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Page 73
"Doctor Gordon, you are morbid," James said, looking at him uneasily.
"How do you know I am morbid? Then that other--Mendon. Who is to say
that I was right even about that? It is probable I saved your life, and
possibly my own, as well as Clemency from misery. But who can say that
death would not have been better for both you and me than life, and even
misery for Clemency had that man lived? God had allowed him life upon
the earth. I may have shortened that life. He was a monster of
wickedness, but who can say that he was not a weapon of God, and that I
have not done incalculable mischief by depriving him of that weapon?
There is only one consolation which I have with regard to him; unless my
diagnosis was entirely at fault, he would have had that attack of
erysipelas anyway. I hardly think I deceive myself with regard to that,
and there is a very probable chance that the attack would have been
fatal. He had nearly lost his life twice before with the same disease.
That I know, and I do not think that unless the poison was already in
his blood, it would have developed so rapidly from that slight bruise.
So far as the simple wound from the dog went, he was in no danger
whatever. I have that consolation in his case, in not being absolutely
certain that I caused his death; I am not even absolutely sure that I
hastened it by any appreciable time. He might have been attacked that
very night with the disease. Still there is, and always will be, the
slight doubt."
"I don't think you ought to brood over that, Doctor Gordon," James said
soothingly. He went close to the older man and laid a hand upon his
shoulder. Gordon looked up at him, and his face was convulsed. He spoke
with solemn and tragic emphasis. "It is not for mortal man to interfere
with the ways of God, and he does so at his own peril," he said.
CHAPTER XIV
The confidence which Gordon had reposed in James seemed for a time to
have given him a measure of relief. While he never for an instant
appeared like his old self, while the games of euchre at Georgie K.'s
were not resumed, nor the boyish enjoyment of things, which James now
recognized to have been simply feverish attempts to live through the
horrible ordeal of his life and keep his sanity, while he had now
settled down into a state of austere gloom, yet he begun again to attend
to his practice and to take interest in it. Clemency remained away for a
week. Then Gordon brought her home. She was at the dinner-table that
night when James returned rather late from a call on a far-off patient.
She simply said, "Good evening! Doctor Elliot," as if he had been the
merest acquaintance, and went on to serve his soup. James gave her a
bewildered, half-grieved, half-angered look, which she seemed not to
notice. Immediately after dinner she went to her own room. James,
smoking with Gordon in the office, heard her go upstairs. Gordon nodded
at James through the cloud of smoke.
"She has taken a notion, my son," he said. "She told me on the way home
that she wished to break the engagement with you. She would give no
reason. She wished me to tell you. I don't take her seriously. She cares
as much for you as ever. Girls are queer cattle. She has some utterly
unimaginable idea in her head, which will run itself out. If I were you
I would pay no attention to it. Simply take her at her word, and let her
alone for a little while, and she herself will urge you for a
reconciliation. I know the child. She simply cannot remain at odds for
any length of time with any one whom she loves, and she does love you;
but she is freakish, and at times inclined to strain at her bit. Perhaps
Annie Lipton has been putting ideas into her head against marriage in
general. She may have frightened her, and they may have sworn celibacy
together in the watches of the night. Girls hatch more mischief when
they ought to be asleep. They are queer cattle."
"The trouble began before Clemency went away," James said soberly. He
was quite pale.
"Trouble? What trouble?"
"I don't know. All I know is, that the very day when Clemency went away
she seemed changed to me. You remember how she called out good-by, and I
did not go out to help her off as I should naturally have done."
"Yes, I do remember that, and I did wonder at your not going."
"I did not go because I was quite sure that she did not wish it. She had
been very curt with me, and had shown me unmistakably that my attentions
were not welcome."
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