BOOK II

HIDDEN
[Pg 93]

XVI

“DEAD?”
The word was spoken in such astonishment that it had almost the emphasis of
unbelief.
From whose lips had it come?
I turned to see. We were all still grouped near or about the bed, but this voice was
strange, or so it seemed to me at the moment.
But it was strange only from emotion. It was that of Dr. Cameron, who had come
quietly in, in response to the summons sent him at the first sign of change seen in his
patient.
“I did not anticipate this,” he was now saying. “Yesterday he had strength enough for
a fortnight or more of life. What was his trouble? He must have excited himself.”
Looking round upon our faces as we failed to reply, he let his fingers rest on the bowl
from which little whiffs of smoke were still going up. “This is an odd thing to have
where disinfection is not necessary. Something of a most unusual nature has taken
place here. What was it? Did I not tell you to keep him quiet?”
It was Edgar who answered.
“Doctor, you knew my uncle. Knew him in health and knew him in illness. Do you
think that any one could have kept him quiet if he had the will to act even if it were to
please simply a momentary whim? What then if he felt himself called upon to risk his
life in the performance of a duty? Could you or I or even his well loved [Pg
94] daughter have prevented him?” And looking very noble, Edgar met the doctor’s
eye unflinchingly.
“Ah, a duty!” The doctor’s voice had grown milder. “No, I do not think that any of us
could have stopped him in that case.”
Turning towards the bed, he stood a moment gazing at the rigid countenance which
but a few minutes before had been so expressive of emotion. Then, raising his hand,
he pointed directly at it, saying with a gravity which shook every heart:
“The performance of duty brings relief to both mind and body. Then why this look of
alarm with which he met his end—”
“Because he felt it coming before that duty was fully accomplished. If you must
know, doctor, I am willing to tell you what occasioned this sudden collapse. Shall I
not, Orpha? Shall I not, Quenton? It is his right, as our physician. We shall save
ourselves nothing by silence.”
“Tell.”
That was all Orpha seemed to have power to utter, and I attempted little more. I was
willing the doctor should know—that all the world should know—my part in this
grievous tragedy. Even if I had wished for silence, the sting of Edgar’s tone as he
mentioned my name would have been enough to make me speak.
“I have no wish to keep anything from the doctor,” I affirmed as quickly and evenly
as if the matter were of ordinary purport. “Only tell him all; keep nothing back.”
And Edgar did so with a simplicity and fairness which did him credit. If he had shown
a tinge of sarcasm when he addressed me directly, it was not heard in the relation he
now gave of the drawing up of the two wills and our [Pg 95] uncle’s final act in
destroying one. “He loved me—it was a life-long affection—and when Quenton
came, he loved him.” This was said with a certain display of hardihood.—“Not
wishing to divide his fortune but to leave it largely in favor of one, he wavered for a
time between us, but finally, at the conscious approach of death, made up his mind
and acted as you have seen. Only,” he finished with naïveté peculiar to his
temperament and nature, “we do not know which of us he has chosen to bless or curse
with his great fortune. You see the remains of one will. But of the other one or of its
contents we have as yet no knowledge.”
The doctor, who had followed Edgar’s words with great intentness, opened his lips as
though to address him, but failed to do so, turning his attention towards me instead.
Then, still without speaking, he drew up the sheet over the face once so instinct with
every generous emotion, and quietly left our presence. As the door closed upon him
Orpha burst into sobs, and it was Edgar’s arm, not mine, which fell about her
shoulders.