 CHAPTER 5 PART 1 OF HILDA WADE Hilda Wade, a woman with tenacity of purpose, by Grant Allen. CHAPTER 5 PART 1 THE EPISODE OF THE NEEDLE THAT DID NOT MATCH Sebastian is a great man, I said to Hilda Wade, as I sat one afternoon over a cup of tea she had brewed for me in her own little sitting-room. It is one of the elevations of an hospital doctor's lot that he made drink tea now and again with the sister of his ward. Whatever else you choose to think of him, you must admit he is a very great man. I admired our famous professor, and I admired Hilda Wade. It was a matter of regret to me that my two admirations did not seem in return sufficiently to admire one another. Oh yes, Hilda answered, pouring out my second cup. He is a very great man. I never denied that. The greatest man on the whole I think that I have ever come across. And he has done splendid work for humanity. I went on growing enthusiastic. Splendid work, yes, splendid. Two lumps, I believe. He has done more, I admit, for medical science than any other man I ever met. I gazed at her with a curious glance. Then, why, dear lady, do you keep telling me his cruel? I inquired, toasting my feet on the fender. It seems contradictory. She passed me the muffins and smiled her restrained smile. Does the desire to do good to humanity in itself imply a benevolent disposition? She answered obliquely. Now you are talking in paradox. Surely, if a man works all his life long for the good of humankind that shows he is devoured by sympathy for his species. And when your friend Mr. Bates works all his life long at observing and classifying ladybirds, I suppose that shows he is devoured by sympathy for the race of beetles. I laughed at her comical face. She looked at me so quizzically. But then I objected, the cases are not parallel. Bates kills and collects his ladybirds. Sebastian cures and benefits humanity. Hilda smiled her wise smile once more and fingered her apron. Are the cases so different, as you suppose? She went on with her quick glance. Is it not partly accident? A man of science you see early in life takes up half by chance this, that or the other particular form of study. But what the study is in itself, I fancy, does not greatly matter. Do not mere circumstances as often as not determine it. Surely, it is the temperament on the whole that tells, the temperament that is or is not scientific. How do you mean? You are so enigmatic. Well, in a family of the scientific temperament, it seems to me one brother may happen to go in for butterflies. May he not? And another for theology or for submarine telegraphs. Now, the man who happens to take up butterflies does not make a fortune out of his hobby. There is no money in butterflies, so we say accordingly he is an unpractical person who cares nothing for business and who is only happy when he is out in the fields with a net chasing emperors and tortoise shells. But the man who happens to fancy submarine telegraphy most likely invents a lot of new improvements, takes up dozens of patents, finds money flowing upon him as he sits in his study and becomes at last a peer and a millionaire. So then we say, what a splendid business head he has got, to be sure. And how immensely he differs from his poor wool-gathering brother. The entomologists who can only invent new ways of hatching out wireworms, yet all may really depend on the first chance direction which led one brother as a boy to buy a butterfly net and sent the other into the school laboratory to double with an electric wheel and a cheap battery. Then you mean to say it is chance that has made Sebastian? Hilda shook her pretty head. By no means, don't be so stupid. We both know Sebastian has a wonderful brain. Whatever was the work he undertook with that brain in science he would carry it out consumedly. He is a born thinker. It is like this, don't you know? She tried to arrange her thoughts. The particular branch of science to which Mr. Heria Maxim's mind happens to have been directed was the making of machine guns, and his lases thousands. The particular branch to which Sebastian's mind happens to have been directed was medicine, and he cures as many as Mr. Maxim kills. It is a turn of the hand that makes all the difference. I see, I said. The aim of medicine happens to be a benevolent one. Quite so. That's just what I mean. The aim is benevolent, and Sebastian pursues that aim with the single-minded energy of a lofty, gifted, and devoted nature. But not a good one. Not good? Oh no! To be quite frank, he seems to me to pursue it ruthlessly, cruelly, unscrupulously. He is a man of high ideals, but without principle. In that respect he reminds one of the great spirits of the Italian Renaissance. Benvenuto Cellini and so forth. Men who could pour for hours with conscientious artistic care over the detail of a hem in a sculptured robe, yet could steal out in the midst of their disinterested toil to plunge a knife in the back of a rival. Sebastian would not do that, I cried. He's fully free from the mean spirit of jealousy. No, Sebastian would not do that. You're quite right there. There is no tinge of meanness in the man's nature. He likes to be first in the field, but he would acclaim with delight another man's scientific triumph if another anticipated him. For would it not mean a triumph for universal science? And is not the advancement of science Sebastian's religion? But he would do almost as much or more. He would stab a man without remorse if he thought that by stabbing him he could advance knowledge. I recognized at once the truth of her diagnosis. Nurse Wade, I cried. You are a wonderful woman. I believe you are right, but how did you come to think of it? A cloud passed over her brow. I have reason to know it, she answered slowly. Then her voice changed. Take another muffin. I helped myself and paused. I laid down my cup and gazed at her. What a beautiful, tender, sympathetic face, and yet how able. She stirred the fire uneasily. I looked and hesitated. I had often wondered why I never dared ask Hilda Wade one question that was nearest my heart. I think it must have been because I respected her so profoundly. The deeper your admiration and respect for a woman, the harder you find it in the end to ask her. At last I almost made up my mind. I cannot think, I began, what can have induced a girl like you with means and friends, with brains and... I drew back then, I plumped it out, beauty, to take to such a life as this, a life which seems in many ways so unworthy of you. She stirred the fire more pensively than ever, and rearranged the muffin dish on the little wrought iron stand in front of the grate. And yet, she murmured looking down, what life can be better than the service of one's kind. You think it a great life for Sebastian. Sebastian, he's a man. That is different, quite different, but a woman, especially you, dear lady, for whom one feels that nothing is quite high enough. Quite pure enough, quite good enough, I cannot imagine how. She checked me with one wave of her gracious hand. Her movements were always slow and dignified. I have a plan in my life, she answered earnestly, her eyes meeting mine with a sincere frank case. A plan to which I have resolved to sacrifice everything. It absorbs my being, till that plan is fulfilled. I saw that tears were gathering fast on her lashes. She suppressed them with an effort. Say no more, she added, faltering. In firm of purpose I will not listen. I lent forward, eagerly pressing my advantage. The air was electric, waves of emotion passed to and fro. But surely, I cried, you do not mean to say. She waved me aside once more. I will not put my hand to the plow, and then look back, she answered firmly. Dr. Kambalich, spare me. I came to Nathaniel's for a purpose. I told you at the time what that purpose was, in part, to be near Sebastian. I want to be near him, for an object I have at heart. Do not ask me to reveal it. Do not ask me to forego it. I am a woman, therefore weak, but I need your aid. Help me instead of hindering me. Hilda, I cried, leaning forward with quivering of my heart. I will help you in whatever way you will allow me. But let me at any rate help you with the feeling that I am helping one who means in time. At that moment, as unkindly fate would have it, the door opened and Sebastian entered. Nurse Wade, he began in his iron voice, glancing about him with stern eyes. Where are those needles? I ordered for that operation. We must be ready in time before Nielsen comes. Kambalich, I shall want you. The golden opportunity had come and gone. It was long before I found a similar occasion for speaking to Hilda. Every day after that the feeling deepened upon me that Hilda was there to watch Sebastian. Why I did not know, but it was growing certain that a lifelong duel was in progress between these two, a duel of some strange and mysterious import. The first approach to solution of the problem which I obtained came a week or two later. Sebastian was engaged in observing a case where certain unusual symptoms had suddenly supervened. It was a case of some obscure affection of the heart. I will not trouble you here with the particular details. We all suspected a tendency to aneurysm. Hilda Wade was in attendance as she always was on Sebastian's observation cases. We crowded round watching. The professor himself leaned over the cot with some medicine for external application in a basin. He gave it to Hilda to hold. I noticed that as she held it her fingers trembled and that her eyes were fixed harder than ever upon Sebastian. He turned round to his students. Now this he began in a very unconcerned voice as if the patient were a toad. It is a most unwanted turn for the disease to take. It occurs very seldom. In point of fact I have only observed the symptom once before, and then it was fatal. The patient in that instance, he paused dramatically, was the notorious poisoner Dr. York Bannerman. As he uttered the words, Hilda Wade's hands trembled more than ever, and with a little scream she let the basin fall, breaking it into fragments. Sebastian's keen eyes had transfixed her in a second. How did you manage to do that? He asked with quite sarcasm, but in a tone full of meaning. The basin was heavy, Hilda faltered. My hands were trembling, and it somehow slipped through them. I am not quite myself, not quite well this afternoon. I ought not to have attempted it. The professor's deep-set eyes peered out like gleaming lights from beneath their overhanging brows. No, you ought not to have attempted it. He answered withering her with a glance. You might have let the thing fall on the patient and killed him. As it is, can't you see you have agitated him with a flurry? Don't stand there holding your breath, woman. Repair your mischief. Get a cloth and wipe it up and give me the bottle. With skilful haste he administered a little sal volatile and nux vomica to the swooning patient, while Hilda set about remedying the damage. That's better, Sebastian said in a mollified tone when she had brought another basin. There was a singular note of cloak triumph in his voice. Now we'll begin again. I was just saying, gentlemen, before this accident, that I had seen only one case of this particular form of the tendency before, and that that case was the Notorious. He kept his glittering eyes fixed harder on Hilda than ever. The Notorious Dr. Jork Bannerman. I was watching Hilda, too. At the words she trembled violently all over once more, but with an effort restrained herself. Their looks met in a searching glance. Hilda's air was proud and fearless. In Sebastian's eye fancied, I detected after a second just a tinge of wavering. You remember Jork Bannerman's case? He went on. He committed a murder. Let me take the basin, I cried, for I saw Hilda's hands giving way a second time, and I was anxious to spare her. No, thank you. She answered low, but in a voice that was full of suppressed defiance. I will wait and hear this out. I prefer to stop here. As for Sebastian, he seemed now not to notice her, though I was aware all the time of a sidelong glance of his eye, parrot-wise in her direction. He committed a murder. He went on. By means of akunitin. Then an almost unknown poison, and after committing it, his heart being already weak, he was taken himself with symptoms of aneurysm in a curious form, essentially similar to these, so that he died before the trial, a lucky escape for him. He paused rhetorically once more. Then he added in the same tone. Mental agitation and the terror of detection, no doubt accelerated the fatal result in that instance. He died at once from the shock of the arrest. It was a natural conclusion. Here we may hope for a more successful issue. He spoke to the students, of course, but I could see for all that that he was keeping his falcon eye fixed hard on Hilda's face. I glanced aside at her. She never flinched for a second. Neither said anything directly to the other. Still, by their eyes and mouths, I knew some strange passage of arms had taken place between them. Sebastian's tone was one of provocation, of defiance. I might almost say of challenge. Hilda's air I took rather for the air of calm and resolute but assured resistance. He expected her to answer. She said nothing. Instead of that, she went on holding the basin now with fingers that would not tremble. Every muscle was strained. Every tendon was strung. I could see she held herself in with a will of iron. The rest of the episode passed off quietly. Sebastian, having delivered his bolt, began to think less of Hilda and more of the patient. He went on with his demonstration. As for Hilda, she gradually relaxed her muscles and with a deep drawn breath resumed her natural attitude. The tension was over. They had had their little skirmish whatever it might mean and had it out. Now they called a truth over the patient's body. When the case had been disposed of and the students dismissed, I went straight into the laboratory to get a few surgical instruments I had chance to leave there. For a minute or two, I mislaid my clinical thermometer and began hunting for it behind a wooden partition in the corner of the room by the place for washing test tubes. As I stooped down, turning over the various objects about the tap in my search, Sebastian's voice came to me. He had paused outside the door and was speaking in his calm, clear tone, very low to Hilda. So now we understand one another, nurse weighed. He said with a significant sneer, I know whom I have to deal with. And I know too. Hilda answered in a voice of placid confidence. Yet you are not afraid. It is not I who have cause to fear. The accused may tremble, not the prosecutor. What, you threaten? No, I do not threaten. Not in words, I mean. My presence here is in itself a threat, but I make no other. You know now, unfortunately, why I have come. That makes my task harder, but I will not give it up. I will wait and conquer. Sebastian answered nothing. He strode into the laboratory alone. Tall, grim, unbending, and let himself sink into his easy chair, looking up with a singular and somewhat sinister smile at his bottles of microbes. After a minute he stirred the fire and bent his head forward, brooding. He held it between his hands with his elbows on his knees and gazed moodily straight before him into the glowing caves of white hot coal in the fireplace. That sinister smile still played lambant around the corners of his grizzled mustaches. I moved noiselessly towards the door, trying to pass behind him unnoticed. But the alertest ever his quick ears detected me. With a sudden start he raised his head and glanced round. What, you hero! He cried taken aback. For a second he appeared almost to lose his self-possession. I came for my clinical, I answered, with an unconcerned act. I have somehow managed to mislate in the laboratory. My carefully casual tone seemed to reassure him. He peered about him with nit-browse. Cumberlatch he asked at last in a suspicious voice. Did you hear that woman? The woman in ninety-three? Delirious? No, no, nurse Wade. Hear her? I echoed I must candidly admit with intent to deceive when she broke the basin. His forehead relaxed. Oh, it is nothing, he muttered hastily. A mere point of discipline. She spoke to me just now and I thought her tone unbecoming in a subordinate, like Cora and his crew. She takes too much upon her. We must get rid of her, Cumberlatch. We must get rid of her. She is a dangerous woman. She is the most intelligent nurse we have ever had in the place, sir. I objected stoutly. He nodded his head twice. Intelligent, je vous l'accorde, but dangerous, dangerous. Then he turned to his papers, sorting them out one by one with a preoccupied face and twitching fingers. I recognized that he decided to be left alone, so I quitted the laboratory. I cannot quite say why, but ever since Hilda Wade first came to Nathaniel's, my enthusiasm for Sebastian had been cooling continuously. Admiring his greatness still, I had doubts as to his goodness. That day I felt I positively mistrusted him. I wondered what his passage of arms with Hilda might mean, yet somehow I was shy of alluding to it before her. One thing, however, was clear to me now. This great campaign that was being waged between the nurse and the professor had referenced to the case of Dr. York Bannerman. For a time nothing came of it. The routine of the hospital went on as usual. The patient with a suspected predisposition for aneurysm went fairly well for a week or two, and then took a sudden turn for the worse, presenting at times most unwanted symptoms. He died unexpectedly. Sebastian, who had watched him every hour, regarded the matter as of prime importance. I am glad it happened here, he said, rubbing his hands. A grand opportunity. I wanted to catch an instance like this before that fellow in Paris had time to anticipate me. They are all on the lookout. Von Stralendorf of Vienna has been waiting for just such a patient for years, so have I. Now fortune has favoured me. Lucky for us he died. We shall find out everything. We held a post-mortem, of course, the condition of the blood being what we most wished to observe, and the autopsy revealed some unexpected details. One remarkable feature consisted in a certain undescribed and impoverished state of the contained bodies which Sebastian, with his eager seal for science, decided his students to see and identify. He said it was likely to throw much light on other ill-understood conditions of the brain and nervous system, as well as on the peculiar faint odor of the insane, now so well recognized in all large asylums. In order to compare this abnormal state with the aspect of the healthy circulating medium, he proposed to examine a little good living blood side by side with a morbid specimen under the microscope. Nurse Wade was in attendance in the laboratory as usual. The professor standing by the instrument with one hand on the brass screw had got the deceased drop ready arranged for our inspection beforehand and was gloating over it himself with scientific enthusiasm. Grey corpuscles you will observe, he said, almost entirely deficient, red, poor in number and irregular in outline, plasma thin, nuclei feeble, a state of body which tells severely against the jewelry building of the wasted tissues. Now compare with typical normal specimen. He removed his eye from the microscope and wiped a glass slide with a clean cloth as he spoke. Nurse Wade, we know of all the purity and vigor of your circulating fluid. You shall have the honor of advancing science once more. Hold up your finger. Hilda held up her forefinger unhesitatingly. She was used to such requests and indeed Sebastian had acquired by long experience the faculty of pinching the fingertips so hard and pressing the point of a needle so dexterously into a minor vessel that he could draw at once a small drop of blood without the subject even feeling it. The professor nipped the last joint between his finger and thumb for a moment till it was black at the end. Then he turned to the saucer at his side which Hilda herself had placed there and chose from it cat-like with great deliberation and selective care a particular needle. Hilda's eyes followed his every movement as closely and as fearlessly as ever. Sebastian's hand was raised and it was just about to pierce the delicate white skin when with a sudden quick scream of terror she snatched her hand away hastily. The professor let the needle drop in his astonishment. What did you do that for? He cried with an angry dart of the keen eyes. This is not the first time I have drawn your blood. You knew I would not hurt you. Hilda's face had grown strangely pale but that was not all. I believe I was the only person present who noticed one unobtrusive piece of sleight of hand which she hurriedly and skillfully executed. When the needle slipped from Sebastian's hand forward even as she screamed and caught it unobserved in the folds of her apron then her nimble fingers closed over it as if by magic and conveyed it with a rapid movement at once to her pocket. I do not think even Sebastian himself noticed the quick forward jerk of her eager hands which would have done honor to a conjurer. He was too much taken aback by her unexpected behavior to observe the needle. Just as she caught it, Hilda answered his question in a somewhat flurried voice. I was afraid she broke out gasping. One gets these little accesses of terror now and again. I feel rather weak. I do not think I will volunteer to supply any more normal blood this morning. Sebastian's acute eyes read earth through as so often. With a trenchant dart he glanced from her to me. I could see he began to suspect a confederacy. That will do, he went on with slow deliberateness. Better so, nurse Wade, I don't know what's beginning to come over you. You are losing your nerve which is fatal in a nurse. Only the other day you let fall and broke a basin at the most critical moment and now you scream aloud on a trifling apprehension. He paused and glanced around him. Mr. Calgan, he said turning to our tall red-haired Irish student, your blood is good normal and you are not hysterical. He selected another needle with studious care. Give me your finger. As he picked out the needle, I saw Hilda lean forward again, alert and watchful, eyeing him with a piercing glance. But after a second's consideration, she seemed to satisfy herself and fell back without a word. I gathered that she was ready to interfere, had occasion demanded, but occasion did not demand and she held her peace quietly. End of Chapter 5 Part 1, read by Lars Rolander. Chapter 5 Part 2 of Hilda Wade This is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, reading by Lars Rolander. Hilda Wade, a woman with tenacity of purpose by Grant Allen. Chapter 5 Part 2 The rest of the examination proceeded without a hitch. For a minute or two, it is true, I fancied that Sebastian betrayed a certain suppressed agitation, a trifling lack of his accustomed perspicuity and his luminous exposition. But after mendering for a while through a few vague sentences, he soon recovered his wanted calm. And as he went on with his demonstration, throwing self-eagling into the case, his usual scientific enthusiasm came back to him undiminished. He waxed eloquent after his fashion over the beautiful contrast between Calagan's wholesome blood, rich in the vivifying architectonic gray corpuscles which rebuild vanticius, and the effect impoverished, unvitalized fluid which stagnated in the sluggish veins of the dead patient. The carriers of Oxidine had neglected their proper task. The granules whose duty it was to bring elaborated foodstuffs to supply the waste of brain and nerve and muscle had forgotten their coming. The brick layers of the bodily fabric had gone out on strike. The weary scavengers had declined to remove the useless by-products. His vivid tongue, his picturesque fancy ran away with him. I had never heard him talk better or more incisively before. One could feel sure, as he spoke, that the arteries of his own acute and teeming brain at that moment of exultation were by no means deficient in those energetic and highly vital globals on whose reparative work is so eloquently discounted. Sure, the professor makes anyone see right inside one's own vascular system, Calagan whispered a sigh to me in unfaithful admiration. The demonstration ended in impressive silence as we streamed out of the laboratory below with his electric fire. Sebastian held me back with the bent motion of his shriveled forefinger. I stayed behind unwillingly. Yes, sir, I said in an interrogative voice. The professor's eyes were fixed intently on the ceiling. His look was one of rapt inspiration. I stood and waited. Carmelich, he said at last, coming back to earth with the start. I see it more plainly each day that goes. We must get rid of that woman. Of nurse Wade, I asked, catching my breath. He roped the grizzled moustache and blinked the sunken eyes. She has lost nerve, he went on. Lost nerve entirely. I shall suggest that she be dismissed. Her sudden failures of stamina are most embarrassing at critical junctures. Very well, sir, I answered, swallowing a lump in my throat to say the truth I was beginning to be afraid on Hilda's account that morning's events had thoroughly disquited me. He seemed relieved at my unquestioning acquiescence. She's a dangerous, edgy tool. That's the truth of it. He went on, still twirling his moustache with a preoccupied air and turning over his stock of needles. When she's clothed and in her right mind she's a valuable accessory, sharp and trenchant like a clean, bright lancet. But when she allows one of these coarseless hysterical fits to override her tone, she plays one false at once, like a lancet that slips or grows dull and rusty. He polished one of the needles on a soft square of new chamois leather while he spoke, as if to give point and illustration to his similing. I went out from him much perturbed. The Sebastian I had once admired and worshipped was beginning to pass from me. In his place I found a very complex and inferior creation. My idol had feet of clay. I was loth to acknowledge it. I stalked along the corridor moodyly towards my own room. As I passed Hilda's wait-store I saw it half a jar. She stood a little within and reckoned me to enter. I passed in and closed the door behind me. Hilda looked at me with trustful eyes. Resolute still, her face was yet that of a haunted creature. Thank heaven I have one friend here at least. She said slowly seating herself, you saw me catch and conceal the needle? Yes, I saw you. She drew it forth from her purse, carefully but loosely wrapped up in a small tag of tissue paper. Here it is, she said, displaying it. Now I want you to test it. In a culture? I asked, for I guessed her meaning. She nodded. Yes, to see what that man has done to it. What do you suspect? She shrugged her graceful shoulders half imperceptibly. How should I know anything? I gazed at the needle closely. What made you distrust it? I inquired at last still eyeing it. She opened a drawer and took out several others. See here, she said, handing me one. These are the needles I keep in antiseptic wool, the needles with which I always supply the professor. You observed their shape, the common surgical patterns? Now look at this needle with which the professor was just going to prick my finger. You can see for yourself at once, it is of bluer steel and of a different manufacture. That is quite true. I answered examining it with my pocket lens, which I always carry. I see the difference, but how did you detect it? From his face partly, but partly too from the needle itself. I had my suspicions and I was watching him closely. Just as he raised the thing in his hand, half concealing it so and showing only the point, I caught the blue gleam of the steel as the light glanced off it. It was not the kind I knew. Then I withdrew my hand at once, feeling sure he meant mischief. That was wonderfully quick of you. Quick? Well, yes. Thank heaven, my mind works fast. My perceptions are rapid. Otherwise, she looked grave. One second more and it would have been too late. The man might have killed me. You think it is poisoned, then? Hilda shook her head with confident dissent. Poisoned? Oh, no! He is wiser now. Fifteen years ago he used poison, but science has made gigantic strides since then. He would not needlessly expose himself today to the risks of the poisoner. Fifteen years ago he used poison? She nodded with the air of one who knows. I am not speaking at random, she answered. I say what I know. Some day I will explain. For the present it is enough to tell you I know it. And what do you suspect now? I asked. The weird sense of her strange power deepening on me every second. She held up the incriminated needle again. Do you see this groove? She asked, pointing to it with a tip of another. I examined it once more at the light with the lens. A longitudinal groove apparently ground into one side of the needle, lengthwise by means of a small grinding stone, and emery powder ran for a quarter of an inch above the point. This groove seemed to me to have been produced by an amateur, though he must have been one accustomed to delicate microscopic manipulation, for the edges under the lens showed slightly rough, like the surface of a file on a small scale, not smooth and polished as a needle maker would have left them. I said so to Hilda. You are quite right, she answered. That is just what it shows. I feel sure Sebastian made that groove himself. He could have bought grooved needles, it is true, such as they sometimes used for retaining small quantities of limps and medicines, but we had none in stock, and to buy them would be to manufacture evidence against himself in case of detection. Besides, the rough jagged edge would hold the material he wished to inject all the better, while its saw-like points would tear the flesh imperceptibly but minutely, and so serve his purpose. Which was? Try the needle and judge for yourself. I prefer you should find out. You can tell me tomorrow. It was quick of you to detect it, I cried still turning the suspicious object over. The difference is so slight. Yes, but you tell me my eyes are as sharp as the needle. Besides, I had reason to doubt, and Sebastian himself gave me the clue by selecting his instrument with too great deliberation. He had put it there with the rest, but it lay a little apart, and as he picked it up gingerly, I began to doubt. When I saw the blue gleam, my doubt was at once converted into certainty. Then his eyes, too, had the look which I know means victory. Benin or baleful, it goes with his triumphs. I have seen that look before, and when once it lurks, scintillating in the luminous depths of his gleaming eyeballs, I recognize at once that whatever his aim, he has succeeded in it. Still, hilda, I am lost. She waved her hand impatiently. Ways no time! She cried in an authoritative voice. If you happen to let that needle rub carelessly against the sleeve of your coat, you may destroy the evidence. Take it at once to your room, plunge it into a culture, and lock it up safe at a proper temperature, where Sebastian cannot get at it till the consequences develop. I did as she bid me. By this time, I was not fully unprepared for the result she anticipated. My belief in Sebastian had sunk to zero, and was rapidly reaching a negative quantity. At nine the next morning, I tested one drop of the culture under the microscope. Clear and limpid to the naked eye, it was alive with small objects of a most suspicious nature. When properly magnified, I knew those hungry forms. Still, I would not decide often on my own authority in a matter of such moment. Sebastian's character was at stake, the character of the man who led the profession. I called in Calagan, who happened to be in the ward and asked him to put his eye to the instrument for a moment. He was a splendid fellow for the use of high powers, and I had magnified the culture 300 diameters. What do you call those? I asked breathless. He scanned them carefully with his experienced eye. Is it the microbes you mean? He answered, and what would they be then if it wasn't the bacillus of Piemia? Blood poisoning, I ejaculated Horostrak. Ay, blood poisoning, that's the English of it. I assumed an error of indifference. I made them that myself, I rejoined as if they were mere ordinary experimental germs, but I wanted confirmation of my own opinion. You're sure of the bacillus? And haven't I been keeping swarms of those very same bacteria under close observation for Sebastian for seven weeks past? Why, I know them as well as I know my own mother. Thank you, I said, that will do. And I carried off the microscope, bacilli and all into Hilda Wade's sitting-room. Look yourself, I cried to her. She stared at them through the instrument with an unmoved face. I thought so, she answered shortly, the bacillus of Piemia, a most virulent type, exactly what I expected. You anticipated that result? Absolutely. You see, blood poisoning matures quickly and kills almost to a certainty. Delirium supervins so soon that the patient has no chance of explaining suspicions. Besides, it would all seem so very natural. Everybody would say she got some slight wound which microbes from some case she was attending contaminated. You may be sure Sebastian thought out all that. He plans with consummate skill. He had designed everything. I gazed at her uncertain. And what will you do, I asked, expose him? She opened both her palms with a blank gesture of helplessness. It is useless, she answered. Nobody would believe me. Consider the situation. You know the needle I gave you was the one Sebastian meant to use, the one he dropped and I caught because you are a friend of mine and because you have learned to trust me. But who else would credit it? I have only my word against his. An unknown nurse is against the great professors. Everybody would say I was malicious or hysterical. Hysteria is always an easy stone to fling at an injured woman who asks for justice. They would declare I had trumped up the case to forestall my dismissal. They would set it down to spite. We can do nothing against him. Remember on his part the utter absence of a word motive. And you mean to stop on here in close attendance on a man who's attempted your life? I cried really alarmed for a safety. I am not sure about that, she answered. I must take time to think. My presence at Nathaniel's was necessary to my plan. The plan fails for the present. I have now to look round and reconsider my position. But you are not safe here now, I urged growing warm. If Sebastian really wishes to get rid of you and is as unscrupulous as you suppose with his gigantic brain he can soon compass his end. What he plans he executes. You ought not to remain within the professor's reach one hour longer. I have thought of that too, she replied with an almost unearthly calm. But there are difficulties either way. At any rate I am glad he did not succeed this time for to have killed me now would have frustrated my plan. She clasped her hands. My plan is ten thousand times dearer than life to me. Dear Lady, I cried drawing a deep breath. I implore you on this straight. Listen to what I urge. Why fight your battle alone? Why refuse assistance? I have admired you so long. I am so eager to help you if only you will allow me to call you. Her eyes brightened and softened. Her whole bosom heaved. I felt in a flash she was not fully indifferent to me. Strange tremors in the air seem to play about us. But she waved me aside once more. Don't press me. She said in a very low voice. Let me go my own way. It is hard enough already this task I have undertaken without your making it harder. Dear friend, dear friend, you don't quite understand. There are two men at Nathaniel's whom I desire to escape because they both alike stand in the way of my purpose. She took my hands in hers. Each in a different way she murmured once more. But each I must avoid. One is Sebastian. The other she let my hand drop again and broke off suddenly. Dear Hubert, she cried with a catch. I cannot help it, forgive me. It was the first time she had ever called me by my Christian name. The mere sound of the word made me unspeakably happy. Yet she waved me away. Must I go? I asked quivering. Yes, yes, you must go. I cannot stand it. I must think this thing out. Undisturbed. It is a very great crisis. That afternoon and evening by some unhappy chance I was fully engaged in work at the hospital. Late at night a letter arrived for me. I glanced at it in dismay. It bore the bashing-stoke postmark. But to my alarm and surprise it was in Hilda's hand. What could this change pretend? I opened it all tremulous. Dear Hubert, I gave a sigh of relief. It was no longer dear Dr. Cumberlidge now but Hubert. That was something gained at any rate. I read on with a beating heart what had Hilda to say to me. Dear Hubert, By the time this reaches you I shall be far away, irrevocably far from London. With deep regret, with fear-searching of spirit I have come to the conclusion that for the purpose I have in view it would be better for me at once to leave Nathaniel's where I go or what I mean to do I do not wish to tell you. Of your charity I pray refrain from asking me. I am aware that your kindness and generosity deserve better recognition. But like Sebastian himself I am the slave of my purpose. I have lived for it all these years and it is still very dear to me. To tell you my plans interfere with that end. Do not therefore suppose I am insensible to your goodness. Dear Hubert, spare me. I dare not say more lest I say too much. I dare not trust myself. But one thing I must say I am flying from you quite as much as from Sebastian. Flying from my own heart quite as much as from my enemy. Someday perhaps if I accomplish my object I may tell you all. Meanwhile I can only beg of you of your kindness to trust me. We shall not meet again I fear for years. But I shall never forget you you the kind counsellor who have half turned me aside from my life's purpose. One word more and I should falter. In very great haste and amid much disturbance yours ever affectionately and gratefully Hilda. It was a horrid scroll in pencil as if written in a train. I felt utterly dejected. Was Hilda then leaving England? Rousing myself after some minutes I went straight to Sebastian's rooms and told him in brief terms that Nurse Wade had disappeared at a moment's notice and sent a note to tell me so. He looked up from his work and scanned me hard as was his wand. That is well, he said at last his eyes glowing deep. She was getting too great a hold on you that young woman. She retains that hold upon me, sir, I answered curtly. You are making a grave mistake in life, my dear Cumberledge. He went on in his old genial tone which I had almost forgotten. Before you go further and entangle yourself more deeply I think it is only right that I should undiseive you as to this girl's true position. She is passing under a false name and she comes of a tainted stock. Nurse Wade as she chooses to call herself is a daughter of the notorious murderer York Bannerman. My mind lit back to the incident of the broken basin. York Bannerman's name profoundly moved her. Then I thought of Hilda's face. Murders I said to myself do not to get such daughters as that. Not even accidental murders like my poor friendly gait. I sought once the prima facie evidence was strongly against her but I had faith in her still. I drew myself up firmly and stared him back full in the face. I do not believe it I answered shortly. You do not believe it? I tell you it is so. The girl herself as good as acknowledged it to me. I spoke slowly and distinctly. Dr. Sebastian I said confronting him. Let us be quite clear with one another. I have found you out. I know how you try to poison that lady. To poison her with Basili which I detected. I cannot trust your word. I cannot trust your inferences. Either she is not York Bannerman's daughter at all or else York Bannerman was not a murderer. I watched his face closely. Conviction leaped upon me. And someone else was I went on. I might put a name to him. With a stern white face he rose and opened the door. He pointed to it slowly. This hospital is not big enough and me abreast. He said with cold politeness one or other of us must go which I leave to your good sense to determine. Even at that moment of detection and disgrace in one man's eyes at least Sebastian retained his full measure of dignity. End of chapter 5 part 2 read by Lars Rolander Chapter 6 part 1 of Hilda Wade This is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org reading by Lars Rolander. Hilda Wade, a woman with tenacity of purpose by Grant Allen chapter 6 part 1 the episode of the letter with the bashing-stoke Mark. Thanks to my grandfather Silkensale Barth therefore when I found myself practically dismissed from Nathaniel's I was not thrown on my beam ends as most young men in my position would have been. I had time and opportunity for the favorite pastime of looking about me. I had time and opportunity for the favorite pastime of looking about me. I had time and opportunity of looking about me. Of course had I chosen I might have fought the case to the bitter end against Sebastian. He could not dismiss me that lay with the committee but I hardly cared to fight in the first place though I had found him out as a man. I still respected him as a great teacher and in the second place which is always more important I wanted to find and follow Hilda to be sure Hilda in that enigmatic letter of hers had implored me not to seek her out but I think you will admit there is one request which no man can grant to the girl he loves and that is the request to keep away from her. If Hilda did not want me I wanted Hilda and being a man I meant to find her. My chances of discovering her whereabouts however I had to confess to myself when it came to the point were extremely slender she had vanished from my horizon melted into space my sole hint of a clue consisted in the fact that the letter she sent me had been posted at Basingstoke here then was my problem given an envelope with the Basingstoke postmark to find in what part of Europe Asia, Africa or America the writer of it might be discovered it opened up a fine field for speculation when I set out to face this broad puzzle my first idea was I must ask Hilda in all circumstances of difficulty I had grown accustomed to submitting my doubts and surmises to her acute intelligence and her instinct almost always supplied the right solution but now Hilda was gone it was Hilda herself I wished to attract through the labyrinth of the world I could expect no assistance in tracking her from Hilda let me think I said to myself over a reflective pipe with feet poised on the fender how would Hilda herself have approached this problem imagine I'm Hilda I must try to strike a trail by applying her own methods to her own character she would have attacked the question no doubt here I eyed my pipe wisely from the psychological side she would have asked herself I stroked my chin what such a temperament as hers was likely to do under such and such circumstances and she would have answered it a right but then I puffed away once or twice she is Hilda when I came to recognize the matter in this light I became at once aware of how great a gulf separated the clumsy male intelligence from the immediate and almost unerring intuitions of a clever woman I am considered no fool in my own profession I may venture to say I was Sebastian's favorite pupil yet though I asked myself over and over again where Hilda would be likely to go Canada, China, Australia has the outcome of our character in these given conditions I got no answer I stared at the fire and reflected I smoked two successive pipes and shook out the ashes let me consider how Hilda's temperament would work I said looking such ashes I said it several times but there I stuck I went no further the solution would not come I felt that in order to play Hilda's part it was necessary first to have Hilda's headpiece not every man can bend the bow of Ulysses as I turned the problem over in my mind however one phrase at last came back to me a phrase which Hilda herself had let fall when we were debating a very similar point about Paul, Hugo Legate if I were in his place what do you think I would do I hide myself at once in the greenest recesses of our carnivanshire mountains she must have gone to Wales then I had her own authority for saying so and yet Wales Wales I pulled myself up with a jerk in that case how did she come to be passing by bashing a stove was the postmark a-blind had she hired someone to take the letter somewhere for her to put me off on a false track I could hardly think so besides the time was against it I saw Hilda at Nathaniel's in the morning the very same evening I received the envelope with the bashing stoke postmark if I were in his place yes true but now I come to think on it were the positions really parallel Hilda was not flying for her life from justice she was only endeavouring to escape Sebastian and myself the instances she had quoted of the mountaineer's curious homing instinct the wild journing he feels at moments of great straits to bury himself among the nooks of his native hills were they not all instances of murderers pursued by the police it was object terror that drew these men to their burrows Hilda was not a murderer she was not dodged by remorse despair or the murmidance of the law it was murder she was avoiding not the punishment of murder that made of course an obvious difference irrevocably far from London she said Wales is a suburb I gave up the idea that it was likely to prove her place or refuge from the two men she was spent on escaping after all seemed more probable than lumberies that first failure gave me clue however as to the best way of applying Hilda's own methods what would such a person do under the circumstances that was her way of putting the question clearly then I must first decide what were the circumstances was Sebastian speaking the truth was Hilda weighed or was she not the daughter of the post murderer Dr. York Bannerman I looked up as much of the case as I could in unobtrusive ways among the old law reports and found that the barrister who had had charge of the defence was my father's old friend Mr. Horace Mayfield a man of elegant tastes and the means to gratify them I went to call on him on Sunday evening at his artistically luxurious house in the gardens a sedate footman answered the bell fortunately Mr. Mayfield was at home and what is rarer disengaged you do not always find a successful QC at his ease among his books beneath the electric light ready to give up a vacant hour to friendly colloquy remember York Bannerman's case he said a huge smile breaking slowly over his genial fat face Horace Mayfield resembles a great good humor toad with bland manners and a capacious double chin I should just say I did bless my soul why yes he beamed I was York Bannerman's console excellent fellow York Bannerman most unfortunate end though precious clever chapter had an astounding memory recollected every symptom of every patient he ever attended and such an eye diagnosis it was clairvoyance a gift no less knew what was the matter with you the moment he looked at you that sounded like Hilda the same surprising power of recalling facts the same keen faculty for interpreting character or the science of feeling he poisoned somebody I believe I murmured casually an uncle of his or something Mayfield's great squat face wrinkled the double chin folding down on the neck became more ostentatiously doubled than ever well I can't admit that he said in his suave voice twirling the string of his eyeglass I was York Bannerman's advocate you see and therefore I was paid not to admit it besides he was a friend of mine and I always liked him but I will allow that the case did look a trifle black against him huh? look black did it I faltered the eudicious barrister shrugged his shoulders a genial smile spread oilily once more every smooth face none of my business to say so he answered puckering the corners of his eyes still it was a long time ago and the circumstances certainly were suspicious perhaps on the whole but it was just as well the poor fellow died before the trial came off otherwise he pouted his lips I might have had my work cut out to save him and he eyed the blue china gods on the mantelpiece affectionately I believe the crown urged money as the motive I suggested mayfield glanced inquired at me now why do you want to know all this he asked in a suspicious voice coming back from his dragons it is irregular very to worm information out of an innocent barrister in his hours of ease about the former client we are a guilless race we lawyers don't abuse our confidence he seemed an honest man I thought in spite of his mocking tone trusted him and made a clean breast of it I believe I answered with an impressive little pause I want to marry York bannerman's daughter he gave a quick start what may see he exclaimed I shook my head no no that is not the name I replied he hesitated a moment but there is no other he hazarded cautiously at last I am not sure of it I went on I have merely at my suspicions I am in love with a girl and something about her makes me think she's probably a York bannerman but my dear you but if that is so the great lawyer went on waving me off with one fat hand it must be at once apparent to you that I am the last person on earth to whom you ought to apply for information remember my oath the practice of our clan the seal of secrecy I was frank once more I do not know whether the lady I mean is or is not York bannerman's daughter I persisted she may be and she may not she gives another name that's certain but whether she is or isn't one thing I know I mean to marry her I believe in her I trust her I only seek to gain this information now because I don't know where she is and I want to track her he crossed his big hands with an air of Christian resignation and looked up at the panels of the coffered ceiling in that he answered I may honestly say I can't help you Hamburg apart I have not known Mrs York bannerman's address or Macy's either ever since my poor friend's death prudent woman Mrs York bannerman she went away I believe to somewhere in north Wales and afterwards to Brittany but she probably changed her name and she did not confide in me I went on to ask him a few questions about the case pre-missing that I did so in the most friendly spirit oh I can only tell you what is publicly known he answered beaming with the usual professional pretense of the most swings like reticence but the plain fact as universally admitted were these I break no confidence York bannerman had a rich uncle from whom he had expectations a certain admiral Scott Predor this uncle had lately made a will in York bannerman's favor but he was a cantankerous old chap naval you know autocratic crusty given to changing his mind with each of the wind and easily offended by his relations the sort of cheerful old party who makes a new will once every month disinheriting the nephew he last dined with well one day the admiral was taken ill at his own house and York bannerman attended him our contention was I speak now as my old friend's council that Scott Predor getting as tired of life as we are all tired of him and weary of his recurrent worry of willmaking determined at last to clear out for good from a world where he was so little appreciated and therefore tried to poison himself where the aconitine I suggested eagerly unfortunately yes he made use of aconitine for that otherwise laudable purpose now as ill luck would have it may feel shrinkle steepened York bannerman and Sebastian then to rising doctors engaged in physiological researches together had just been occupied in experimenting upon this very drug testing the use of aconitine indeed you will no doubt remember he crossed his fat hands again comfortably it was these precise researches on a then little known poison that first brought Sebastian prominently before the public what was the consequence his smooth persuasive voice flowed on as if I were a concentrated jury the admiral grew rapidly worse and insisted upon calling in a second opinion no doubt he didn't like the aconitine when it came to the pinch for it does pinch I can tell you and repented him from his evil York bannerman suggested Sebastian as the second opinion the uncle acquiesced Sebastian was called in and of course being fresh from his researches immediately recognized the symptoms of aconitine poisoning what Sebastian found it out I cried starting oh yes Sebastian he watched the case from that point to the end and the oddest part of it all was this that though he communicated with the police and himself prepared every morsel of food that the poor old admiral took from that moment forth the symptoms continually increased in severity the police contention was that York bannerman somehow managed to put the stuff into the milk beforehand my own theory was as counsel for the accused he blinked his fat eyes that old Pridore had concealed a large quantity of aconitine in the bed before his illness and went on taking it from time to time just to spite his nephew and you believe that mr. Mayfield the broad smile broke concentrically in ripples over the great lawyer's face his smile was Mayfield's main feature he shrugged his shoulders and expanded his big hands wide open before him my dear you but he said with the most numerous expression of countenance you are a professional man yourself therefore you know that every profession has its own little courtesies its own small fictions I was York bannerman's counsel as well as his friend disappoint of honor with us that no barrister will ever admit a doubt as to a client's innocence is he not paid to maintain it and to my dying day I will constantly maintain that old Pridore poisoned himself maintain it with that dog den meaningless obstinacy with which we always cling to whatever is least provable oh yes he poisoned himself and York bannerman was innocent but still you know it was the sort of case where an acute lawyer with a reputation to make would prefer to be for the crown rather than for the prisoner but it was never tried I equilated no happily for us it was never tried fortune favored us York bannerman had a weak heart a conveniently weak heart which the inquests sorely affected and besides he was deeply angry at what he persisted in calling Sebastian's defection he evidently thought Sebastian ought to have stood by him his colleague preferred the claims of public duty as he understood them I mean to those of private friendship it was a very sad case for York bannerman was really charming fellow but I confess I was relieved when he died unexpectedly on the morning of his arrest he took off my shoulders a most serious burden you think then the case would have gone against him my dear you but his whole face puckered with an indulgent smile of course the case must have gone against us juries are fools but they are not such fools as to swallow everything like ostriches to let me throw dust in their eyes about so plain issue consider the facts consider them impartially York bannerman had e-success to a conitine had whole ounces of it in his possession he treated the uncle from whom he was to inherit he was in temporary embarrassments that came out at the inquest it was known that the admiral had just made a 23rd will in his favor and that the admiral's wills were liable to alteration every time a nephew ventured upon an opinion in politics religion, science, navigation or the right card at wist differing by a shade from that of the uncle the admiral died of a conitine poisoning and Sebastian observed and detailed the symptoms could anything be plainer I mean could any combination of fortuitous circumstances he blinked pleasantly again be more adverse to an advocate sincerely convinced of his client's innocence as a professional duty and he gazed at me comically the more he piled up the case against the man who I now felt sure was Hilda's father the less did I believe him a dark conspiracy seemed to loom up in the background has it ever occurred to you I asked at last in a very tentative tone that perhaps I threw out the hint as a mere suggestion perhaps it may have been Sebastian who he smiled this time till I thought his smile would swallow him if York Bannerman had not been my client he mused aloud I might have been inclined to suspect rather that Sebastian aided him to avoid justice by giving him something violent to take if he wished it something which might accelerate the inevitable action of the heart disease from which he was suffering isn't that more likely I saw that there nothing further to be got out of Mayfield his opinion was fixed he was a placid ruminant but he had given me already much food for thought I thanked him for his assistance and returned on foot to my rooms at the hospital I was now however in a somewhat different position for tracking Hilda from that which I occupied before my interview with the famous council I felt certain by this time that Hilda Wade and Macy York Bannerman were one and the same person to be sure it gave me a twinge to think that Hilda should be masquerading under an assumed name but I waved that question for the moment and awaited her explanations the great point now was to find Hilda she was flying from Sebastian to mature a new plan but with her I proceeded to argue it out on her own principles oh how lamely the world is still so big Mauritius the Argentine British Columbia New Zealand the letter I had received bore the bassin stoke postmark now a person may be passing bassin stoke on his way either to Southampton or Plymouth both of which are ports of embarkation for various foreign countries I attached importance to that clue and realized that she intended to put the sea between us in concluding so much I felt sure I was not mistaken Hilda had too big and too cosmopolitan a mind to speak of being irrevocably far from London if she were only going to some town in England or even to Normandy or the Channel Islands irrevocably far pointed rather to a destination outside Europe altogether to India, Africa, America not to Jersey, Dieppe or St. Marlowe was it Southampton or Plymouth to which she was first bound that was the next question I inclined to Southampton for the sprawling lines so different from her usual neat hand were written hurriedly in a train I could see and on consulting Bradshaw I found that the Plymouth Express stopped longest at Salisbury where Hilda would therefore have been likely to post her note if she were going to the far west while some of the Southampton trains stopped at Bassing Stoke which is indeed the most convenient point on that route for sending off a letter this was mere blind guesswork to be sure compared with Hilda's immediate and unerring intuition but it had some probability in its favor at any rate try both or the two she was likelier to be going to Southampton my next move was to consult the list of outgoing steamers Hilda had left London on a Saturday morning now on alternate Saturdays the steamers of the castle line sailed from Southampton where they called to take out passengers and mails was this one of those alternate Saturdays I looked up the list of dates it was that told further in favor of Southampton but did any steamer line sail from Plymouth on the same day none that I could find or from Southampton elsewhere I looked them all up the Royal Mail companies both started Wednesdays the North German Lloyds on Wednesdays and Sundays those were the only likely vessels I could discover either then I concluded Hilda meant to sail on Saturday by the castle line for South Africa or else on Sunday by North German Lloyd for some part of America how I longed for one hour of Hilda to help me out with her almost infallible instinct I realized how feeble and fallacious was my own grouping in the dark her knowledge of temperament would have revealed to her at once what I was trying to discover like the police she despised by the clumsy clues I lost her sarcasm however I went to bed and slept on it next morning I determined to set out for Southampton on a tour of inquiry to all the steamboat agencies if that failed I could go on to Plymouth but as chance would have it the morning post brought me an unexpected letter which helped me not a little in unraveling the problem it was a crumpled letter written on rather soiled paper in an uneducated hand and it bore like Hilda's the basing stoke postmarked Charlotte Chertwood sent her duty to Dr. Cambridge it said with somewhat uncertain spelling and I am very sorry that I was not able to post the letter to you in London as the lady asked me but after her train had left as I was stepping into mine the Indians started and I was knocked down and badly hurt and the lady gave me a half sovereign to post it in London as soon as I got there but being unable to do so I now return it dear sir not knowing the lady's name and address she having trusted me through seeing me on the platform and perhaps you can send it back to her and was very sorry I now post it where she asked me but time being an object put it in the box in basing stoke station and now in close post of his order for ten shillings which dear sir kindly let the young lady have from your obedient servant Charlotte Chertwood in the corner was the address eleven chap's cottages basing stoke the happy accident of this letter advanced things for me greatly though it also made me feel how dependent I was upon happy accidents where Hilda would have guessed right at once by mere knowledge of character still the letter explained many things which had hitherto puzzled me I had felt not a little surprised that Hilda wishing to withdraw from me and leave no traces should have sent off her farewell letter from basing stoke so as to let me see at once in what direction she was travelling nay I even wondered at times whether she had really posted it herself at basing stoke or given it to somebody who chanced to be going there to post for her as a blind but I did not think she would deliberately deceive me and in my opinion to get the letter posted at basing stoke was a deliberate deception while to get it posted in London was mere vague precaution I understood now that she had written it in the train and then picked out a likely person as she passed to take it to Waterloo for her End of Chapter 6 Part 1 Read by Lars Rolander Chapter 6 Part 2 of Hilda Wait This is a LibriVox recording in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Reading by Lars Rolander Hilda Wait, a woman with tenacity of purpose by Grant Allen Chapter 6 Part 2 Of course I will straight down to basing stoke and call at once the Chubb's Cottages It was a squalid little row on the outskirts of the town I found Charlotte Shirtwood herself exactly such a girl as Hilda with her quick judgment of character might have hit upon for such a purpose She was a conspicuously honest and transparent country servant of the lumpy type on her way to London to take a place as housemaid Her injuries were severe but not dangerous The lady saw me on the platform she said and back into me to come to her she asked me where I was going and I said to London miss says she smiling kind like could you post a letter for me certain sure says I you can depend upon me and then she gives me the aft sovereign and says she mind it's very particular if the gentleman don't get it ill fret his art out and through having a young man on my own as it is a groom at Andover of course I understood her sir and then feeling a full of it as you may say what with the aft sovereign and what with one thing and what with another and all of a fluster were not being used to traveling I run up when the train for London come in and try to scramble into it before it had quite stopped moving and a guard he rushes up and stand back says he wait till the train stops says he and waves his red flag at me but before I could stand back on the step the train sort of jumped away from me and knocked me down like this and they say it'll be a week now if or I'm well enough to go on to London but I posted the letter all the same at passing stock station as they was carrying me off and I took down the address so as to return the aft sovereign Hilda was right as always she had chosen instinctively the trustworthy person chosen her at first sight the bullseye do you know what train the lady was in I asked as she paused where was it going did you notice it was the Southampton train sir I saw the board on the carriage that settled the question you are a good and an honest girl I said pulling out my purse and you came to this misfortune through trying too eagerly to help the young lady a ten pound note is not over much as compensation for your accident take it and get well I should be sorry to think you lost a good place through your anxiety to help us the rest of my way was plain sailing now I hurried on straight to Southampton there my first visit was to the office of the castle line I went to the point at once was there a misweighed among the passengers by the Dunotor castle now nobody of that name on the list had any lady taken a passage at the last moment the clerk propended yes a lady had come by the mail train from London with no heavy baggage and had gone on board direct taking what cabin she could get a young lady in grey quite unprepared gave no name called away in a hurry what sort of a lady youngish good looking brown hair the indice the clerk thought a sort of creamy skin and well a mesmeric kind of glance that seemed to go right through you that will do I answered sure now of my quarry to which port did she book to Cape Town very well I said promptly you may reserve me a good berth in the next outgoing steamer it was just like Hilda's impulsive character to rush off in this way at a moment's notice and just like mine to follow her but it peaked me a little to think that but for the accident of an accident I might never have tracked her down if the letter had been posted in London as she intended and not at passing stop I might have sought in vain for her from then till doomsday ten days later I was afloat on the channel bound for South Africa I always admired Hilda's astonishing insight into character and motive but I never admired it quite so profoundly as on the glorious day when we arrived at Cape Town I was standing on deck looking out for the first time in my life on that tremendous view the steep and massive bulk of table mounting a mere lump of rock dropped loose from the sky with a long white town spread gleaming at its base and the silver tree plantations that cling to its lower slopes and merged by degrees into gardens and vineyards when a messenger from the shore arrived at Cape Town he said in an inquiring tone I nodded that is my name I have a letter for you sir I took it in great surprise who on earth in Cape Town could have known I was coming I had not a friend to my knowledge in the colony I glanced at the envelope my wonder deepened that prescient brain it was Hilda's handwriting I tore it open and read my dear Ubert I know you will come I know you will follow me so I am leaving this letter at Donald Curry and Company's office giving their agent instructions to hand it to you as soon as you reach Cape Town I am quite sure you will track me so far at least I understand your temperament but I beg you I implore you to go no further you will ruin my plan if you do and I still adhere to it it is good of you to come so far I cannot blame you for that I know your motives but do not try to find me out I warn you beforehand it will be quite useless I have made up my mind I have an object in life and dear as you are to me that I will not pretend to deny I can never allow even you to interfere with it so be warned in time go back quietly by the next steamer you're ever attached and grateful Hilda I read it twice through with a little thrill of joy did any man ever court so strange a love her very strangeness drew me but go back by the next steamer I felt sure of one thing Hilda was far too good a judge of character to believe that I was likely to obey that mandate I will not trouble you with the remaining stages of my quest except for the slowness of South African male coaches they were comparatively easy it is not so hard to track strangers in Cape Town as strangers in London I followed Hilda to her hotel and from her hotel up country stage after stage jolted by rail worst jolted by mule wagon inquiring inquiring inquiring till I learned at last she was somewhere in Rhodesia that is a big address but it does not cover as many names as it covers square miles in time I found her still it took time and before we met Hilda had leisure to settle down quietly to her new existence people in Rhodesia had noted her coming as a new portent because of one strange peculiarity she was the only woman of means who had ever gone up of her own free will to Rhodesia other women had gone there to accompany their husbands or to earn their livings but that a lady should freely select that half-baked land as a place of residence a lady of position with all the world before her where to choose that puzzled the Rhodesians so she was a marked person most people solved the vexed problem indeed by suggesting that she had designs against the stern celibacy of a leading South African politician depend upon it they said it's Rhodes she's after the moment I arrived at Salisbury and stated my object in coming all the world in the new town was ready to assist me the lady was to be found vaguely speaking on a young farm to the north a budding farm whose general direction was expansively indicated to me by a wave of the arm with South African uncertainty I bought a pony at Salisbury a pretty little seasoned sorrel mare and set out to find Hilda my way lay over a brand new road passes for a road in South Africa very soft and lumpy like an English cart track I'm a fair cross-country rider in our own midlands but I never rode a more tedious journey than that one I had crawled several miles under a blazing sun along the shadeless new track on my African pony when to my surprise I saw of all sides in the world a bicycle coming towards me I could hardly believe my eyes civilization indeed a bicycle in these remotest wilds of Africa I had been picking my way for some hours through a desolate plateau the high veldt about 5000 feet above the sea level and entirely treeless in places to be sure a few low bushes of prickly aspect rose entangled clumps but for the most part the arid table land was covered by a thick growth of short brown grass about nine inches high burned up in the sun and most wearisome to look at the distressing nakedness of a new country confronted me here and there a bald farm or two had been literally pegged out the pegs were almost all one saw of them as yet the fields were in the future here and there again a scattered range of granite hills known locally as copches red rocky prominences flaunting in the sunshine diversified the distance but the road itself such as it was lay all on the high plain looking down now and again into gorgeous or clues wooded on their slopes with scrubby trees and comparatively well watered in the midst of all this crude unfinished land the mere sight of a bicycle bumping over the rubbly road was a sufficient surprise but my astonishment reached a climax when I saw as it drew near that it was ridden by a woman one moment later I had burst into a wild cry and rode forward to her hurriedly Hilda I shouted aloud in my excitement Hilda she stepped lightly from her pedals as if it had been in the park head erect and proud eyes liquid lustrous I dismounted trembling and stood beside her in the wild joy of the moment for the first time in my life I kissed her fervently Hilda took the kiss unrecruiting she did not attempt to refuse me so you have come at last she murmured with a glow on her face half nestling towards me half withdrawing as if two wills tore her in different directions I have been expecting you for some days and somehow today I was almost certain you were coming then you are not angry with me I cried you remember you forbade me angry with you dear you but could I ever be angry with you especially for thus showing me your devotion and your trust I am never angry with you when one knows one understands I have thought of you so often sometimes alone here in this raw new land I have longed for you to come it is inconsistent of me of course but I am so solitary so lonely and yet you begged me not to follow you she looked up at me shyly I was not accustomed to see Hilda shy her eyes gazed deep into mine beneath the long soft lashes I begged you not to follow me she repeated a strange gladness in her tone yes dear you but I begged you and I meant it cannot you understand that sometimes one hopes a thing may never happen and is supremely happy because it happens in spite of one I have a purpose in life for which I live I live for it still for it's sake I told you you must not come to me yet you have come against my orders and she paused and drew a deep sigh oh you but I thank you for daring to disobey me I clasped her to my bosom she allowed me half resisting I am too weak she murmured only this morning I made up my mind that when I saw you I would implore you to return at once and now that you are here she laid her little hand confidingly in mine see how foolish I am I cannot dismiss you which means to say Hilda that after all you are still a woman oh yes very much a woman you but I love you I half wish I did not why darling I drew her to me of course if I did not I could send you away so easily as it is I cannot let you stop and I cannot dismiss you then divide it I cried gaily do neither come away with me no no nor that either I will not stultify my whole past life I will not dishonor my dear father's memory I looked around for something to which to tether my horse a bridle is in one's way when one has to discuss important business there was really nothing about that seemed fit for the purpose Hilda saw what I saw and pointed mutely to a stunted bush beside a big granite boulder which rose abruptly from the dead level of the grass affording a little shade from that sweltering sunlight I tied my mare to the gnarled root it was the only part big enough and sat down by Hilda's side under the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land I realized at that moment the force and appropriateness of the psalmist's simile the sun beat fiercely on the seeding grasses away on the southern horizon we could faintly perceive the floating yellow haze of the prairie fires lit by the machonas then you knew I would come I seated herself on the burnt-up herbage while my hand stole into hers to nestle there naturally she pressed it in return oh yes I knew you would come she answered with that strange ring of confidence in her voice of course you got my letter at Cape Town I did Hilda and I wondered at you more than ever as I read it but if you knew I would come why right to prevent me I always had their mysterious faraway air she looked out upon infinity well I wanted to do my best to turn you aside she said slowly one must always do one's best even when one feels and believes it is useless that surely is the first clause in a doctor's or a nurse's rubric but why didn't you want me to come I persisted why fight against your own heart Hilda I'm sure I know you love me her bosom grows and fell her eyes dilated love you she cried looking away over the bushy ridges as if afraid to trust herself oh yes you but I love you it is not for that I wish to avoid you or rather it is just because of that I cannot endure to spoil your life by a fruitless affection why fruitless she cried looking forward she crossed her hands resignedly you know all by this time she answered Sebastian would tell you of course when you went to announce that you were leaving Nathaniel's he could not do otherwise it is the outcome of his temperament an integral part of his nature Hilda I cried you are a witch how could you know that I can't imagine she smiled her restrained because I know Sebastian she answered quietly I can read that man to the core he is simple as a book his composition is plain straightforward quite natural uniform there are no twists and turns in him once learn the key and it discloses everything like an open sesame he has a gigantic intellect a burning thirst for knowledge one love, one hobby science and no moral instincts he goes straight for his ends and whatever comes in his way she dug a little hill in the brown soil he tramples on it as ruthlessly as a child will trample on a worm or a beetle and yet I said he is so great yes great I grant you but the easiest character to unravel that I have ever met calm or stare unbending yet not in the least degree complex he has the impassioned temperament pushed to its highest pitch the temperament that runs deep with irresistible force but the passion that inspires him that carries him away headlong as love carries some men is a rare and abstract one the passion of science I gazed at her as she spoke with a feeling aching to av it must destroy the plot interest of life for you Hilda I cried out there in the vast void of that wild African plateau to foresee so well what each person will do how each will act under such given circumstances she pulled a bent of grass and plucked off its dry spikelets one by one perhaps so she answered after a meditative pause though of course all natures are not equally simple only with great souls can you be sure beforehand like that for good or for evil it is essential to anything worth calling character that one should be able to predict in what way it will act under given circumstances to feel certain this man will do nothing small or mean that one could never act dishonestly or speak deceitfully smaller natures are more complex they defy analysis because their motives are not consistent most people think to be complex is to be great I objected she shook her head that is quite a mistake she answered great natures are simple and relatively predictable since their motives balance one another justly small natures are complex and hard to predict because small actions, small jealousies small discords and perturbations come in at all moments and override for a time the permanent underlying factors of character great natures good or bad are equibly poised small natures let petty motives intervene to upset their balance then you knew I would come I exclaimed half pleased to find I belonged inferentially to her higher category her eyes beamed on me with a beautiful light knew you would come oh yes I begged you not to come but I felt sure you were too deeply in earnest to obey me I asked a friend in Cape Town to telegraph your arrival and almost ever since the telegram reached me I have been expecting you and awaiting you so you believed in me implicitly as you in me that is the worst of it you but if you did not believe in me I could have told you all and then you would have left me but as it is you know all and yet you want to cling to me you know I know all because Sebastian told me yes and I think I even know how you answered him how? she paused the calm smile lighted up her face once more then she drew out a pencil you think life must lack plot interest for me? she began slowly because with certain natures I can partially guess beforehand what is coming but have you not observed that in reading a novel part of the pleasure you feel arises from your conscious anticipations of the end and your satisfaction in seeing that you anticipated correctly or part sometimes from the occasional unexpectedness of the real denouncement well, life is like that I enjoy observing my success and in a way my failures let me show you what I mean I think I know what you said to Sebastian not the words of course but the purport and I will write it down now for you set down your version too and then we will compare them it was a crucial test we both wrote for a minute or two somehow in Hilda's presence I forgot at once the strangeness of the scene the weird oddity of the moment that sombre plane disappeared for me I was only aware that I was with Hilda once more and therefore in paradise Pison and Guion watered the desolate land whatever she did seem to me supremely right if she had proposed to me to begin work on medical jurisprudence under the shadow of the big rock I should have begun it incontinently she handed me her slip of paper I took it and read Sebastian told you I was Dr. York Bannerman's daughter and you answered if so York Bannerman was innocent and you are the poisoner it's not that correct I handed her in answer my own paper she read it with a faint flash when she came to the words either she is not York Bannerman's daughter or else York Bannerman was not a poisoner and someone else was I might put a name to him she rosed her feet with a great rush of long suppressed feeling and clasped me passionately my Hubert she cried I read you a right I knew it I was sure of you I folded her in my arms I read South African desert then Hilda dear I murmured you will consent to marry me the words brought her back to herself she unfolded my arms with slow reluctance no dearest she said earnestly with a face where pride fought hard against love that is why above all things I did not want you to follow me I love you I trust you you love me you trust me but I never will marry anyone till I have succeeded in clearing my father's memory I know he did not do it I know Sebastian did but that is not enough I must prove it I must prove it I believe it already I answered what need then to prove it to you Hubert oh no not to you there I am safe but to the world that condemned him condemned him untried I must vindicate him I must clear him I bent my face close to hers but may I not marry you first I ask and after that I can help you to clear him she gazed at me fearlessly no no she cried clasping her hands much as I love you dear Hubert I cannot consent to it I'm too proud I will not allow the world to say not even to say falsely her face flushed crimson her voice dropped low I will not allow them to say those hateful words he married a murderer's daughter I bowed my head as you will my darling I answered I am content to wait I trust you in this too someday we will prove it and all this time preoccupied as I was with these deeper concerns I had not even asked where Hilda lived or what she was doing End of chapter 6 part 2 read by Lars Rolander