Dr. Rumsey's patient : $b a very strange storyMeade, L. T.
General
Dr. Rumsey's patient : $b a very strange story
Meade, L. T.
Physician and patient -- Fiction
Hetty did not answer. It is to be doubted if she heard him. One fact
alone was filling her horizon She felt quite certain now that the Squire
remembered. What then was going to happen? Was he going to be an
honorable man? Was he going to use the memory which had returned to him
to remove the cruel shame and punishment from another? If so, if indeed
so, Hetty herself would be lost. She would be arrested and charged with
the awful crime of perjury. The horrors of the law would fall upon her;
she would be imprisoned, she would----
"No matter," she whispered stoutly to herself, "it is not of myself I
think now, it is of him. He also will be tried. Public disgrace will
cling to his name. The people who love him so will not be able to help
him; he would suffer even, even to death: the death of the gallows. He
must not tell what he knew. He must not be allowed to be carried away by
his generous impulses. She, Hetty, must prevent this. She had guarded
his secret for him during the long years when the cloud was over his
mind. He must guard it now for himself. Doubtless he would when she had
warned him. Could she speak to him to-night? Was it possible?"
"Hetty, how you do stand and stare," said George Vincent; he was
munching his pie as he spoke. Hetty had been pressed up against the
table where he was eating.
"I'm all right, George," she said, but she spoke as if she had not heard
the words addressed to her.
"If you're all right, come and have a bit of supper."
"I don't want it. I'm not hungry. Do eat while you can and let me be."
"I'll let you be, but not out of my sight," muttered the man. He helped
himself to some more pie, but he was no longer hungry. The jealous fiend
which had always lain dormant in his heart from the day when he had
married pretty Hetty Armitage and discovered that she had no love to
give to him was waking up now into full strength and vigor. What was the
matter with Hetty? How queer she looked to-night. She had always been
queer after a certain fashion--she had always been different from other
girls, but until to-night, Vincent, who had watched her well, had never
found anything special to lay hold of. But to-night things were
different. There must be a reason for Hetty's undue excitement, for her
changing color, for her agitation, for the emotion on her face. Now what
was she doing?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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