"My secret is yours, Mr. Colmore," said he. "I have only myself to
blame for relaxing my precautions. Half confidences are worse than no
confidences, and so you may know all since you know so much. The story
may go where you will when I have passed away, but until then I rely
upon your sense of honour that no human soul shall hear it from your
lips. I am proud still--God help me!--or, at least, I am proud enough
to resent that pity which this story would draw upon me. I have smiled
at envy, and disregarded hatred, but pity is more than I can tolerate. "You have heard the source from which the voice comes--that voice which
has, as I understand, excited so much curiosity in my household. I am
aware of the rumours to which it has given rise. These speculations,
whether scandalous or superstitious, are such as I can disregard and
forgive. What I should never forgive would be a disloyal spying and
eavesdropping in order to satisfy an illicit curiosity. But of that,
Mr. Colmore, I acquit you. "When I was a young man, sir, many years younger than you are now, I
was launched upon town without a friend or adviser, and with a purse
which brought only too many false friends and false advisers to my
side. I drank deeply of the wine of life--if there is a man living who
has drunk more deeply he is not a man whom I envy. My purse suffered,
my character suffered, my constitution suffered, stimulants became a
necessity to me, I was a creature from whom my memory recoils. And it
was at that time, the time of my blackest degradation, that God sent
into my life the gentlest, sweetest spirit that ever descended as a
ministering angel from above. She loved me, broken as I was, loved me,
and spent her life in making a man once more of that which had degraded
itself to the level of the beasts. "But a fell disease struck her, and she withered away before my eyes. In the hour of her agony it was never of herself, of her own sufferings
and her own death that she thought. It was all of me. The one pang
which her fate brought to her was the fear that when her influence was
removed I should revert to that which I had been. It was in vain that
I made oath to her that no drop of wine would ever cross my lips. She
knew only too well the hold that the devil had upon me--she who had
striven so to loosen it--and it haunted her night and day the thought
that my soul might again be within his grip. "It was from some friend's gossip of the sick room that she heard of
this invention--this phonograph--and with the quick insight of a loving
woman she saw how she might use it for her ends. She sent me to London
to procure the best which money could buy. With her dying breath she
gasped into it the words which have held me straight ever since. Lonely and broken, what else have I in all the world to uphold me? But
it is enough. Please God, I shall face her without shame when He is
pleased to reunite us! That is my secret, Mr. Colmore, and whilst I
live I leave it in your keeping." The Black Doctor

Bishop's Crossing is a small village lying ten miles in a
south-westerly direction from Liverpool. Here in the early seventies
there settled a doctor named Aloysius Lana. Nothing was known locally
either of his antecedents or of the reasons which had prompted him to
come to this Lancashire hamlet. Two facts only were certain about him;
the one that he had gained his medical qualification with some
distinction at Glasgow; the other that he came undoubtedly of a
tropical race, and was so dark that he might almost have had a strain
of the Indian in his composition. His predominant features were,
however, European, and he possessed a stately courtesy and carriage
which suggested a Spanish extraction. A swarthy skin, raven-black
hair, and dark, sparkling eyes under a pair of heavily-tufted brows
made a strange contrast to the flaxen or chestnut rustics of England,
and the newcomer was soon known as "The Black Doctor of Bishop's
Crossing." At first it was a term of ridicule and reproach; as the
years went on it became a title of honour which was familiar to the
whole countryside, and extended far beyond the narrow confines of the
village. For the newcomer proved himself to be a capable surgeon and an
accomplished physician. The practice of that district had been in the
hands of Edward Rowe, the son of Sir William Rowe, the Liverpool
consultant, but he had not inherited the talents of his father, and Dr.
Lana, with his advantages of presence and of manner, soon beat him out
of the field. Dr. Lana's social success was as rapid as his
professional. A remarkable surgical cure in the case of the Hon. James
Lowry, the second son of Lord Belton, was the means of introducing him
to county society, where he became a favourite through the charm of his
conversation and the elegance of his manners. An absence of
antecedents and of relatives is sometimes an aid rather than an
impediment to social advancement, and the distinguished individuality
of the handsome doctor was its own recommendation. His patients had one fault--and one fault only--to find with him. He
appeared to be a confirmed bachelor. This was the more remarkable
since the house which he occupied was a large one, and it was known
that his success in practice had enabled him to save considerable sums. At first the local matchmakers were continually coupling his name with
one or other of the eligible ladies, but as years passed and Dr. Lana
remained unmarried, it came to be generally understood that for some
reason he must remain a bachelor. Some even went so far as to assert
that he was already married, and that it was in order to escape the
consequence of an early misalliance that he had buried himself at
Bishop's Crossing. And, then, just as the matchmakers had finally given
him up in despair, his engagement was suddenly announced to Miss
Frances Morton, of Leigh Hall. Miss Morton was a young lady who was well known upon the country-side,
her father, James Haldane Morton, having been the Squire of Bishop's
Crossing. Both her parents were, however, dead, and she lived with her
only brother, Arthur Morton, who had inherited the family estate. In
person Miss Morton was tall and stately, and she was famous for her
quick, impetuous nature and for her strength of character. She met Dr.
Lana at a garden-party, and a friendship, which quickly ripened into
love, sprang up between them. Nothing could exceed their devotion to
each other. There was some discrepancy in age, he being thirty-seven,
and she twenty-four; but, save in that one respect, there was no
possible objection to be found with the match. The engagement was in
February, and it was arranged that the marriage should take place in
August. Upon the 3rd of June Dr. Lana received a letter from abroad. In a small
village the postmaster is also in a position to be the gossip-master,
and Mr. Bankley, of Bishop's Crossing, had many of the secrets of his
neighbours in his possession.