The Greatest Murder Mysteries of Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Mary Elizabeth Braddon

feet are like lumps of ice. I’ve walked twenty miles to-day, and I haven’t had bite nor sup since last night. Where’s Sillikens?”

      “At the factory, Jim deary. Somebody’s given her a piece of work—one of the regular hands; and she’s to bring home some money to-night. Poor girl, she’s been a fretting and a crying her eyes out since you’ve been gone, Jim.”

      “Poor lass. I thought I might do some good for her and me both by going away where I did; but I haven’t; and so I’ve come back to eat her starvation wages, poor lass. It’s a cowardly thing to do, and if I’d had strength I should have gone on further, but I couldn’t.”

      As he was saying these words a girl came in at the half-open door, and running up to him, threw her arms round his neck.

      “O Jim, you’ve come back! I said you would; I knew you’d never stop away; I knew you couldn’t be so cruel.”

      “It’s crueller to come back, lass,” he said; “it’s bad to be a burden on a girl like you.”

      “A burden, Jim!” she said, in a low reproachful voice, and then dropped quietly down amongst the dust and rubbish at his feet, and laid her head caressingly against his knee.

      She was not what is generally called a pretty girl. Hers had not been the delicate nurture which nourishes so frail an exotic as beauty. She had a pale sickly face; but it was lighted up by large dark eyes, and framed by a heavy mass of dark hair.

      She took the man’s rough hand in hers, and kissed it tenderly. It is not likely that a duchess would have done such a thing; but if she had, she could scarcely have done it with better grace.

      “A burden, Jim!” she said,—“a burden! Do you think if I worked for you day and night, and never rested, that I should be weary? Do you think, if I worked my fingers to the bone for you, that I should ever feel the pain? Do you think, if my death could make you a happy man, I should not be glad to die? Oh, you don’t know, you don’t know!”

      She said this half-despairingly, as if she knew there was no power in his soul to fathom the depth of love in hers.

      “Poor lass, poor lass,” he said, as he laid the other rough hand gently on her black hair. “If it’s as bad as this, I’m sorry for it—more than ever sorry to-night.”

      “Why, Jim?” She looked up at him with a sudden glance of alarm. “Why, Jim? Is anything the matter?”

      “Not much, lass; but I don’t think I’m quite the thing to-night.” His head drooped as he spoke. The girl put it on her shoulder, and it lay there as if he had scarcely power to lift it up again.

      “Grandmother, he’s ill—he’s ill! why didn’t you tell me this before? Is that gentleman the doctor?” she asked, looking at Jabez, who still stood in the shadow of the doorway, watching the scene within.

      “No; but I’ll fetch the doctor, if you like,” said that benevolent personage, who appeared to take a wonderful interest in this family group.

      “Do, sir, if you will be so good,” said the girl imploringly; “he’s very ill, I’m sure. Jim, look up, and tell us what’s the matter?”

      The man lifted his heavy eyelids with an effort, and looked up with bloodshot eyes into her face. No, no! Never could he fathom the depth of this love which looks down at him now with more than a mother’s tenderness, with more than a sister’s devotion, with more than a wife’s self-abnegation. This love, which knows no change, which would shelter him in those entwining arms a thief or a murderer, and which could hold him no dearer were he a king upon a throne.

      Jabez North goes for a doctor, and returns presently with a gentleman, who, on seeing Jim the labourer, pronounces that he had better go to bed at once; “for,” as he whispers to the old woman, “he’s got rheumatic fever, and got it pretty sharp, too.”

      The girl they call Sillikens bursts out crying on hearing this announcement, but soon chokes down her tears—(as tears are wont to be choked down in Blind Peter, whose inhabitants have little time for weeping)—and sets to work to get ready a poor apology for a bed—a worn-out mattress and a thin patch-work counterpane; and on this they lay the bundle of aching bones known to Blind Peter as Jim Lomax.

      The girl receives the doctor’s directions, promises to fetch some medicine from his surgery in a few minutes, and then kneels down by the sick man.

      “O Jim, dear Jim,” she says, “keep a good heart, for the sake of those who love you.”

      She might have said for the sake of her who loves you, for it never surely was the lot of any man, from my lord the marquis to Jim the labourer, to be twice in his life loved as this man was loved by her.

      Jabez North on his way home must go the same way as the doctor; so they walk side by side.

      “Do you think he will recover?” asks Jabez.

      “I doubt it. He has evidently been exposed to great hardship, wet, and fatigue. The fever is very strong upon him; and I’m afraid there’s not much chance of his getting over it. I should think something might be done for him, to make him a little more comfortable. You are his brother, I presume, in spite of the apparent difference between you in station?”

      Jabez laughed a scornful laugh. “His brother! Why, I never saw the man till ten minutes before you did.”

      “Bless me!” said the old doctor, “you amaze me. I should have taken you for twin brothers. The likeness between you is something wonderful; in spite, too, of the great difference in your clothes. Dressed alike, it would be impossible to tell one from the other.”

      “You really think so?”

      “The fact must strike any one.”

      Jabez North was silent for a little time after this. Presently, as he parted from the doctor at a street-corner, he said—

      “And you really think there’s very little chance of this poor man’s recovery?”

      “I’m afraid there is positively none. Unless a wonderful change takes place for the better, in three days he will be a dead man. Good night.”

      “Good night,” says Jabez, thoughtfully. And he walked slowly home.

      It would seem about this time that he was turning his attention to his personal appearance, and in some danger of becoming a fop; for the next morning he bought a bottle of hair-dye, and tried some experiments with it on one or two of his own light ringlets, which he cut off for that purpose.

      It would seem a very trivial employment for so superior and intellectual a man as Jabez North, but it may be that every action of this man’s life, however apparently trivial, bore towards one deep and settled purpose.

      Chapter III

       A Golden Secret

       Table of Contents

      Mr. Jabez North, being of such a truly benevolent character, came the next day to Blind Peter, full of kind and sympathetic inquiries for the sick man. For once in a way he offered something more than sympathy, and administered what little help he could afford from his very slender purse. Truly a good young man, this Jabez.

      The dilapidated house in Blind Peter looked still more dreary and dilapidated in the daylight, or in such light as was called daylight by the denizens of that wretched alley. By this light, too, Jim Lomax looked none the better, with hungry pinched features, bloodshot eyes, and two burning crimson spots on his hollow cheeks. He was asleep when Jabez entered. The girl was still seated by his side, never looking up, or taking her large dark eyes from his face—never stirring, except to re-arrange the poor bundle of rags which served as a pillow for the man’s weary head, or to pour out his medicine, or moisten his hot forehead with wet linen. The old woman sat by the great gaunt fireplace, where she had lighted a few sticks, and made