few minutes,” •he asked, “while I see what he will do?" She left me In the dimly lighted hall. The place was altogether sordid, and dingy, and miserable. At last I heard her step coming down the two •f stairs, and I went to meet her.

“He will see you,,” she said, eying me herself with a steady gaze of curiosity. I was anxious to see Olivi husband, partly from the intense aversion I felt instinctively toward him. He was lying back in an old, worn-out easy-chair, with a woman’s shawl thrown across his shoulders, for the night was chilly. His face had the first sickly hue and emaciation of the disease, and was probably refined by it. It was a handsome, regular, well-cut face, narrow across the brows, with thin, firm lips, and eyes perfect in shape, but cold and glittering as steel. I knew afterward that he was fifteen years older than Olivia. Across his knees lay a shaggy, starved-looing cat, which he held fast, and entertained himself by teasing and tormenting it. He scrutinized me as keenly as I did him. “I believe we are in some sort connected, Dr. Martin Dobree,” he said; “my half-sister, Kate Daltrey, is married to your father. Dr. Dobree.” “Yes,” I answered shortly. The subject was eminently disagreeable to me, and I had no wish to pursue it with him. “Ay! she will make him a happy mpn,” he continued mockingly; “you are not yourself married, I believe, Dr. Martin Dobree?” I took no notice whatever of his remark, but passed on to formal inquiries concerning his health. My close study of his malady helped me here. I could assist him to describe and localize his symptoms, and I soon found that the disease was in a very early stage. “You have a better grip of it than Lowry,” he said. “I feel as if I were

made of glass, and you eould look through me. Can you cure me?” “I will do my best,,” I answered. “So you all say,” he muttered, “and the best is generally good for nothing. You see I care less about getting over it than my wife does. She is very ankious for my recovery.” “Your wife!” I repeated in utter surprise; “you are Richard Foster, I believe?” “Certainly,” he replied. “Does your wife know of your present illness?” I inquired. “To be sure,” he answered; “let me introduce you to Mrs. Richard Foster.” The woman looked at me with flashing eyes and a mockkikng smile, while Mr. Foster indulged himself with extorting a long and plaintive mew from the poor cat on his knees. “I cannot understand,” I said. I did not know how to continue my speech. Though they might choose to pass as husband and wife among strangers, they could hardly expect to impose upon me. “Ah! I see you do not,” said Mr. Foster, with a visible sneer. “Olivia is, dead.” “Olivia dead!” I exclaimed. “You were not aware of it?” he said. “I am afraid I have been too sudden. Kate tells us you were in love with my first wife, and sacrificed a‘most eligible match for her. Would it be too late to open fresh negotiations with your cousin? You see I know all your family history.” ; “When did Olivia die?” I inquired, though my tongue felt dry and parched, and the room, with his fiendish face, was swimming giddily before my eyes. “When was it, Carry?” he asked, turning to his wife. “We heard she was dead on the first of October,” she answered. “You married me the next day.” “Ah, yes!” he said; “Olivia had been dead to me for more than twelve months, and the moment I was free I married her, Dr. Martin. It was quite legal.” “But what proof have you?” I asked still incredulous, yet with a heart so heavy that it could hardly rouse itself to hope. “Carry, you have those letters,” said Richard Foster. . “Here are the proofs," said Mrs. Foster. She put into my hand nn ordinary certificate of death, signed by J. Jones, M. D. It stated that the deceased, Olivia Foster, had died on September the 27th, of acute inflammation of the lungs. Accompanying this was a letter written in a good handwriting, purport-ing-to be from a clergyman or minister, who had attended Olivia in her fatal illness. He said that she had desired him to keep the place of her death and burial a secret, and to forward no more than the official certificate of .the former event. This letter was signed E. Jones. No clue was given by either document as to the place where they were written. “Are you not satisfied,” asked Foster. “No,” I replied; “how is It, If Olivia

is dead, that you have not taken possession of her property?” “A shrewd question,” he said jeeringly. “Why am I in these cursed poor lodgings? Why am I as poor is Job, when there are twenty thousand pounds of my wife’s estate lying unclaimed? My sweet, angelic Olivia left no will, or none in my favor, yon may be sure; and by her father’s will, if she dies intestate or without children, his property goes to build almshouses, or some confounded nonsense, in Melbourne. All she bequeaths to me is this ring, which I gave to her on our wedding day, curse her!” He held out his hand, on the little finger of which shone a diamond, that might, as far as I knew, be the one I had once seen in Olivia’s possession. “Perhaps you do not know,” he continued, “that it was on this very point, the making of her will, of securing her property to me in some way, that my wife took offense and ran away from me. Carry was just a little too hard upon her, and I was away, in Paris. But consider, I expected to be left penniless, just as you see me left, and Carry was determined to prevent it.” “Then you are sure of her death?” I said. “So sure,” he replied calmly, “that we were married the next day. Olivia’s letter to me, as well as those papers, was conclusive of her identity. Would you like to see it?” Mrs. Foster gave me a slip of paper, on which were written a few lines. The words looked faint, and grew fainter to my eyes as I read them. They were without doubt Olivia’s writing. “I know that you are poor, and I send you all I can spare —the ring you once gave -to me. lam even poorer than yourself, but I have just enough for my last necessities.” There was no more to be said or done. Conyictidn had been brought home to me. I rose to take my leave, and Foster held out his hand to me, perhaps with < kindly intention. Olivia’s ring was glittering on it, and I could not take it into mine. “Well, well!” he said, “I upderstand; I am sorry for you. Come again, Dr. Martin Dobree. If you know of any remedy for my case, you are no true man if you do not try it.” I went down the narrow staircase,

closely followed by Mrs. Booster. Her face had lost its gaiety and bofflness, and looked womanly and care-worn, as she laid her hand upon my arm before opening the house-door. “For heaven’s sake, come again,” she said, “if you can do anything for him. We have money left yet, and I am earning more every day. We can pay you well. Promise me you will come again.” “I can promise nothing to-night,” I answered. “You shall not go till you promise,” she said emphatically. “■Well, then, I promise,” I answered, and she unfastened the chain almost noiselessly, and opened the door into the street. CHAPTER XX. I reached home just as Jack was coming in from his evening amusement. He let me in with his latch-key, giving me a cheery greeting; but as soon as we had entered the dining-room, and he saw my face, he exclaimed, “Good heavens! Martin, what has happened to you?” “Olivia is dead!” I answered. His arm was about my neck in a moment, for we were like boys together still, when we were alone. He knew all about Olivia, and he waited patiently till I could put my tidings into words. “It must be true,” he said, though in a doubtful tone; “the scoundrel would not have married again if he had not sufficient proof.” “She must have died very soon after my mother,” I answered, “and I never knew it!”

“It’s strange!” he said. “I wonder she never got anybody to write to you or Tardif.” There was no way of accounting for that strange silence toward us. We sat talking in short, broken sentences; but we could come to no conclusion about it. It was late when we parted, and I went to bed, but not to sleep, Upon going downstairs in the morning I found that Jack was already off, having left a short note for me, saying he would visit my patients that day. I had scarcely begun breakfast when the servant announced “a lady,” and as the lady followed close upon his heels, I saw behind his shoulder the familiar face of Johanna, looking extremely grave. She was soon seated beside me, watching me with something of the tender, wistful gaze of my mother. “Your friend, Dr. John Senior, called upon us a short time since," she said, “and told us this sad, sad news.” I nodded silently. “If we had only known it yesterday,,” she continued, “you would never have heard what we then said. This makes so vast a difference. Julia could not haws become your wife while there was another woman living whom you loved mere. Yon understand her feeling?” “Yes,” I said 1 , “Julia is right.” “My brother and I have been talking about the change this vpll "make,” she resumed. “He would not rob you of any consolation or of any future happiness; not for worlds. He relinquishes all claim to or hope of Julia’s affection ”

“That would be unjust to Julia,” I iaterrupted. “She must not be sacrificed to me any longer. I do not suppose I shall ever marry ” “You must marry, Martin,” she interrupted in her turn, and speaking emphatically; “you are altogether unfitted for a bachelor’s life. It is all very well for Dr. John Senior, who has never known a woman’s companionship, and who can do without it. But It is misery to you—this cold, colorless life. No. Of all men I ever knew, you are the least fitted for a single life.” “Perhaps I am,” I admitted, as I recalled my longing for some sign of womanhood about our bachelor dwelling. (To be continued.)

TEASING AND TORMENTING.