Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1901 — The Doctor’s Dilemma [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Doctor’s Dilemma

By Hesba Stretton

CHAPTER XXVIII. I do not know why teiror always strikes mfr dumb and motionless. I did not stir or speak, but looked steadily, with a fascinated gaze, into my husband’s face —a worn, white, emaciated face, with eyes peering cruelly into mine. It was an awful look; one of dark triumph, of sneering, cunning exultation. Neither of us spoke. He sank down on the seat beside me, with an air of exhaustion, yet with a low, fiendish laugh which sounded hideously loud in my ears. His fingers were still about my arm, but he had to wait to recover z from the first shock of his success —for it had been a shock. His face was bathed with perspiration, and his breath came and went fitfully. I thought I could even hear the heavy throbbing of his heart. ‘‘l’ve found you,” he said, his hand tightening its hold—and at the first sound of his voice the spell which bound me snapped—“l’ve tracked you out at last to this cursed hole. The game is up, my little lady. By heaven! you’ll repent of this. You are mine, and fro man shall come between us.” “I don't understand you,” I muttered. He had' spoken in an undertone, and I could not raise my voice above a whisper, so parched and dry was my throat. “Understand!” he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. “I know all about Dr. Martin Dobree. You understand that .well enough. I am here to take charge of you, to carry you home with me as my wife, and neither man nor woman can interfere with me in that. It will be best far you to come with me quietly.” “I will not go with you,” I answered, in the same hoarse whisper; “I am liv-

ing here in the presbytery, and you cannot force me away. I will not go.” “The silly’ raving of an ignorant girl'.’ | he sneered. “The law will compel you to return to me. I will take the law into my own hands, and compel you to go • with me at once. If there is no conveyance to be hired in this confounded hole, we will walk down the road together, like two lovers, and wait for the omnibus. Come, Olivia.” Our voices had not risen much above their undertones yet, but these last words he spoke more loudly. Jean opened the door of the sacristy and looked out, and Pierre came down to the corner of the transept to see who was speaking. I lifted the hand Richard was not holding, and beckoned Jean. “Jean,” I said, in a low tone still, “this man is my enemy. Monsieur le Cure knows all about him; but he is not here. You must protect me.” “Certainly, madame,” he replied. “Monsieur, have the goodness to release madame.” “She is my wife,” retorted Richard Foster. “I have told all to Monsieur le Cure,” I said. “Monsieur le Cure is gone to England;, it is necessary to wait till his return. Monsieur Englishman.” “Fool!” said Richard in a passion; "she Is my wife, I tell you.” “Ah!” he replied phlegmatically, “but It is my affair to protect madame. There is no resource but to wait till Monsieur le Cure returns from his voyage. If madame does not say, ‘This is my husband,’ how can I believe you? She says, ‘He is my enemy.’ I cannot -confide her to a stranger.” “I will not leave her,” he exclaimed. “Good! very good! Pardon, monsieur,” responded Jean, laying his iron fingers upon the hand that held me, and loosening its grip as easily as if it had been the hand of a child. “Madame, you are free. Leave Monsieur the Englishman to me, and go away into the house, if you please.” I did not wait to hear nny further altercation, but fled as quickly as I could into the presbytery. Up into my own chamber I ran, drew a heavy chest against the door and fell trembling and nervelegs upon the floor beside it. But there was no time to lose in womanish terrors; my difficulty and danger were too great. Why should I not write to Tardif? He had promised to come to my help whenever and wherever I might summon hitn.i I ran down to Mademoiselle Therese for the materials for-a letter, and in a few minutes it was written, and on the way to Sark. The night fell while I was still alone. Suddenly there was the noisy rattle of wheels over the rough pavement—the baying of dogs—an indistinct shout. A horrible dread took hold of me. Was it possible that he had returned, with some force which should drag me away from my refuge and give me up to him? I heard hurried footsteps and joyous voices. A minute or two afterward, Minima beat against my barricaded door,

and shouted gleefully through the keyhole. “Come down, Aunt Nelly,” she cried; “Monsieur Laurentie is come home again!” I felt as if some strong hand had lifted me out of a whirl of troubled waters and set me safely upon a rock. I ran down into the salon, where Monsieur Laurentie was seated, as tranquilly as if he had never been away, in his high-backed armchair, smiling quietly at Minima’s gambols of delight. Jean stood just within the door, his hands behind his back, holding his white cotton cap in them; he had been making his report of the day’s events. Monsieur held out his hand to me, and I ran to him, caught it in both of mine, bent down my face upon it, and burst into a passion of weeping, in spite of myself. . “Come, come, madame!” he said, his own voice faltering a little; “I am here, my child; behold me! There is no place for fear now; I am king in Ville-en-bois. Is it not so, my good Jean?” “Monsieur le Cure, you are emperor,” replied Jean. “If that is the case,” he continued, “madame is perfectly secure in my castle. You do not ask me what brings me back again so soon. But I will tell you, madame. At Noireau, the proprietor of the omnibus to Granville told me that an Englishman had gone that morning to visit my little parish. Good! We do not have that honor every day. I ask him to have the goodness to tell me the Englishman’s name. It is written in the book at the bureau. Monsieur Fostere. I remember that name well, very well. That is the name of the husband of my little English daughter. Fostere! I see in a

moment it will not do to proceed on my voyage.” The cure’s return, and his presence under the same roof, gave me a sense of security. When the chirping of the birds awoke me in the morning, I could not at first believe that the events of the day before were' not themselves a dream. Matins were ended, and the villagers were scattering about their farms and households, when I noticed Pierre loitering stealthily about the presbytery, as if anxious not to be seen. He made me a sign to follow him out of sight, round the corner of the church. “I know a secret, madame,” he said, in a troubled tone, “that monsieur who came yesterday has not left the valley. I followed monsieur your enemy. He did not go far away.” “But where is he then?” I asked, looking down the street, with a thrill of fear. “Madame,” whispered Pierre, “he is a stranger to this place, and the people would not receive him into their houses —not one of them. My father only said, ‘He is an enemy to our dear English madame,’ and all the women turned the back upon him. I stole after him, behind the trees and the hedges. He marched very slowly, like a man very weary, till he came in sight of the factory of the late Pineaux. He turned aside into the court there. I saw him knock at the door of the house, try to lift the latch, and peep through the windows. After that he goes into the factory; there is a door from it into the house. He passed through. I dared not follow him, but jn one short half-hour I saw' smoke coming out of the chimney. The smoke is there. The Englishman has sojourned there all the night.” “But, Pierre,” I said, shivering, though the sun was already shining hotly—- “ Pierre, the house is like a lazaretto. No one has been in it since Mademoiselle Pineau died. Monsieur le Cure locked it up, and brought away the key." “That is true, madame,” answered the boy; “no one in the village would go near the accursed place, but I never thought of that. Perhaps monsieur your eneniy will take the fever and perish.” “Run, Pierre, run!” I cried; “Monsieur Laurentie is in the sacristy with the strange'vicaire. Tell him I must speak to him tliis very moment. There is no time to be lost!” I dragged myself to the seat under the sycamore tree, and hid my face in my hands, while shudder after shudder quit* ered through me. I seemed to be watching him again, as he strode weariedly down the street, leaning with bent shoulders on his stick, nnd turned away from every door at which he asked for rest and shelter for the night. Oh! that the time could but come back again, that I might send Jean to find some safe place for him where he could sleep! Back to my memory rushed the old days, when he screened me from the unkin Iness of my step-mother, and when he seemed to love me. For the sake of those times, would to heaven the evening that was gone.

and the sultry, breathless night, could only come back again! I felt as if I had passed through an immeasurable spell, both of memory and anguish, before Monsieur Laurentie came, though he had responded to my summons immediately. I then told him in hurried, broken sentences, what Pierre had confessed to me. His face grew overcast and troubled, and he at once started for the factory. He returned after a long, long suspense. “My child,” he said, “monsieur is ill! attacked, I am afraid, by the fever. I shall remain with him all this day. You must bring us what we have need of, and leave it on the stone there, as it used to be.” “But cannot he be removed at once?” I asked. “My dear,” he answered, “what can I do? The village is free from sickness now; how can I run the risk of carrying the fever there again? It is too far to send monsieur to'Noireau. Obey me, my child, and leave him to me and to God. Cannot you confide in me yet?” “Yes,” I said, weeping, “I trust you with all my heart.” “Go, then, and do what I bid you,” he replied. “Tell my sister and Jean, tell all my people, that no one must intrude upon me, no one must come nearer this house than the appointed place. You must think of me as one absent/yet close at hand; that is the difference. 1 am here, in the path of my duty. Go, and fulfill yours.” For three days, morning after morning, whilst the dew lay still upon the grass, I went down, with a heavy and foreboding Ijeart, to the place where I could watch the cottage, through the long sultry hours of the summer day. Here in the open sunshine, with the hot walls of the mill casting its rays back again, the heat was intense; though the white cap I wore protected my head from it, my eyes were dazzled, and I felt ready to faint. No wonder if Monsieur Laurentie should have sunk under it, and the long strain upon his energies, which would have overtaxed a younger and stronger man. I had passed the invisible line which his will had drawn about the place, and had half crossed the court, when I heard footsteps close behind me, and a large, brown, rough hand suddenly caught mine. “Mam’zelle!” cried a voice I knew, “is this you?” “Oh, Tardif! Tardif!” I exclaimed. 1 rested my beating head against him, and sobbed violently, whilst he surrounded me with his strong arm, and laid his hand upon my head, as if to assure me of his help and protection. “Hush, hush! mam’zelle,” he said. “It is Tardif, your friend, my little mam’zelle; your servant, you know. I am here. What shall Ido for you? Is there any person in yonder house who frightens you, my poor little mam’zelle? Tell me what to do.” He had drawn me back into the green shade of the trees, and placed me upon the felled tree where I had been sitting before. I told him all quickly, briefly—all that had happened since I had written to him. I saw the tears start to his eyes. “Thank God I am here,” he said. “1 lost no time, mam’zelle, after -your letter reached me. I will save Monsieur le Cure; I will save them both, if 1 can. He is a good man, this cure, and we must not let him perish. He has no authority over me, and I will go this moment and force my way in, if the door is fastened. Adieu, my dear little mam’zelle.” He was gone before I could speak a word, striding with quick, energetic tread across the court. The closed door under the eaves opened readily. ' In an instant the white head of Monsieur Laurentie passed the casement, and I could hear the hum of an earnest altercation, although I could not catch a syllable of it. But presently Tardif appeared again in the doorway, waving his cap in token of having gained his point. It seemed to me almost as if time had been standing still since that first morning when Monsieur Laurentie had left my side, and passed out of my sight to seek for my husband in the fever-smitten dwelling. Yet it was the tenth day after that when, as I took up my weary watch soon after day break, I saw him crossing the court again and coming towards me. What had he to say? What could impel him to break through the strict rule which had interdicted all dangerous contact with himself? His face was pale, and his eyes were heavy as if with want of rest, but they looked into mine as if they could read my inmost soul. (To be continued.)

“THIS MAN IS MY ENEMY.”