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

look so white; perhaps it’s better as it is. Well, as I was saying, we’ve been sweethearts for a many year, and often when I haven’t been able to get work, maybe sometimes when I haven’t been willing, when I’ve been lazy, or on the drink, or among bad companions, this lass has kept a shelter over me, and given me bread to eat with the labour of her own hands. She’s been true to me. I could tell you how true, but there’s something about the corners of your mouth that makes me think you wouldn’t care to hear it. But if you want me to die in peace, promise me this—that as long as you’ve got a shilling she shall never be without a sixpence; that as long as you’ve got a roof to cover your head she shall never be without a shelter. Promise!”

      He tightened his grasp convulsively upon his brother’s wrist. That gentleman made an effort to look him full in the face; but not seeming to relish the searching gaze of the dying man’s eyes, Mr. Jabez North was compelled to drop his own.

      “Come,” said Jim; “promise—swear to me, by all you hold sacred, that you’ll do this.”

      “I swear!” said Jabez, solemnly.

      “And if you break your oath,” added his brother, “never come anigh the place where I’m buried, for I’ll rise out of my grave and haunt you.”

      The dying man fell back exhausted on his pillow. The girl poured out some medicine and gave it to him, while Jabez walked to the door, and looked up at the sky.

      A very dark sky for a night in June. A wide black canopy hung over the earth, and as yet there was not one feeble star to break the inky darkness. A threatening night—the low murmuring of whose sultry wind moaned and whispered prophecies of a coming storm. Never had the blindness of Blind Peter been darker than to-night. You could scarcely see your hand before you. A wretched woman who had just fetched half-a-quartern of gin from the nearest public-house, though a denizen of the place, and familiar with every broken flag-stone and crumbling brick, stumbled over her own threshold, and spilt a portion of the precious liquid.

      It would have been difficult to imagine either the heavens or the earth under a darker aspect in the month of June. Not so, however, thought Mr. Jabez North; for, after contemplating the sky for some moments in silence, he exclaimed—“A fine night! A glorious night! It could not be better!”

      A figure, one shade darker than the night, came between him and the darkness. It was the doctor, who said—

      “Well, sir, I’m glad you think it a fine night; but I must beg to differ with you on the subject, for I never remember seeing a blacker sky, or one that threatened a more terrible storm at this season of the year.”

      “I was scarcely thinking of what I was saying, doctor. That poor man in there——”

      “Ah, yes; poor fellow! I doubt if he’ll witness the storm, near as it seems to be. I suppose you take some interest in him on account of his extraordinary likeness to you?”

      “That would be rather an egotistical reason for being interested in him. Common humanity induced me to come down to this wretched place, to see if I could be of any service to the poor creature.”

      “The action does you credit, sir,” said the doctor. “And now for my patient.”

      It was with a very grave face that the medical man looked at poor Jim, who had, by this time, fallen into a fitful and restless slumber; and when Jabez drew him aside to ask his opinion, he said,—“If he lives through the next half-hour I shall be surprised. Where is the old woman—his grandmother?”

      “I haven’t seen her this evening,” answered Jabez. And then, turning to the girl, he asked her if she knew where the old woman was.

      “No; she went out some time ago, and didn’t say where she was going. She’s not quite right in her mind, you know, sir, and often goes out after dark.”

      The doctor seated himself on a broken chair, near the mattress on which the sick man lay. Only one feeble guttering candle, with a long, top-heavy wick, lighted the dismal and comfortless room. Jabez paced up and down with that soft step of which we have before spoken. Although in his character of a philosopher the death of a fellow-creature could scarcely have been very distressing to him, there was an uneasiness in his manner on this night which he could not altogether conceal. He looked from the doctor to the girl, and from the girl to his sick brother. Sometimes he paused in his walk up and down the room to peer out at the open door. Once he stooped over the feeble candle to look at his watch. There was a listening expression too in his eyes; an uneasy twitching about his mouth; and at times he could scarcely suppress a tremulous action of his slender fingers, which bespoke impatience and agitation. Presently the clocks of Slopperton chimed the first quarter after ten. On hearing this, Jabez drew the medical man aside, and whispered to him,—

      “Are there no means,” he said, “of getting that poor girl out of the way? She is very much attached to that unfortunate creature; and if he dies, I fear there will be a terrible scene. It would be an act of mercy to remove her by some stratagem or other. How can we get her away till it is all over?”

      “I think I can manage it,” said the doctor. “My partner has a surgery at the other end of the town; I will send her there.”

      He returned to the bedside, and presently said,—

      “Look here, my good girl; I am going to write a prescription for something which I think will do our patient good. Will you take it for me, and get the medicine made up?”

      The girl looked at him with an appealing glance in her mournful eyes.

      “I don’t like to leave him, sir.”

      “But if it’s for his good, my dear?”

      “Yes, yes, sir. You’re very kind. I will go. I can run all the way. And you won’t leave him while I’m gone, will you, sir?”

      “No, my good girl, I won’t. There, there; here’s the prescription. It’s written in pencil, but the assistant will understand it. Now listen, while I tell you where to find the surgery.”

      He gave her the direction; and after a lingering and mournful look at her lover, who still slept, she left the house, and darted off in the direction of Slopperton.

      “If she runs as fast as that all the way,” said Jabez, as he watched her receding figure, “she will be back in less than an hour.”

      “Then she will find him either past all help, or better,” replied the doctor.

      Jabez’s pale face turned white as death at this word “better.”

      “Better!” he said. “Is there any chance of his recovery?”

      “There are wonderful chances in this race between life and death. This sleep may be a crisis. If he wakes, there may be a faint hope of his living.”

      Jabez’s hand shook like a leaf. He turned his back to the doctor, walked once up and down the room, and then asked, with his old calmness,—

      “And you, sir—you, whose time is of such value to so many sick persons—you can afford to desert them all, and remain here, watching this man?”

      “His case is a singular one, and interests me. Besides, I do not know that I have any patient in imminent danger to-night. My assistant has my address, and would send for me were my services peculiarly needed.”

      “I will go out and smoke a cigar,” said Jabez, after a pause. “I can scarcely support this sick room, and the suspense of this terrible conflict between life and death.”

      He strode out into the darkness, was absent about five minutes, and returned.

      “Your cigar did not last long,” remarked the doctor. “You are a quick smoker. Bad for the system, sir.”

      “My cigar was a bad one. I threw it away.”

      Shortly afterwards there was a knock at the door, and a ragged vagabond-looking boy, peeping in, asked,—

      “Is Mr. Saunders the