To step aside is human

Chapter I The Physician

The day was very hot — at least it had been very hot — a breathless July day, with the sun beating down upon the white pavements, and not a breath of air stirring in the close London street. It had been the hottest day of the season. It was draw ing to a close now, but the heat was still un bearable. Two young men. lounging at an open window of a dull street in Piccadilly, had thrown their coats off, and were smoking in their shirt sleeves for coolness. The windows were open to the ground, and from Piccadilly in the distance came the sound of the continual rolling of cabs, and the tread of many feet. The men had been dining together ; they had left the table and had taken their chairs over to the window. There was a strong likeness between them ; anyone could see they were brothers. Both A were handsome, well -set-up and fresh coloured ; but there was more resolution in the face of the elder brother — a more responsible face altogether.

The conversation had not taken an altogether pleasant turn ; there was a cloud on the handsome face of the elder brother. He was a physician by profession, and already stood near, very near, the top of the tree in his own particular line. He was a specialist in nervous diseases. There was a corresponding cloud on the face of the younger man, as he puffed the smoke from his cigar between his lips with an injured, not to say sulky, air. It was a handsome, ruddy, good-tempered face, easy-going and self-loving, and his figure was stout, almost round, much too stout for a man of twenty-seven. " You may say what you like, Ned, but it was not my fault the practice went to the deuce. He should have come back sooner. A fellow can only do what he can," he said petulantly, in reply to a remark made by the other.

" He would have come back fast enough if he had been able, if it hadn't been for that accident — it was a wonder, poor fellow, he ever came back at all — but he couldn't believe, after what I had said about you, that you would let the practice go to the dogs. Only away seven months, and to come back and find the practice gone. It took him seven years to get it together, and you let it slip between your fingers in seven months." The physician spoke slowly, contemplatively, pausing to emit short whiffs of smoke between his lips every now and again. He was not moved by anger ; it was much too hot a day to be angry ; but there was a mild remonstrance in his tone, almost amounting to a reproof. " It was hard luck on the poor devil, but haDged if I could help it ! If you go on preach ing for a week, Ned, it won't mend matters.

I did my best — a fellow can't do more. I never was in such a beastly hole in my life. Seven months in an agricultural parish with not a soul to speak to but the parson ! Wonder I didn't go out of my mind They had a capital billiard-table at the ' Crown,' and a pretty barmaid. If it hadn't been for that solatium, I couldn't have stood it for a month." " Exactly ! that explains matters," said the physician, coldly. " You played billiards all day, and talked to the pretty barmaid at the ' Crown ' when you ought to have been attending to poor Osborne's patients. For all you cared, so long as you could amuse yourself, the practice might go to the dogs ! It is not the way, Dick, to get on. If a young man fails in the first respon sible position that he undertakes, no matter if he is not to blame, he does not easily get another.

You have had your chance, and you have failed. What do you propose to do in the future ? " " Hanged if I know ! Get a berth on board a steamer — that would suit me better than a beastly hole of a country village. A fellow might as well be buried alive." " On board a steamer ! " the physician repeated, thoughtfully. " There would be no barmaid there, and no billiard -table — " " Hang it, Ned, you needn't be so hard on a fellow ! " Dick said, sulkily. He had come to Half Moon Street to dine, not to be bullied. The physician slowly knocked the ashes off his cigar. He was thinking. " You would like to take a voyage — a long voyage — on board a steamer, you say ? It has just occurred to me — I don't know if you are really the right person, if you are to be trusted — but it has occurred to me that you might, after all, have another chance.

I am looking out for an intelligent medical man, accustomed to the treatment of nervous diseases, to accompany a patient on a sea voyage. It is an unusual case, and important issues are at stake. The course of treatment I prescribe must be faithfully carried out. It is of no use for anyone to undertake the post unless he is prepared to abide faithfully by his instructions — to be watchful and vigilant. The patient has ample means, and expense will not be considered. If you accept the post, if you are prepared to abide loyally by the instructions I give you, to watch the case with unflagging interest and devotion, and the result is such as I fully hope and expect, as I have every contidence in expecting, your fortune will be made, Dick." " Right you are ! " Dick Lampen cried, jumping up from his seat with something like animation, and flinging the end of his cigar away.

"This is the boy for your money ! Who's the patient, and when shall we start ? " He was in a great hurry to be off He wanted to start at once. The physician smiled at his eagerness. " Not so fast. You have not heard any thing about the case. Wait until you know the particulars." " Hang the particulars ! If there's money in it, I'm the boy for you." He was outspoken at anyrate, The physician lighted a fresh cigar, and while he sat smoking it by the open window, and the dusk fell, and the cabs rolled by in Piccadilly, he gave a detailed history of " the case." It was an interesting case. A young man of wealth and position, the owner of a fine estate, on the threshold of manhood had been attacked by strange and alarming symptoms. He had become quite suddenly, without any previous warning, subject to what in the old days would have been called fits of "possession."

"An evil spirit entered into him and tare him," as men would have said of old. It was not content with " tearing " him ; it inflamed him to madness while the fit was upon him, and it left him, when it passed away, faint and exhausted as one dead. It was a real possession for the time, and no physician's skill had been able to cure it. Specialists in nervous diseases had experimented upon it. They could only experiment, for the thing was new — yet old — and they gave it a name. They called it epilepsy — at least, a varia tion of that unhappy affliction, " a sport " of the baleful heritage of hereditary disease. This young man had been three years subject to these visitations, and, during the three years, he had suffered many things of many physicians. At present he was under the care of Doctor Lampen, who thought — who believed — who had the most sanguine belief that if anyone could be found to carry out the treatment he prescribed for a certain length of time, the cure was sure — was certain.

Dick Lampen listened to his brother's history of " the case " with something like interest. He no longer lounged in his chair and put his feet up idly on the window ledge. He had been sitting in this elegant and becoming attitude for the last hour, and looking lazily down at the people passing below in the street. When the physician had finished his long detailed account of this interesting case, he was sitting upright in his chair, and his legs were no longer disposed gracefully on the window ledge, and he had thrown his second cigar away. " By Jove ! " he said with more animation than he had shown when his own shortcomings had been under discussion. " By Jove ! it's a game worth winning. It's like fighting the devil him self ; disputing the ground with him, inch by inch." " Yes," said the other, " it is fighting the devil.

I am not quite sure that the old fellows were not right in calling it ' a possession ' — to see the poor wretch when the fit is on him, you could give it no other name. And yet— and yet— I think it can be fought and driven out." " You believe that a cure is possible ? " " I am sure that it is possible, if my instructions are carried out." "Then, I'm the man for you; there is nothing I should enjoy so much as a hand-to-hand fight with the devil— if I were sure to win in the end." The physician smiled. "The victory will be in your own hand," he said, " but you must make no mistake ; you must never cease watching till the cure is effected ; you must never leave your man alone ; you must never trust anyone, not even his own attendant, who will accompany him You must keep a watch over him for the first appearance of the symptoms, day and night, and you must always have your remedies at hand.

You must attend honestly and loyally to your instructions. Except, unless anything unforeseen arises— and I think I have anticipated every emergency — you must not have a mind of your own. You must be content to obey — " " Of course I'll obey the instructions ! " inter rupted the younger man, impatiently; "really and honestly ; I'll swear it, if you like ! What could I gain by evading them ? " " You could not gain anything, but you could lose a great deal. If Wilfrid Lawless could be cured — could come back to the world a sound man — he would not consider any amount too much to give for his deliverance — not half his fortune." Dr Lampen took his brother round the next morning to introduce him to his interesting patient. He had not far to take him, only to St James' Street, where Wilfrid Lawless was living in chambers.

The London physician who walked down St James' Street in the July sunshine, wearing his professional black frock-coat, and his professional glossy silk hat, and his grave, professional smile, was a different person to the man who was loung ing in his shirt-sleeves at the window in Half Moon Street the night before. He was not smoking now, and he did not lounge as he walked in the middle of the broad pavement with the air of a man who could have bought up the whole street if he had been in the mind. A big, broad-shouldered man, with the conscious superiority of the physician in his grey eyes, as if he could see through everybody he met, and put his white forefinger on the spot of moral or physical disease they carried about with them, which their nearest friends had never suspected. It is dreadful that a man should have this know ledge; should look through one like a looking glass.

Dick Lampen had not this uncomfortable gift, or if he had, he did not exercise it. He walked beside his elder brother with his shabby coat, which had not been at all carefully brushed that morning, flying open, and a flower in his button-hole. He had stopped on the way to buy a rosebud of a flower-girl at the corner of Piccadilly ; he had given her sixpence for it, and told her to keep the change, and he had to run down St James' Street in a most undignified way to overtake his brother, and con sequently he was hot and flustered and perspiring when he stopped at the door of the interesting patient, whose " case " they had been discussing overnight.

Chapter II Too Late

Wilfrid Lawless occupied a handsome suite of rooms on the first floor of a jeweller's shop in St James' Street. They were rooms that only a rich man could occupy, and they were filled with every kind of rare and costly article of luxury that money could buy. The tenant of the rooms was a collector of bric a-brac. His physicians had recommended to him the cultivation of a hubby. During the three years he had been afflicted, Wilfrid Lawless had culti vated many hobbies. He had collected ivories and jade and enamels and china and prints and miniatures and snufl'-boxes, and a variety of other things, during these three years. His object in having chambers in St James' Street was to be near the rooms of Messrs Christie, Manson & Woods, where, during the London season, the choicest things in the world are collected together for sale.

He had been " picking up " things at Christie's all through the summer — china and bronzes and bric a-brac, and every available space in the room was covered with the things he had " picked up." Some of his most recent purchases, the things that had been knocked down to him yesterday, were on his breakfast-table ; some old Chelsea figures and a Worcester bowl with a rare mark. He was ex amining the mark on the bowl when his visitors came in. He looked up and nodded when Dr Lampen and his brother entered. " I don't know whether you can find a seat," he said, looking round, " the place is so confoundedly full, and Bates is taking up all the room with his flowers. I think I shall stop the flowers ; I sha'n't have any more sent up, there's nowhere to put them. Whatever you do, don't sit on that Venus !

" Dick Lampen had been about to sink gracefully into a capacious lounging chair ; he did not observe that it was already occupied. But for that timely warning he would have plumped down into the ex tended arms of a Chelsea Venus. He took it up carefully, almost reverently ; he knew something about old china, and found a place for it on a table near, where a lot of figures with the auctioneer's tickets still sticking to them were huddled together. " Thanks, awfully!" the owner of the rooms said, nodding to the new-comer, " I wouldn't have had anything happen to that Venus for the world ! " He was a fine-looking young man, tall and well built, with a pale, straight profile, dreamy, dark eyes under black, strongly-marked eyebrows, and dark haired. He wore his hair long, and there was a wave in it, a kind of arch, as it fell over his fore head, which gave him a look of distinction.

He would have been a lady-killer if it had not been for his terrible affliction. No one, to look at him sitting there with that old Worcester bowl in his lap, and his breakfast-table piled up with rare china and choice exotics, and the carpet at his feet strewn with flowers — seeing him sitting at ease in the midst of all this wealth and luxury — would have believed there was anything wrong with him. " Take care, Bates, take care, you are knocking all those petals off! " he cried out in his eager fashion, as the man, who was kneeling on the floor unpacking a hamper of flowers that had just arrived by train, lifted out a sheaf of white lilies and two or three of the petals fell to the floor. " All right, sir, nothing to hurt," the man answered in the free and easy tone of a confidential servant, and went on with his task while the visitors were talking.

He did not leave the room ; he went on stolidly unpacking his flowers. Dick Lampen drew his own conclusions as he watched the man taking the flowers out of the basket. He was a big, muscular giant of a fellow, but he took the frail, delicate blossoms out with a not ungentle hand. His hands were big and strong, and his shoulders were broad and his chest deep ; his hair, which was light and cut short, curled for the very strength of it over his head and low down over his great throat. No man of ordinary strength would have had any chance with him. " Oh ! this is the attendant," Dick said to himself, measuring the man's great frame Avith his practised eye. " Looks as if he could tackle half-a-dozen Wilfrid Lawlesses, unless when he is possessed he has the strength of six." He looked from the man on the floor to the man at the breakfast-table trifling with that ridiculous Worcester bowl.

He was something of a physiog nomist; that is, he knew a good fellow when he saw one. This was certainly a good fellow ; his eyes were bright and large, his lips full and mobile, and he had a cheery voice and a delightful manner. Wilfrid Lawless was a scholar — he had taken a First-Class at Cambridge — and an athlete — he had rowed in his College boat. He was endowed with great wealth, high position, a fastidious taste, and with all these advantages he was not a prig. Dick Lampen took to his new patient at once. He knew they should get on well together ; but he was not so sure of the attendant. " You think there is hope for me, doctor, after all ? " the young man asked when the interview was over, and the medical men had risen to go away. " You really think I have a chance ? " There was a quiver in his voice when he spoke ; he could not keep the quiver out of it.

" I do not think I am sure," said the physician, confidently ; " but you must attend to my instructions. You must put yourself unreservedly into the hands of the medical attendant who will accompany you. If all goes well, you will return from this voyage a new man — you will begin a new life." The young man hung his head. " I am in your hands, doctor," he said. " Whatever you order I am ready to submit to — and if — if — I should be unwilling at any time— they have their remedy." He looked down at the man on the floor as he spoke, the strong hands that were gathering up the loose petals on the floor, and he sighed. " Yes, yes," said the physician, hastily ; " but we will hope that the necessity will not arise." When the two doctors were gone, Wilfrid Lawless went for a drive. He was in such a hurry to go that he could not wait for his own carriage to be brought round at the usual hour : he sent for a cab.

When the hansom stopped at the door, the attendant got in after him. " I don't think I need you this morning, Bates," he said rather impatiently as the man jumped in and closed the door. "I think it Avill be just as Avell, sir," Bates said, coolly settling himself down in his seat beside him. " Where shall I tell him, sir— Christie's ? " " Hang Christie's ! " his master said impatiently. ' The Crescent, and tell him to drive fast." Bates gave the driver the necessary instructions. He did not need to be told what " Crescent." His master had dressed himself carefully, and he had put a floAver in his button-hole. He had taken some care in selecting that particular floAver, and he had sent Bates back at the last moment to fetch that sheaf of lilies that he had taken out of the hamper. Bates knew Arery Avell Avhere he was going ; it was ridiculous to talk about Christie's. The hansom stopped at a modest house in Park Crescent, and Wilfrid Lawless jumped out ; he Avas so eager to get out that he hardly Avaited for the hansom to pull up; he jumped out as it drew up to the door and ran up the steps, and Bates, with the sheaf of Avhite lilies in his arms, followed.

Lady Augusta was out, but the young ladies were in. They were in the drawing-room, the man said who opened the door, and Wilfrid, who was quite at home in the house — it was his aunt's house — ran up the stairs unannounced. He Avent up the stairs two at a time, and Bates folloAved slowly, and sat on a chair on the landing outside, while his master Avent into the drawing-room. " Is Di here ? " he cried, as he burst in. " Di, I want you ; I have something to say to you ! " His entrance in that sudden way created quite a consternation among a group of girls Avho Avere standing ready dressed to go out beside the window, and they came over and gathered round him. " What is it, Will ? What is it ? " they asked in a breath. " NeArer mind ; it is Diana I want," he said impatiently. " Where is she ?

Why is she not here ? James said she Avas in." The girls looked meaningly at each other, but he did not heed their looks ; there was a footstep on the stairs outside and a girl's voice was speaking. " How tiresome ! I said the horses were to be round at eleA'en, and it is now half-past ! ' " I think Di's riding in the Park this morning," one of the girls said eagerly ; " she's half-an-hour late already ; I'm sure she won't wait. Come in to tea, Wilfrid, and you'll see her then." He was out of the room before she had finished speaking, and was talking to the girl outside — a tall girl in a riding habit, who was bending over the sheaf of white lilies that Bates still held in his hand. " For me ? " she said. " How lovely ! How good of you, Will, to think of me ! " " Di," he said, putting his hand on her arm, " I want to speak to you before you go out.

I will not keep you a minute, but I must speak to you." His eyes were shining, and his voice was not quite steady, and the hand he had laid upon her arm she felt Avas trembling. " The horses are at the door, Will," she said nervously, "and — and I have an appointment. Won't another time do ? " "Another time!" he repeated with a laugh, a tremulous laugh, while his mouth quivered, " there is no time like the present, Di. I — I have great news for you." He drew her into a room, the door of which stood open — a dim, gloomy, back drawing-room, dusky in the noonday, the blinds not having yet been drawn up. She followed him helplessly with the tall white lilies in her hand. " What is it, Wilfrid ? " she gasped. The passion in his eyes, in his voice, had unnerved her, and she stood trembling before him, a tall, black-robed figure, AATith the white lilies pressed against her bosom.

" Why are you so eager, so excited ? What does it mean ? " " What does it mean ? " he said, taking both her ungloved hands and crushing them betAA'een his own. " It means, dear — life — and health — and love ! " He would have taken her in his arms, but she shrank aAvay from him. " I do not understand," she said faintly. " No," he said, " Iioav should you ! I have seen a physician, dear, who gives me hope — Avho gives me more than hope — Avho promises me certainty — certainty, Di ! I am going aAvay, dear, on a sea voyage — and — and in six months I shall be back, a new man. The old terror will be gone, there will be no longer any obstacle. In six months, Di, I shall come back and claim you—" Her face Avhitened as he spoke ; the colour dropped quite out of it ; it was as Avhite as the lilies in her arms . i: "I — I am very glad, Wilfrid— for your sake — I rejoice, oh ! so much — but — but it has come too late.

I am engaged to marry Lord Lucian." There was a sound of voices in the hall beneath while they were speaking, and someone was call ing her by name. " Di ! Di ! are you ready ? The horses are waiting." It was a masculine voice, and already there was a tone of command, of ownership, in it. Diana Lawless went out quickly on the landing, and met her lover coming up the stairs. " I am ready, Ulric," she said coolly as she drew on her riding gloves. " I am quite ready ; I have been waiting half -an-h our ! " When Bates went into the dusky room as the noise of the horses' feet on the stones outside died away in the distance, he trod on the lilies on the floor, that Diana had dropped in her haste. There was something else besides the pale, droop ing lilies on the floor that he could see in the gloom — there was the white, distorted face of a man writhing in horrible agony, with dreadful staring eyes, and foam bubbling from the lips.

It was well that Bates had come, that he had insisted on coming. The cab was waiting at the door, and before any of the household were alarmed, he had carried his master doAvnstairs in his arms, and thrust him into the cab. " Home ! " he shouted, " home ! " as the frightened footman followed him out to the cab and closed the door behind him. The girls at the AvindoAV above, watching their sister and her lover ride away, saw the unhappy wretch carried out in that dreadful way, and his poor, Avhite, distorted face turned upward to the sky. " Good gracious ! Wilfrid has got one of his fits again. Hoav lucky Lord Lucian had gone ! " ex claimed oue of the girls at the AvindoAV. She had not noticed that one of the group, a silly little thing with a Avhite face, had turned aAvay from the windoAV and had burst into tears.

" Diana has told him ! " she said indignantly. " I am sure Diana has told him. I think she has used him shamefully ! Poor Wilfrid ! I should not wonder if it were the death of him." " Of course she Avas obliged to tell him ; he would hear it from someone else if he did not hear it from her," one of the girls said impatiently. " Patty thinks that Di ought to have Avaited for him," said another girl, shrugging her shoulders ; " that she ought not to have throAvn him over for Ulric." " No girl in her senses Avould have waited for him," said the eldest of the party, severely. " With six unmarried sisters, Diana would not have been justified in AA^aiting for him, in refusing Lord Lucian." There was a Ioav murmur of assent, aud Patty betran to Avipe her eyes. She was only the governess, a soft, tender-hearted, foolish little thing; she had known Wilfrid from his childhood — her father had been incumbent of the place where his childhood had been spent — and she could not help being sorry for him.

"I suppose I am very silly," she said, dabbing her eyes, " but if I had been Di, I should have waited for him — he may get better some day — " " But suppose he didn't get better ? " said the girl who had just spoken. " I should have Avaited for him all the same."

Chapter III Avestavard Ho

! When Dick Lampen Avent back to his rooms — he was not staying in Half Moon Street with his brother, he had a cheap lodging in Soho — he began to get his things together for the voyage. All the preliminaries had been settled. Everything had been left to Doctor Lampen ; he had made his own arrangements, and he had given his brother a cheque — a handsome cheque in adATance — to pur chase his outfit. The more Dick Lampen thought of the projected voyage, the better it pleased him. He had always desired to go round the world ; to see the great cities that Avere on everybody's tongue — New York, Boston, Chicago ; to see something of Victoria, Melbourne and 'Frisco. He would have a chance of seeino; them noAv. When the cure was com pleted, there would be no harm in taking the patient ashore, and lengthening the projected tour indefinitely.