Chapter XX: The Fieldings

“A suicide’s grave! Oh, how terrible!” she cried, with blanched face and trembling hands.

“I will tell you all I know about it,” said her husband. “I went on Mr. Cameron’s yacht as I promised, to look after the health of my willful patient Mr. Mason who accompanied his sister. Pretty soon I found out several things. One was that your old pupil’s husband, Talbot Strangemore, had returned to his home at Selwyn Heights the day before.”

“Talbot Strangemore, home at last! Oh, how pleased, how happy Nina must have been at his return,” exclaimed Mrs. Fielding.

Doctor Fielding looked rather cynical, but he continued:

“I learned also that Mr. Cameron’s party was bound for Selwyn Heights to visit the Strangemores.”

“So soon? But I should have thought that Nina would have liked to have her husband all to herself just at first, after his long absence!” exclaimed the little woman.

“Something of the same feeling was in my own mind,” replied her husband. “Mr. Cameron invited me to accompany them to the Heights, but although I knew that I would be sure of a welcome from your old pupil, I declined his courtesy. It seemed to me like an unwarrantable intrusion upon the husband and wife in the first hours of their reunion.”

“Yes, for although they have been married five years, this is really their honey-moon. Talbot Strangemore is a bride-groom, Nina a bride,” assented his wife.

“So I decided to remain on the yacht as my patient seemed recovering very fast from his sudden attack of indisposition,” continued the doctor. “They all went away to Selwyn Heights without me, I spent a day and night very pleasantly with my books and the captain of the yacht. The next night I grew rather restless, thinking of you and baby alone and lonely at home, and I heartily wished that Mr. Mason would dismiss me from attendance upon him that I might return to you.”

Minnie nestled nearer to his side to kiss his bearded cheek fondly in return for his tender words.

“I talked to the captain until quite late last night, then I went on deck to smoke before retiring. I suppose it was quite midnight then. I walked up and down and gazed at the lights gleaming from the windows of Selwyn Heights, far away on its high bluff, and I thought of the sweet young mistress of the place whom my little wife loved so dearly, and I hoped in my heart that she was as happy with her husband as you and I are, my darling.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Fielding answered, with a sigh of infinite content.

“I do not know what it was that made me suddenly turn my eyes from the bluff to the shore,” he continued, “But it is certain that some influence in the air, some unaccountable premonition, moved me to do so. Then all in a flash as it seemed to my startled senses, Minnie, I beheld a slight, dark figure spring from the shore and fall into the water with a loud, terrible splash. Then it disappeared an instant in the depths of the waves.”

Mrs. Fielding shuddered through all her plump, pretty frame.

“Oh, poor Nina!” she cried, with the tears raining down her cheeks, and Doctor Fielding after a thoughtful pause again resumed his story: “I gave a cry of alarm that brought Captain Travers rushing to my side. We immediately lowered a little boat from the side of the yacht and went to the rescue of the would-be suicide. As she came back to the surface from her terrible plunge I seized her skirts and drew her into the boat. She was already unconscious but not dead. We took her on board the yacht, and what was my horror and amaze when I discovered in that desperate creature the lovely and wealthy Mrs. Strangemore, your former pupil and friend.”

Mrs. Fielding rocking her baby on her bosom, could only murmur over and over:

“Oh, poor little Nina, poor little Nina!”

“I did not tell the captain that she was Mrs. Strangemore,” continued the doctor. “Some inward consciousness warned me not to do so. But I told him that she was a friend of my wife, and that I would be glad if I could bring her home to you. He was very kind. I did all that I could to resuscitate her, and having restored her to partial animation, I put her in the little boat which he kindly placed at my disposal and myself rowed her to Baltimore to give her the tender care of her old friend. I felt sure that something very dreadful must have driven her from Selwyn Heights, and I did not think it would be wise to take her back there until we knew more.”

“You did right, but, oh, Arthur, it is a three hours row from Selwyn Heights to Baltimore. How weary you must be!” she cried.

He held up his blistered palms with a smile.

“It was hard work,” he said. “My hands are unused to the oar since my college days. But I did not mind it for the sake of the girl you loved so well, Minnie!”

“You darling!” she exclaimed.

* * * * *

Nina’s slumber was a long and deep one. She had scarcely slept an hour since her husband’s home-coming, and now since her reckless attempt at suicide exhausted nature could bear no more. Wearily, heavily, almost like one in a state of coma, she lay and slumbered, the pale, pale face, with the dark lashes lying heavily against her cheeks, looking death-like in its wanness, while the breath was scarcely perceptible as it fluttered over her lips. The doctor and his wife stole in and out now and then to look at her, but they were careful not to disturb her, and the little one was carried to a distant room that its cries might not awake her.

Doctor Fielding hoped much from that long, saving sleep.

“She will awaken rested and refreshed, and although very weak from her long, unbroken fast, she will be in a better frame of mind, and I have no doubt that she will repent of the desperate deed she attempted last night,” he said.

Meanwhile the chilly dawn had broken and one of the most inclement days of blustering March had set in. It rained, hailed, snowed, by turns, and the cold was intense.