The Firm of Girdlestone. Артур Конан Дойл

in a recess near the window, with her lithe, supple figure bent forward, and her hands clasped at the back of her head, while her elbows rested upon a small table in front of her. Her superb brown hair fell in a thick wave on either side over her white round arms, and the graceful curve of her beautiful neck might have furnished a sculptor with a study for a mourning Madonna. The doctor had just broken his sad tidings to her, and she was still in the first paroxysm of her grief – a grief too acute, as was evident even to the unsentimental mind of the merchant, to allow of any attempt at consolation. A greyhound appeared to think differently, for he had placed his fore-paws upon his young mistress's lap, and was attempting to thrust his lean muzzle between her arms and to lick her face in token of canine sympathy. The merchant paused irresolutely for a moment, and then ascending the broad staircase he pushed open the door of Harston's room and entered.

      The blinds were drawn down and the chamber was very dark. A pungent whiff of disinfectants issued from it, mingled with the dank, heavy smell of disease. The bed was in a far corner. Without seeing him, Girdlestone could hear the fast laboured breathing of the invalid. A trimly dressed nurse who had been sitting by the bedside rose, and, recognizing the visitor, whispered a few words to him and left the room. He pulled the cord of the Venetian blind so as to admit a few rays of daylight. The great chamber looked dreary and bare, as carpet and hangings had been removed to lessen the chance of future infection. John Girdlestone stepped softly across to the bedside and sat down by his dying friend.

      The sufferer was lying on his back, apparently unconscious of all around him. His glazed eyes were turned upwards towards the ceiling, and his parched lips were parted, while the breath came in quick, spasmodic gasps. Even the unskilled eye of the merchant could tell that the angel of death was hovering very near him. With an ungainly attempt at tenderness, which had something pathetic in it, he moistened a sponge and passed it over the sick man's feverish brow. The latter turned his restless head round, and a gleam of recognition and gratitude came into his eyes.

      "I knew that you would come," he said.

      "Yes. I came the moment that I got your message."

      "I am glad that you are here," the sufferer continued with a sigh of relief. From the brightened expression upon his pinched face, it seemed as if, even now in the jaws of death, he leaned upon his old schoolfellow and looked to him for assistance. He put a wasted hand above the counterpane and laid it upon Girdlestone's.

      "I wish to speak to you, John," he said. "I am very weak. Can you hear what I say?"

      "Yes, I hear you."

      "Give me a spoonful from that bottle. It clears my mind for a time.

      I have been making my will, John."

      "Yes," said the merchant, replacing the medicine bottle.

      "The lawyer made it this morning. Stoop your head and you will hear me better. I have less than fifty thousand. I should have done better had I retired years ago."

      "I told you so," the other broke in gruffly.

      "You did – you did. But I acted for the best. Forty thousand I leave to my dear daughter Kate."

      A look of interest came over Girdlestone's face. "And the balance?" he asked.

      "I leave that to be equally divided among the various London institutions for educating the poor. We were both poor boys ourselves, John, and we know the value of such schools."

      Girdlestone looked perhaps a trifle disappointed. The sick man went on very slowly and painfully —

      "My daughter will have forty thousand pounds. But it is so tied up that she can neither touch it herself nor enable any one else to do so until she is of age. She has no friends, John, and no relations, save only my cousin, Dr. George Dimsdale. Never was a girl left more lonely and unprotected. Take her, I beg of you, and bring her up under your own eye. Treat her as though she were your child. Guard her above all from those who would wreck her young life in order to share her fortune. Do this, old friend, and make me happy on my deathbed."

      The merchant made no answer. His heavy eyebrows were drawn down, and his forehead all puckered with thought.

      "You are the one man," continued the sufferer, "whom I know to be just and upright. Give me the water, for my mouth is dry. Should, which God forbid, my dear girl perish before she marries, then – " His breath failed him for a moment, and he paused to recover it.

      "Well, what then?"

      "Then, old friend, her fortune reverts to you, for there is none who will use it so well. Those are the terms of the will. But you will guard her and care for her, as I would myself. She is a tender plant, John, too weak to grow alone. Promise me that you will do right by her – promise it?"

      "I do promise it," John Girdlestone answered in a deep voice. He was standing up now, and leaning over to catch the words of the dying man.

      Harston was sinking rapidly. With a feeble motion he pointed to a brown-backed volume upon the table.

      "Take up the book," he said.

      The merchant picked it up.

      "Now, repeat after me, I swear and solemnly pledge myself – "

      "I swear and solemnly pledge myself —

      "To treasure and guard as if she were my own – " came the tremulous voice from the bed.

      "To treasure and guard as if she were my own – " in the deep bass of the merchant.

      "Kate Harston, the daughter of my deceased friend – "

      "Kate Harston, the daughter of my deceased friend – "

      "And as I treat her, so may my own flesh and blood treat me!"

      "And as I treat her, so may my own flesh and blood treat me!"

      The sick man's head fell back exhausted upon his pillow. "Thank God!" he muttered, "now I can die in peace."

      "Turn your mind away from the vanities and dross of this world," John Girdlestone said sternly, "and fix it upon that which is eternal, and can never die."

      "Are you going?" the invalid asked sadly, for he had taken up his hat and stick.

      "Yes, I must go; I have an appointment in the City at six, which I must not miss."

      "And I have an appointment which I must not miss," the dying man said with a feeble smile.

      "I shall send up the nurse as I go down," Girdlestone said.

      "Good-bye!"

      "Good-bye! God bless you, John!"

      The firm, strong hand of the hale man enclosed for a moment the feeble, burning one of the sufferer. Then John Girdlestone plodded heavily down the stair, and these friends of forty years' standing had said their last adieu.

      The African merchant kept his appointment in the City, but long before he reached it John Harston had gone also to keep that last terrible appointment of which the messenger is death.

      CHAPTER II.

      CHARITY A LA MODE

      It was a dull October morning in Fenchurch Street, some weeks after the events with which our story opened. The murky City air looked murkier still through the glazed office windows. Girdlestone, grim and grey, as though he were the very embodiment of the weather, stooped over his mahogany table. He had a long list in front of him, on which he was checking off, as a prelude to the day's work, the position in the market of the various speculations in which the capital of the firm was embarked. His son Ezra lounged in an easy chair opposite him, looking dishevelled and dark under the eyes, for he had been up half the night, and the Nemesis of reaction was upon him.

      "Faugh!" his father ejaculated, glancing round at him with disgust.

      "You have been drinking already this morning."

      "I took a brandy and seltzer on the way to the office," he answered carelessly. "I needed one to steady me."

      "A young fellow of your age should not want steadying. You have a strong constitution, but you must not play tricks with it. You must have been very late last night. It was nearly one before I went to bed."

      "I