THE DARK-STREET MYSTERY.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 5027, 7 June 1889, Page 4

THE DARK-STREET MYSTERY.

LITERATURE

A DOCTOR'S STORY. CHAPTER VII. I was wide-awake now. My first impulse had been to feign sleep, so that this visitor could be hurried off the premises again. I had a nervous horror of visitors at any time ; was always glad of any excuse to evade them—any subterfuge ; but the last remark thrilled me, and I guessed I can hardly tell why—who had come to

see me. I opened my eyes, and looked at them both with well-feigned surprise. I rose slowly and bowed to the lady facing me—-a tall, dark-featured, handsome woman, leaning on a crutchhandled stick, and regardiag me with a keen, rapt interest. I was sure who it was before a word had passed her lips. This was one of the missing sisters from Dark Street —Hyacintha. ‘ Mr Lissamer,’ she said, in a quick, embarrassed tone. ‘ 1 believe I have the honour of addressing Mr Lissamer.’ ‘ Yes, madam. Fray be seated,’ ‘ I come on business of importance. I have just left Mr Keuch, the lessee of the theatre here. My name is—is Nash—the daughter of the actor who —who died suddenly.’ ‘Yes ; I thought it was you,’ I answered. ‘T am very glad you have come.’ ‘ I fear I have been guilty of a great piece of rudeness in stealing into your room in this way,’ she began, speaking with great volubility, as a person will do who has an awkward explanation or apology to get through; ‘but it was important that I should see you at once —highly important. I did not know how long I might stay here—hours or minutes—what was the next train back to London —anything.’ ‘ You have come from London today V ‘Yes.’ # } ‘ And return to London forthwith ? ’ ‘ Yes. That is imperative.’ ‘lndeed! Are you strong enough to undertake so long and fatiguing a journey, Miss JNash ? ’ I asked. Miss Nash was opening and shutting the cover of a book upon my table with a nervous hand. I could see that she was agitated, although possessed of considerable powers of self-repression. She was in deep mourning for her father, too ; she had been aware of his death, then —I thought at once. It had not fallen upon her as a surprise; she bad not come down to visit her father, and been confronted with the news that he was no longer of this world. ‘Oh! I am strong enough, Mr Lissamer. Nothing affects me much,’ she said, looking very steadily at me with two dark, reassuring eyes ; ‘ and, weak or strong, I must get back to my sister.’

* I should hare thought that she ’ I paused, feeling that I had no right to express an opinion, but she completed my sentence for me. ‘ Would have been better able to undertake the journey,’ she said. ‘ Well, yes, for she bears fatigue, troubles, disappointments, reverses, afflictions, better than I—with a stronger nerve and a more resolute outlook, thank God. But then she is younger, and has more faith. If it were not tor Delia, I But I am entrenching on your time, and not explaining the object of my visit. Pray forgive me. I need not tell you, Mr Lissamer, that it was only late last night that my sister and I beard of the death of our poor father—we have not been in a position to hear before. There have been circums'ances conspiring to keep us, for a while, dead to the stage world, or any world, for the matter of that. Last night we learned the bad news of bis death —the good news that he was cared for at the last, and that much kindness and interest had been evinced by you, a stranger to us all.’

‘ Not quite a stranger, Miss Nash,’ * I do not understand,’ she said, ‘ Did you know my father ? ’ ‘ Not till the day of his death. He remembered me some years since—on the night you met with a terrible accident at the Victoria Theatre. I was a surgeon, and was called in, and ’

‘ Yes, yes, I remember now,’ she said, interrupting me hastily ; * I understand. It was you, then, i was sure that I had seen your face somewhere—a face in a dream, I thought—when 1 came into this room, and saw you asleep in that chair. I heard the details of all that you have done for us from Mr Kench this morning, and I have come from my sister—and for my sister and myself—to say thank you, and God bless you.’ ‘My dear Miss Nash, I am not deserving of any thanks in this matter, lam not indeed. I was affected by the sudden death of a man whom I had seen only an hour or two before in perfect health. I ’ And then I came to a full stop, my voice having deserted me, and I cursed ray unlooked-for dumbness under my breath, and thought what a fool I must look, to be gasping like a fresh-caught trout there.

She did not appear to notice this. She went on very calmly now. < I have called to pay what is due from us to you —what is due in money, I mean, Mr Lissamer ; what is due in the way of gratitude it is beyond our power ever to repay. You must be one man in a hundred thousand.’ *ls that an advantage to me —or a a compliment ? ’ I asked lightly ; but the face did not break into a smile. It was not laughing days with her. ‘ I don’t know. Very likely not,’ she replied. ‘ Such a man as you could be very easily imposed upon, I should think.’

I did not like the remark. This was worse than anything that George Fairfax would have said on the strength of a friendship dating from the days ’■when we walked the hospitals together.

‘ But one bad better be imposed upon now and then, than be shut up within himsell and his own sharpness like a razor. II I were a man I would rather be a Don Quixote than a Richelieu.’

‘lt is preferable,’ I said. That was a nicer remark than the one preceding, though it required some thinking over too. ‘At all events, you are our creditor ; we are owing you money, and I fear at a time when money is always wanted' most —at a time of enforced idleness and illness.’

Was I looking so very hard up, I wondered, now ? ‘ And neither Delia nor I was likely to rest contentedly under such a debt of obligation as you bad kindly put upon us. It was important that this should be settled—that I should come in person to repay you, to see you, to thank you with all our hearts.’ ‘ It is quite impossible you can pay me to-day, Miss Nash.’ ‘ Why not ? ’ was the quick inquiry to this.

‘ I have not gone through the accounts —I have no items of the expenditure handy—l really do not know what you owe me.’ ‘ Cannot you make a guess ? ’ ‘ Oh, no.’ ‘ls it within—twenty pounds ? ’ she asked almost anxiously, * I really cannot say. No so much as that, though, I am sure.’ Hyacintha Nash seemed to me to draw a deep breath of relief at this announcement, though she said : ‘ There were some few outstanding debts—which you have paid—of my fEtbsr^s ‘Yes, a few,’ I said. ‘But pray leave the whole matter to-day. If you will give me your address, I will write to-morrow or the day following.’

(To he Continued .}