"Haud your wheesht, Tommy. Ye're but a bairn and an ignorant fule-bairn at that:"--the broad Scotch accent lent itself readily to a wonderful mingling of compassion and contempt; "hark to me,--what? You're trembling?"--for the youth's lanky frame quivered beneath the weight of his hand. "Lord, has it gone as far as that?" muttered the speaker, under his breath.
Then he let go the young man's shoulder, and turned and shut the door carefully. "Sit ye down: sit, I tell ye. You are going to hear the truth, and you'll _have_ to hear it. What? You think I've no eyes nor ears nor sense, because _you_ have none--except for her? Tommy,--" he paused and drew a breath, a long, deep breath--"Tommy, my man, I've that to say to you to-day I've never said to mortal man, nor woman before. Will ye listen--but listen ye must, only--only I would as soon ye heard it kindly, for your own sake. Tommy, I _know what it's like_."
Tommy started, lifted his eyes, and let them fall again.
"Aye, I know;"--the big, shaggy head nodded slowly, and the words dropped one by one from the full, protruding lips. "The world's a dream while it lasts.... You walk among shadows, without _she's_ there.... There's no sleep at night,--there's only thinking, and tossing, and sweating--and heugh! the next hour strikes!... And one day it's heaven, and the next hell.... And it ends----"
"It was twenty years ago," said the doctor, simply. "Tommy lad, would you--would you care to hear about it? You shall." He covered his eyes with his hand and had begun to speak ere he removed it. "I was about your age, but I was still at college; I left late. It was a custom in Edinburgh for the professors to ask us students once a year to an evening party; and although some of us did not care over much for that kind of entertainment, we could not have refused if we would. I remember I was annoyed at having to buy a dress suit, when my invitation came; I thought it waste of money, and money was scarce in those days. Tommy, I've got that suit now....
"You know that I am as happily married as a man can be;" the speaker started afresh. "No husband ever had a better, a dearer, or a fonder wife--but she has never thought of inquiring into the secret of that locked drawer upstairs,--and though I shall tell it her some day, I haven't yet. It sticks in my throat, and I have put off and put off--but, anyhow, you shall hear.... I went to the party I was telling you about, and--and _she_ was there. A colonel's daughter, and no great lady--as I was at the pains to find out afterwards. Her family was not much better than my own, and upon that I built my hopes--for we think much of family in Scotland. But hopes? I don't know that they could be called 'hopes'. I was stunned, bewildered. She was the loveliest creature I had ever seen, and Tommy"--he leaned forward, his hands clasping the chair arms on either side--"many women as I've seen since, I have never yet seen her like.... Such eyes, such a brow, such a dazzling fair skin--the curved oval of her cheek--huts! I maunder.... She was amused by my adoration, Tommy; I don't know that it even flattered her, she was so accustomed to it--and I fear, I fear she felt no pity.... At any rate I was permitted to come to the house--for I fought and struggled till I obtained an entrance,--and even what I saw there did not open my eyes. I was doing well at college, you see; oh, I had better speak out, I did a deal better than ever _you_ did, my lad, and carried off honours which at that time seemed high enough to promise anything. I saw myself at the head of my profession, with money, position, perhaps a title--and thought if she would only wait? Had she shown, were it ever so cruelly, her real sentiments, I might have groaned beneath the knife, but the wound would have healed swiftly, as wounds do at that age--but she kept me dangling on through long months of torture, worn to skin and bone,"--he broke off abruptly, paced the room, and stood for a moment at the window with his back turned, then resumed:--