I SAY NO

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The doctor put away his diary, and rang the bell.

"Curious," he thought. "That dandified little clergyman has
certainly reminded me of my discussion with Emily, more than two
months since. Was it his flowing hair, I wonder? or his splendid
beard? Good God! suppose it should turn out--?"

He was interrupted by the appearance of his patient. Other ailing
people followed. Doctor Allday's mind was professionally occupied
for the rest of the evening.

CHAPTER LII.

"IF I COULD FIND A FRIEND!"

Shortly after Miss Ladd had taken her departure, a parcel arrived
for Emily, bearing the name of a bookseller printed on the label.
It was large, and it was heavy. "Reading enough, I should think,
to last for a lifetime," Mrs. Ellmother remarked, after carrying
the parcel upstairs.

Emily called her back as she was leaving the room. "I want to
caution you," she said, "before Miss Wyvil comes. Don't tell
her--don't tell anybody--how my father met his death. If other
persons are taken into our confidence, they will talk of it. We
don't know how near to us the murderer may be. The slightest hint
may put him on his guard."

"Oh, miss, are you still thinking of that!"

"I think of nothing else."

"Bad for your mind, Miss Emily--and bad for your body, as your
looks show. I wish you would take counsel with some discreet
person, before you move in this matter by yourself."

Emily sighed wearily. "In my situation, where is the person whom
I can trust?"

"You can trust the good doctor."

"Can I? Perhaps I was wrong when I told you I wouldn't see him.
He might be of some use to me."

Mrs. Ellmother made the most of this concession, in the fear that
Emily might change her mind. "Doctor Allday may call on you
tomorrow," she said.

"Do you mean that you have sent for him?"

"Don't be angry! I did it for the best--and Mr. Mirabel agreed
with me."

"Mr. Mirabel! What have you told Mr. Mirabel?"

"Nothing, except that you are ill. When he heard that, he
proposed to go for the doctor. He will be here again to-morrow,
to ask for news of your health. Will you see him?"

"I don't know yet--I have other things to think of. Bring Miss
Wyvil up here when she comes."

"Am I to get the spare room ready for her?"

"No. She is staying with her father at the London house."

Emily made that reply almost with an air of relief. When Cecilia
arrived, it was only by an effort that she could show grateful
appreciation of the sympathy of her dearest friend. When the
visit came to an end, she felt an ungrateful sense of freedom:
the restraint was off her mind; she could think again of the one
terrible subject that had any interest for her now. Over love,
over friendship, over the natural enjoyment of her young life,
predominated the blighting resolution which bound her to avenge
her father's death. Her dearest remembrances of him--tender
remembrances once--now burned in her (to use her own words) like
fire. It was no ordinary love that had bound parent and child
together in the bygone time. Emily had grown from infancy to
girlhood, owing all the brightness of her life--a life without a
mother, without brothers, without sisters--to her father alone.
To submit to lose this beloved, this only companion, by the cruel
stroke of disease was of all trials of resignation the hardest to
bear. But to be severed from him by the murderous hand of a man,
was more than Emily's fervent nature could passively endure.
Before the garden gate had closed on her friend she had returned
to her one thought, she was breathing again her one aspiration.
The books that she had ordered, with her own purpose in
view--books that might supply her want of experience, and might
reveal the perils which beset the course that lay before
her--were unpacked and spread out on the table. Hour after hour,
when the old servant believed that her mistress was in bed, she
was absorbed over biographies in English and French, which
related the stratagems by means of which famous policemen had
captured the worst criminals of their time. From these, she
turned to works of fiction, which found their chief topic of
interest in dwelling on the discovery of hidden crime. The night
passed, and dawn glimmered through the window--and still she
opened book after book with sinking courage--and still she gained
nothing but the disheartening conviction of her inability to
carry out her own plans. Almost every page that she turned over
revealed the immovable obstacles set in her way by her sex and
her age. Could _she_ mix with the people, or visit the scenes,
familiar to the experience of men (in fact and in fiction), who
had traced the homicide to his hiding-place, and had marked him
among his harmless fellow-creatures with the brand of Cain? No! A
young girl following, or attempting to follow, that career, must
reckon with insult and outrage--paying their abominable tribute
to her youth and her beauty, at every turn. What proportion would
the men who might respect her bear to the men who might make her
the object of advances, which it was hardly possible to imagine
without shuddering. She crept exhausted to her bed, the most
helpless, hopeless creature on the wide surface of the earth--a
girl self-devoted to the task of a man.

Careful to perform his promise to Mirabel, without delay, the
doctor called on Emily early in the morning--before the hour at
which he usually entered his consulting-room.

"Well? What's the matter with the pretty young mistress?" he
asked, in his most abrupt manner, when Mrs. Ellmother opened the
door. "Is it love? or jealousy? or a new dress with a wrinkle in
it?"

"You will hear about it, sir, from Miss Emily herself. I am
forbidden to say anything."

"But you mean to say something--for all that?"

"Don't joke, Doctor Allday! The state of things here is a great
deal too serious for joking. Make up your mind to be surprised--I
say no more."

Before the doctor could ask what this meant, Emily opened the
parlor door. "Come in!" she said, impatiently.

Doctor Allday's first greeting was strictly professional. "My
dear child, I never expected this," he began. "You are looking
wretchedly ill." He attempted to feel her pulse. She drew her
hand away from him.

"It's my mind that's ill," she answered. "Feeling my pulse won't
cure me of anxiety and distress. I want advice; I want help. Dear
old doctor, you have always been a good friend to me--be a better
friend than ever now."

"What can I do?"

"Promise you will keep secret what I am going to say to you--and
listen, pray listen patiently, till I have done."

Doctor Allday promised, and listened. He had been, in some degree
at least, prepared for a surprise--but the disclosure which now
burst on him was more than his equanimity could sustain. He
looked at Emily in silent dismay. She had surprised and shocked
him, not only by what she said, but by what she unconsciously
suggested. Was it possible that Mirabel's personal appearance had
produced on her the same impression which was present in his own
mind? His first impulse, when he was composed enough to speak,
urged him to put the question cautiously.

"If you happened to meet with the suspected man," he said, "have
you any means of identifying him?"

"None whatever, doctor. If you would only think it over--"

He stopped her there; convinced of the danger of encouraging her,
and resolved to act on his conviction.

"I have enough to occupy me in my profession," he said. "Ask your
other friend to think it over."

"What other friend?"

"Mr. Alban Morris."

The moment he pronounced the name, he saw that he had touched on
some painful association. "Has Mr. Morris refused to help you?"
he inquired.

"I have not asked him to help me."

"Why?"

There was no choice (with such a man
as Doctor Allday) between offending him or answering him. Emily
adopted the last alternative. On this occasion she had no reason
to complain of his silence.

"Your view of Mr. Morris's conduct surprises me," he
replied--"surprises me more than I can say," he added;
remembering that he too was guilty of having kept her in
ignorance of the truth, out of regard--mistaken regard, as it now
seemed to be--for her peace of mind.

"Be good to me, and pass it over if I am wrong," Emily said: "I
can't dispute with you; I can only tell you what I feel. You have
always been so kind to me--may I count on your kindness still?"

Doctor Allday relapsed into silence.

"May I at least ask," she went on, "if you know anything of
persons--" She paused, discouraged by the cold expression of
inquiry in the old man's eyes as he looked at her.

"What persons?" he said.

"Persons whom I suspect."

"Name them."

Emily named the landlady of the inn at Zeeland: she could now
place the right interpretation on Mrs. Rook's conduct, when the
locket had been put into her hand at Netherwoods. Doctor Allday
answered shortly and stiffly: he had never even seen Mrs. Rook.
Emily mentioned Miss Jethro next--and saw at once that she had
interested him.

"What do you suspect Miss Jethro of doing?" he asked.

"I suspect her of knowing more of my father's death than she is
willing to acknowledge," Emily replied.

The doctor's manner altered for the better. "I agree with you,"
he said frankly. "But I have some knowledge of that lady. I warn
you not to waste time and trouble in trying to discover the weak
side of Miss Jethro."

"That was not my experience of her at school," Emily rejoined.
"At the same time I don't know what may have happened since those
days. I may perhaps have lost the place I once held in her
regard."

"How?"

"Through my aunt."

"Through your aunt?"

"I hope and trust I am wrong," Emily continued; "but I fear my
aunt had something to do with Miss Jethro's dismissal from the
school--and in that case Miss Jethro may have found it out." Her
eyes, resting on the doctor, suddenly brightened. "You know
something about it!" she exclaimed.

He considered a little--whether he should or should not tell her
of the letter addressed by Miss Ladd to Miss Letitia, which he
had found at the cottage.

"If I could satisfy you that your fears are well founded," he
asked, "would the discovery keep you away from Miss Jethro?"

"I should be ashamed to speak to her--even if we met."

"Very well. I can tell you positively, that your aunt was the
person who turned Miss Jethro out of the school. When I get home,
I will send you a letter that proves it."

Emily's head sank on her breast. "Why do I only hear of this
now?" she said.

"Because I had no reason for letting you know of it, before
to-day. If I have done nothing else, I have at least succeeded in
keeping you and Miss Jethro apart."

Emily looked at him in alarm. He went on without appearing to
notice that he had startled her. "I wish to God I could as easily
put a stop to the mad project which you are contemplating."

"The mad project?" Emily repeated. "Oh, Doctor Allday. Do you
cruelly leave me to myself, at the time of all others, when I am
most in need of your sympathy?"

That appeal moved him. He spoke more gently; he pitied, while he
condemned her.

"My poor dear child, I should be cruel indeed, if I encouraged
you. You are giving yourself up to an enterprise, so shockingly
unsuited to a young girl like you, that I declare I contemplate
it with horror. Think, I entreat you, think; and let me hear that
you have yielded--not to my poor entreaties--but to your own
better sense!" His voice faltered; his eyes moistened. "I shall
make a fool of myself," he burst out furiously, "if I stay here
any longer. Good-by."

He left her.

She walked to the window, and looked out at the fair morning. No
one to feel for her--no one to understand her--nothing nearer
that could speak to poor mortality of hope and encouragement than
the bright heaven, so far away! She turned from the window. "The
sun shines on the murderer," she thought, "as it shines on me."

She sat down at the table, and tried to quiet her mind; to think
steadily to some good purpose. Of the few friends that she
possessed, every one had declared that she was in the wrong. Had
_they_ lost the one loved being of all beings on earth, and lost
him by the hand of a homicide--and that homicide free? All that
was faithful, all that was devoted in the girl's nature, held her
to her desperate resolution as with a hand of iron. If she shrank
at that miserable moment, it was not from her design--it was from
the sense of her own helplessness. "Oh, if I had been a man!" she
said to herself. "Oh, if I could find a friend!"

CHAPTER LIII.

THE FRIEND IS FOUND.

Mrs. Ellmother looked into the parlor. "I told you Mr. Mirabel
would call again," she announced. "Here he is."

"Has he asked to see me?"

"He leaves it entirely to you."

For a moment, and a moment only, Emily was undecided. "Show him
in," she said.

Mirabel's embarrassment was visible the moment he entered the
room. For the first time in his life--in the presence of a
woman--the popular preacher was shy. He who had taken hundreds of
fair hands with sympathetic pressure--he who had offered fluent
consolation, abroad and at home, to beauty in distress--was
conscious of a rising color, and was absolutely at a loss for
words when Emily received him. And yet, though he appeared at
disadvantage--and, worse still, though he was aware of it
himself--there was nothing contemptible in his look and manner.
His silence and confusion revealed a change in him which inspired
respect. Love had developed this spoiled darling of foolish
congregations, this effeminate pet of drawing-rooms and boudoirs,
into the likeness of a Man--and no woman, in Emily's position,
could have failed to see that it was love which she herself had
inspired.

Equally ill at ease, they both took refuge in the commonplace
phrases suggested by the occasion. These exhausted there was a
pause. Mirabel alluded to Cecilia, as a means of continuing the
conversation.

"Have you seen Miss Wyvil?" he inquired.

"She was here last night; and I expect to see her again to-day
before she returns to Monksmoor with her father. Do you go back
with them?"

"Yes--if _you_ do."

"I remain in London."

"Then I remain in London, too."

The strong feeling that was in him had forced its way to
expression at last. In happier days--when she had persistently
refused to let him speak to her seriously--she would have been
ready with a light-hearted reply. She was silent now. Mirabel
pleaded with her not to misunderstand him, by an honest
confession of his motives which presented him under a new aspect.
The easy plausible man, who had hardly ever seemed to be in
earnest before--meant, seriously meant, what he said now.

"May I try to explain myself?" he asked.

"Certainly, if you wish it."

"Pray, don't suppose me capable," Mirabel said earnestly, "of
presuming to pay you an idle compliment. I cannot think of you,
alone and in trouble, without feeling anxiety which can only be
relieved in one way--I must be near enough to hear of you, day by
day. Not by repeating this visit! Unless you wish it, I will not
again cross the threshold of your door. Mrs. Ellmother will tell
me if your mind is more at ease; Mrs. Ellmother will tell me if
there is any new trial of your fortitude. She needn't even
mention that I have been speaking to her at the door; and she may
be sure, and you may be sure, that I shall ask no inquisitive
questions. I can feel for you in your misfortune, without wishing
to know what that misfortune is. If I can ever be of the smallest
use, think of me as your other servant. Say to Mrs. Ellmother, 'I
want him'--and say no more."

Where is the woman who could have resisted such devotion as
this--inspired, truly inspired, by herself? Emily's eyes softened
as she answered him.

"You little know how your kindness touches me," she said.

"Don't speak of my kindness until you have put me to the proof,"
he interposed. "Can a friend (such a friend as I am, I mean) be
of any use?"

"Of the greatest
use if I could feel justified in trying you."

"I entreat you to try me!"

"But, Mr. Mirabel, you don't know what I am thinking of."

"I don't want to know."

"I may be wrong. My friends all say I _am_ wrong."

"I don't care what your friends say; I don't care about any
earthly thing but your tranquillity. Does your dog ask whether
you are right or wrong? I am your dog. I think of You, and I
think of nothing else."

She looked back through the experience of the last few days. Miss
Ladd--Mrs. Ellmother--Doctor Allday: not one of them had felt for
her, not one of them had spoken to her, as this man had felt and
had spoken. She remembered the dreadful sense of solitude and
helplessness which had wrung her heart, in the interval before
Mirabel came in. Her father himself could hardly have been kinder
to her than this friend of a few weeks only. She looked at him
through her tears; she could say nothing that was eloquent,
nothing even that was adequate. "You are very good to me," was
her only acknowledgment of all that he had offered. How poor it
seemed to be! and yet how much it meant!

He rose--saying considerately that he would leave her to recover
herself, and would wait to hear if he was wanted.

"No," she said; "I must not let you go. In common gratitude I
ought to decide before you leave me, and I do decide to take you
into my confidence." She hesitated; her color rose a little. "I
know how unselfishly you offer me your help," she resumed; "I
know you speak to me as a brother might speak to a sister--"

He gently interrupted her. "No," he said; "I can't honestly claim
to do that. And--may I venture to remind you?--you know why."

She started. Her eyes rested on him with a momentary expression
of reproach.

"Is it quite fair," she asked, "in my situation, to say that?"

"Would it have been quite fair," he rejoined, "to allow you to
deceive yourself? Should I deserve to be taken into your
confidence, if I encouraged you to trust me, under false
pretenses? Not a word more of those hopes on which the happiness
of my life depends shall pass my lips, unless you permit it. In
my devotion to your interests, I promise to forget myself. My
motives may be misinterpreted; my position may be misunderstood.
Ignorant people may take me for that other happier man, who is an
object of interest to you--"

"Stop, Mr. Mirabel! The person to whom you refer has no such
claim on me as you suppose."

"Dare I say how happy I am to hear it? Will you forgive me?"

"I will forgive you if you say no more."

Their eyes met. Completely overcome by the new hope that she had
inspired, Mirabel was unable to answer her. His sensitive nerves
trembled under emotion, like the nerves of a woman; his delicate
complexion faded away slowly into whiteness. Emily was
alarmed--he seemed to be on the point of fainting. She ran to the
window to open it more widely.

"Pray don't trouble yourself," he said, "I am easily agitated by
any sudden sensation--and I am a little overcome at this moment
by my own happiness."

"Let me give you a glass of wine."

"Thank you--I don't need it indeed."

"You really feel better?"

"I feel quite well again--and eager to hear how I can serve you."

"It's a long story, Mr. Mirabel--and a dreadful story."

"Dreadful?"

"Yes! Let me tell you first how you can serve me. I am in search
of a man who has done me the cruelest wrong that one human
creature can inflict on another. But the chances are all against
me--I am only a woman; and I don't know how to take even the
first step toward discovery."

"You will know, when I guide you."

He reminded her tenderly of what she might expect from him, and
was rewarded by a grateful look. Seeing nothing, suspecting
nothing, they advanced together nearer and nearer to the end.

"Once or twice," Emily continued, "I spoke to you of my poor
father, when we were at Monksmoor--and I must speak of him again.
You could have no interest in inquiring about a stranger--and you
cannot have heard how he died."

"Pardon me, I heard from Mr. Wyvil how he died."

"You heard what I had told Mr. Wyvil," Emily said: "I was wrong."

"Wrong!" Mirabel exclaimed, in a tone of courteous surprise. "Was
it not a sudden death?"

"It _was_ a sudden death."

"Caused by disease of the heart?"

"Caused by no disease. I have been deceived about my father's
death--and I have only discovered it a few days since."

At the impending moment of the frightful shock which she was
innocently about to inflict on him, she stopped--doubtful whether
it would be best to relate how the discovery had been made, or to
pass at once to the result. Mirabel supposed that she had paused
to control her agitation. He was so immeasurably far away from
the faintest suspicion of what was coming that he exerted his
ingenuity, in the hope of sparing her.

"I can anticipate the rest," he said. "Your sad loss has been
caused by some fatal accident. Let us change the subject; tell me
more of that man whom I must help you to find. It will only
distress you to dwell on your father's death."

"Distress me?" she repeated. "His death maddens me!"

"Oh, don't say that!"

"Hear me! hear me! My father died murdered, at Zeeland--and the
man you must help me to find is the wretch who killed him."

She started to her feet with a cry of terror. Mirabel dropped
from his chair senseless to the floor.

CHAPTER LIV.

THE END OF THE FAINTING FIT.

Emily recovered her presence of mind. She opened the door, so as
to make a draught of air in the room, and called for water.
Returning to Mirabel, she loosened his cravat. Mrs. Ellmother
came in, just in time to prevent her from committing a common
error in the treatment of fainting persons, by raising Mirabel's
head. The current of air, and the sprinkling of water over his
face, soon produced their customary effect. "He'll come round,
directly," Mrs. Ellmother remarked. "Your aunt was sometimes
taken with these swoons, miss; and I know something about them.
He looks a poor weak creature, in spite of his big beard. Has
anything frightened him?"

Emily little knew how correctly that chance guess had hit on the
truth!

"Nothing can possibly have frightened him," she replied; "I am
afraid he is in bad health. He turned suddenly pale while we were
talking; and I thought he was going to be taken ill; he made
light of it, and seemed to recover. Unfortunately, I was right;
it was the threatening of a fainting fit--he dropped on the floor
a minute afterward."

A sigh fluttered over Mirabel's lips. His eyes opened, looked at
Mrs. Ellmother in vacant terror, and closed again. Emily
whispered to her to leave the room. The old woman smiled
satirically as she opened the door--then looked back, with a
sudden change of humor. To see the kind young mistress bending
over the feeble little clergyman set her--by some strange
association of ideas--thinking of Alban Morris. "Ah," she
muttered to herself, on her way out, "I call _him_ a Man!"

There was wine in the sideboard--the wine which Emily had once
already offered in vain. Mirabel drank it eagerly, this time. He
looked round the room, as if he wished to be sure that they were
alone. "Have I fallen to a low place in your estimation?" he
asked, smiling faintly. "I am afraid you will think poorly enough
of your new ally, after this?"

"I only think you should take more care of your health," Emily
replied, with sincere interest in his recovery. "Let me leave you
to rest on the sofa."

He refused to remain at the cottage--he asked, with a sudden
change to fretfulness, if she would let her servant get him a
cab. She ventured to doubt whether he was quite strong enough yet
to go away by himself. He reiterated, piteously reiterated, his
request. A passing cab was stopped directly. Emily accompanied
him to the gate. "I know what to do," he said, in a hurried
absent way. "Rest and a little tonic medicine will soon set me
right." The clammy coldness of his skin made Emily shudder, as
they shook hands. "You won't think the worse of me for this?" he
asked.

"How can you imagine such a thing!" she answered warmly.

"Will you see me, if I come to-morrow?"

"I shall be anxious to see you."

So they parted. Emily returned to the house, pitying him with all
her heart.

BOOK THE SIXTH--HERE AND THERE.

CHAPTER LV.

MIRABEL SEES HIS WAY.

Reaching the hotel at which he was accustomed to stay when he was
in London, Mirabel locked the door of his room. He looked at the
houses on the opposite side of the street. His mind was in such a
state of morbid distrust that he lowered the blind over the
window. In solitude and obscurity, the miserable wretch sat down
in a corner, and covered his face with his hands, and tried to
realize what had happened to him.

Nothing had been said at the fatal interview with Emily, which
could have given him the slightest warning of what was to come.
Her father's name--absolutely unknown to him when he fled from
the inn--had only been communicated to the public by the
newspaper reports of the adjourned inquest. At the time when
those reports appeared, he was in hiding, under circumstances
which prevented him from seeing a newspaper. While the murder was
still a subject of conversation, he was in France--far out of the
track of English travelers--and he remained on the continent
until the summer of eighteen hundred and eighty-one. No exercise
of discretion, on his part, could have extricated him from the
terrible position in which he was now placed. He stood pledged to
Emily to discover the man suspected of the murder of her father;
and that man was--himself!

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