"Yes; but the lady who was then Mrs. Halliday is now Mrs. Sheldon."
"Of course; he married her," said Mr. Burkham. "Yes; I remember hearing of the marriage."
He had tried in vain to recover his old composure. He was white to the lips, and his hand shook as he tried to arrange his scattered papers.
"What does it mean?" thought Valentine. "Mrs. Sheldon talked of this man's inexperience. Can it be that his incompetency lost the life of his patient, and that he knows it was so?"
"Mrs. Halliday is now Mrs. Sheldon," repeated the surgeon, in a feeble manner. "Yes, I remember; and Mr. Sheldon--the dentist, who at that time resided in Fitzgeorge Street--is he still living?"
"He is still living. It was he who called in Dr. Doddleson to attend upon Miss Halliday. As her stepfather, he has some amount of authority, you see; not legal authority--for my dear girl is of age--but social authority. He called in Doddleson, and appears to place confidence in him; and as he is something of a medical man himself, and pretends to understand Miss Halliday's case thoroughly--"
"Stop!" cried Mr. Burkham, suddenly abandoning all pretence of calmness. "Has he--Sheldon--any interest in his stepdaughter's death?"
"No, certainly not. All her father's money went to him upon his marriage with her mother. He can gain nothing by her death; on the contrary, he may lose a good deal, for she is the heir-at-law to a large fortune."
"And if she dies, that fortune will go--"
"I really don't know where it will go," Valentine answered carelessly: he thought the subject was altogether beside the question of Mr. Burkham's agitation, and it was the cause of that agitation which he was anxious to discover.
"If Mr. Sheldon can gain by his stepdaughter's death, fear him!" exclaimed the surgeon, with sudden passion; "fear him as you would fear death itself--worse than death, for death is neither so stealthy nor so treacherous as he is!"
"That which I thought my lips would never utter to mortal hearing--that which I dare not publicly proclaim, at the hazard of taking the bread out of the mouths of my wife and children. I have kept this hateful secret for eleven years--through many a sleepless night and dreary day. I will tell it to you; for if there is another life in peril, that life shall be lost through no cowardice of mine."