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 drank
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 new-comer 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 country-side, and extended far beyond
the narrow confines of the village. For the new-comer 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 match-makers 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 match-makers 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. Of this particular letter he remarked only
that it was in a curious envelope, that it was in a man’s handwriting,
that the postscript was Buenos Ayres, and the stamp of the Argentine
Republic. It was the first letter which he had ever known Dr. Lana to
have from abroad, and this was the reason why his attention was
particularly called to it before he handed it to the local postman. It
was delivered by the evening delivery of that date. Next morning—that is, upon the 4th of June—Dr. Lana called upon Miss
Morton, and a long interview followed, from which he was observed to
return in a state of great agitation. Miss Morton remained in her room
all that day, and her maid found her several times in tears. In the
course of a week it was an open secret to the whole village that the
engagement was at an end, that Dr. Lana had behaved shamefully to the
young lady, and that Arthur Morton, her brother, was talking of
horse-whipping him.