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Page 30
James thought again of Clemency's little white face. "Yes," he said, "I
am sure."
"You have no doubt at all?"
"None. The man had his face staring into the room. He did not seem to
see me, but looked past me at the bed."
"He might easily have thought that room, being on the ground floor and
accessible to night-calls, was mine," said Doctor Gordon, as if to
himself.
"I thought how easily he could have climbed up one of the piazza posts
to her room," said James.
The Doctor started. "Yes, that is so," he said. "He might have had two
motives. That is so."
The next call was at a patient's who had a slight attack of grippe.
Doctor Gordon left James there, saying that he would make another call
and be back for him directly. James noticed how he urged the horses out
of the drive at almost a run. He was back soon, and James having made up
his prescription, went out and got into the sleigh. Doctor Gordon looked
at him gloomily. "He is no longer where he has been staying," he said,
and his face settled into a stern melancholy. That evening, although the
storm continued, he suggested a visit to Georgie K.'s; and at supper
time he insisted upon Clemency's occupying another room that night. "The
wind is on your side of the house," he said, "and I am afraid you will
take more cold." Clemency stared and pouted, then said, "All right,
Uncle Tom!"
CHAPTER VI
Even the apple-jack and euchre at Georgie K.'s were not sufficient to
entirely establish Doctor Gordon in his devil-may-care mood. Georgie K.
kept looking at him with solicitation, which had something tender about
it. "Don't you feel well, Doc?" he asked.
"Never felt better in my life," returned Gordon quickly. "To-night I am
feeling particularly good, because I really think I have evolved an
utterly new theory of death and disease which ought to make me famous,
if I ever get a chance to write a book about it."
Georgie K. stared at him inquiringly.
"I don't know that you will understand, old man," said Gordon, "but here
it is. It is simple in one way. Nobody will deny that we come of the
earth; well, we are sick and die of the earth. We grow old and weary and
drop into our graves, because of the tremendous, though unconscious and
involuntary, wear upon nerves and muscles and emotion which is required
to keep us here at all. Gravitation kills us all in the end, just as
surely as if we fell off a precipice. Gravitation is the destroyer, and
gravitation is earth-force. The same monster which produces us devours
us. That's so. I hope I shall get a chance to write that book. Clubs are
trumps; pass."
"Sure you are well, Doc?" inquired Georgie K., again scowling anxiously.
"Never felt better, didn't I just say so? You are a regular old hen,
Georgie K. You cluck at a fellow like a setting hen at one chicken."
Still Doctor Gordon's gloomy face, although he tried to be jocular, did
not relax. Going home late that night, or rather early next morning, he
laid his hand heavily on James's shoulder.
"Boy, I am about at the finish!" he groaned out.
"Now, see here, Doctor Gordon, can't I be of some assistance if you were
to tell me?" asked James. He passed his hand under the older man's arm,
and helped him through a snowdrift as if he had been his father. A great
compassion filled his heart.
But Gordon only groaned out a great sigh. "No," he said. "Secrecy is the
one shield I have. I don't say weapon, but shield. In these latter days
we try to content ourselves with shields; and secrecy is the strongest
shield on earth. If I were going to commit a crime, I should never even
intimate the slightest motive for it to any man living. I should trust
no man living to help me through with it."
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