The Diamond Coterie Part 21

"It's about the way I feel, too," said the new comer, dropping wearily into the easy chair pushed toward him. "Heath, you are a good fellow, and I can't blame you for thinking me a cad. Don't stop your smoke."

"Why as to that," replied the doctor, easily, and taking a long pull at his pipe, "we are all cads, more or less, in certain emergencies, and yours was an unusually severe blow. We all have to take them in some shape or other, at one time, or another; these soft hands. .h.i.t hard, but--it's the penalty we pay for being sons of Adam. Although now that I come to think of it, I can't recall that I ever insisted upon being a son of Adam."

"Why!" said Raymond Vandyck, opening his eyes in languid surprise, "you talk as if _you_ had received one of those hard hits."

"So I have, my boy; so I have," he replied _debonairly_. "If I were a woman I would get out a fresh handkerchief and tell you all about it.

Being a man I--smoke."

Young Vandyck sighed heavily, and picked up a newspaper, running his eye listlessly over the columns. Here was another upon whom the flight of Sybil Lamotte had fallen a heavy blow. He had loved Sybil since they were boy and girl, and lately for a few short months they had been betrothed, then Sybil had asked to be released, and in such a manner that it left him no room for remonstrance. The engagement had been broken, but the young man had not quite abandoned hope.

Now, however, hope had deserted him. Sybil was lost to him utterly, and hearing the news of her flight he had rushed into Doctor Heath's presence a temporary madman. He could not have found a wiser or more sympathetic friend and adviser, and he fully realized this fact. The doctor's patience, delicacy and discretion had screened him from the prying eyes and prating tongues of the curious ones, who were anxious to probe his wounds, and see how "Vandyck would take it," and had made him his firm friend for always.

Ever since the advent of Doctor Heath, Vandyck had been one of his warmest admirers, and this admiration had now ripened into a sincere and lasting friends.h.i.+p.

"You are a good fellow, Heath," said Vandyck, suddenly, throwing down his paper. "I want to tell you that I appreciate such kindness as you did me. I don't suppose you would ever go off your head like that. I shan't again."

"No, I don't think you will," responded the doctor soberly. "As for going off my head, Lord bless you, man, it's in the temperament. I might never lose my head in just that way. We're not made alike, you see. Now I should be struck with a dumb devil, and grow surly and cynical as time went on, and of all contemptible men a cynic is the worst. You will have your burst of pa.s.sion, and carry a tender spot to your grave, but you can't squeeze all the suns.h.i.+ne out of your soul, any more than out of your Saxon face."

Vandyck laughed dismally.

"It's hard lines, however," he said. "But I'm bound to face the music.

Only--I wish I could understand it."

"So do all her friends. Ray, let me give you a little advice."

"Well."

"After a little, go call on Miss Wardour and talk with her about this affair. I think she knows as much as is known, and I am certain she has not lost her faith in her friend."

"Thank you, Heath; I will."

Just here the office door admitted another visitor in the form of Francis Lamotte.

He, too, looked pale and worn, but he carried his head erect, if not with some defiance. "Do, Heath. Morning, Vandyck," he mumbled, flinging himself upon a settee with scant ceremony. "You will excuse me from asking 'what's the news?'"

"I should ask what's the matter?" retorted Clifford Heath, eyeing him closely.

"Fix me up one of your potions, Heath," replied Francis, drawing a hard deep breath. "I've had another of those cursed attacks."

Dr. Heath arose and went slowly toward a cabinet, slowly unlocked it and then turned and surveyed his patient.

"Another attack," he said somewhat severely, "the second one in three days, and not a light one, if I can judge. Let me tell you, Lamotte, you must not have a third of these attacks for some time to come."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "You must not have a third attack."]

"I won't," replied Lamotte, with a nervous laugh. "This one has done me up; I feel weak as a kitten, meek as a lamb."

"Humph," this from Doctor Heath, who proceeded to drop into a druggist's gla.s.s, sundry globules of dark liquid, which he qualified with other globules from another bottle, and then half filling the gla.s.s with some pale brandy, handed it to Lamotte who drained it off eagerly.

"Physician, heal thyself," quoted Raymond Vandyck, watching the patient with some interest. "Why don't you do your own dosing, Lamotte?"

"I'm shaky," replied Lamotte, lifting an unsteady hand. "And then we are advised to have faith in our physician. I should swallow my own mixture with fear and trembling."

"And pour it down your neighbor's throat with entire satisfaction,"

interpolated Doctor Heath.

"Precisely, just as you pour this stuff down mine. Thanks, Heath,"

handing back the gla.s.s. "Now then, we are all friends here, and you two know what I wish to learn. Heath," shading his eyes with his hand as he reclined on the settee. "I came back, from a two day's tramp about the country in search of Miss Wardour's robbers, or of traces of them, this morning. Let that pa.s.s. I called at Wardour Place first of all, have just come from there in fact--and Constance tells me--"

He paused as if struggling with some emotion, and Ray Vandyck stirred uneasily, flushed slightly, and partially turned away his face. Only Clifford Heath retained his stoical calm.

"Well!" he said coolly, "Miss Wardour tells you--what?"

"That my sister has run--away."

"Oh! Well, Lamotte, I am glad you know it. It's a hard story to tell a friend."

"So thought Constance, and she would give me no particulars, she told me," letting his hand fall from before his face, "to come to you."

"And why to me?" coldly.

"She said that you knew the particulars--that you brought her the news."

"True; I did. Still it's a hard story to tell, Lamotte."

"And no one will tell it more kindly, I know. Say on, Heath; don't spare me, or mind Vandyck's presence--I don't. I know that I must hear this thing, and I know that Ray is my friend. Go on, Heath; get it over soon."

Raymond Vandyck arose and walked to the window, standing with his back toward them while Doctor Heath, in a plain, straightforward, kindly manner, told the story of Sybil's flight, just as he had told it to Constance Wardour.

For a long time after the story was done, Lamotte lay with his face buried in his arms, silent and motionless, while young Vandyck stood like a graven image at his post by the window.

Finally, Lamotte brought himself to a sitting posture, and, with the look and tone of a man utterly crushed, said:

"Thank you, Heath. You have done me a kindness. This is the most terrible, most unheard of thing. My poor sister must be mad. She has _not_ been herself, now that I remember, for some weeks. Something has been preying upon her spirits. There has been--by heavens! Ray, Ray Vandyck, can you guess at the cause of this madness?"

Raymond Vandyck wheeled suddenly, and came close to his interlocutor, the hot, angry blood surging to his face.

"There was plenty of 'method in this madness,'" he sneered. "As to the _cause_, it may not be so hard to discover as you seem to imagine." And, before they could recover from their astonishment, he was out and away, banging the door fiercely as he went.

For a moment the lurid light gleamed in Frank Lamotte's eye, and it seemed that another "attack" was about to seize him, but he calmed himself with a mighty effort, and turning toward Doctor Heath, said, plaintively:

"Has all the world run mad, Heath? What the devil does that fellow mean?"

"I know no more than you, Lamotte," said the doctor, upon whose face sat a look of genuine surprise. "I don't think he quite knows himself. He has been sadly worked up by this affair."

"Humph! I suppose so. Well, for Sybil's sake, I forgive him, this once; but--I hope he will outgrow these hallucinations."

"Doubtless he will," replied the doctor, somewhat drily. "I say, Lamotte, you had better run down to my house, and turn in for a couple of hours; you look done up,--and you can't stand much more of this sort of thing. I must go now, to see old Mrs. Grady, over at the mills."