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14
DR. WINSCOMBE’S SACRIFICE.
his seat, and drive to my brothev’s house, as
fast as the ponies can lav legs to the gronnd. It
isn’t over a mile, I should say, and ho is at home
until noon to-day, looking after—will you do
that?”
"Yes, if you please,” replied Millicent. “I
couldn’t drive, just now; and, besides, mamma
can’t spare me.’’
Off went the ponies, at a rigidly correct puce,
though Mrs. Batolphe shrieked and moanea
afresh at every motion, and Millicentpatiently
and sweetly soothed her.
“ What a trump of a girl 1 And ain’t she
pretty ?'* said Harry Winscombe to himself, as
he watched tlieso proceedings, and blessed the
chance that had brought 'him to that especial
field at that especial moment. In fifteen min
utes, the ponies were at the doctor’s gate. Hardly
had they stopped, before the doctor himself was
at the side of tho carriage.
“What is it? Au accident?” ho asked,
anxiously.
A few clear words, from his brother, explained
all that needed to bo told; aud Hilly added,
eagerly:
“ Do take her in, and give her something,
doctor. I can’t drive through the town with
her, poor soul, in this way. She’ll soon re
cover.”
A Btrango shadow of hesitation passed over
the doctor’s face, and it was a moment before
he replied, aud then very coldly:
“ Certainly. Shall I carry her in ?”
“ Yes, please,” replied Milly, with a wistful
glance at the stem, set face, that would not turn
toward her.
Tho doctor lifted the sobbiug sufferer, as if
she had been a child, and fcnro her into the
house, laving her upon a sofa in the parlor.
“I will call my sister,” said the doctor,
abruptly, as he turned from Mrs. Batolphe, aud
strode out of the room, still nover glancing at
Millicent.
* Harry entered now, and by bis sympathy, be
made both women feel-tliat bo was a friend, not
only willing, but anxious to take any trouble, or
make any sacrifice of time, or labor, to help them
out of their worries. Moreover, Millicent, at
least, could not but see that Harry Winscombe
was one of tho handsomest men she had ever
met; very liko his elder brother, but more
regular in'feature, with bright brown hair, and
dear, light hazel eyes.
Steps were now beard noon tho floor over
head ; then a murmur of voices; and finally the
doctor’s firm tread, descending the stairs. But
juBt as lie reached the foot, a shriek, a succes
sion of shrieks, from tho upper room, pursued
him, as it were ; and turning, he sprang np three
steps at a time, and re-entered the room.
“Oh, my goodness, what’s that? Millicent,
what has happened ? Do go and see t They are
killing somebody—dear — dear—dear!’ And
poor Mrs. Batolphe’s sobs aud cries returned
with redoubled force, and for some moments
mingled, in maddening confusion, with those
from the upper room.
“What is the matter, Mr. Winscombe?” de
manded Milly, almost at her wits’ end, aud
glancing over her shoulder, as she knelt beside
her mother. Harry Winscombe’s face had sud
denly changed. It wore a curious guilty look,
and had crimsoned liko a girl's.
“I—I—it’s a poor creature come here, to ho
under my brother’s care,” he stammered, turn
ing away from that bright, inquisitive glance.
“ I’m afraid she’s a little out of her head, to-day,
and very likely didn’t want Bobert to leave
her.”
“ Well, I must get my mother away, at once,
If Dr. Wiuseombe had explained that this was a
private madhouse, wo certainly would not have
intruded.”
“ I’m sorry y< i’ro angry,” replied Harry, so
limple and honestly that Milly blushed with
•hame at her own ill-temper, and penitently
•aid;
“ Oh, excuse me, but I am coming to the end
>f my endurance, and am hardly responsible for
•rhat I say. But we must get away, really; that
poor woman’s cries will kill mamma. The ponies
won’t answer. Will yon go down to a livery
•table, and get a close carriage, as quickly as
you can ? And you can tell them to seud up a
laan to drive the pomes home; if you please.”
He darted from the room at her words, and
aoon returned with a carriage, having been for
tunate enough to find one ready harnessed. Just
before he arrived, ?>r. Winscombe once more
descended the stajr% and this time entered the
*->r, looking flushed, annoyed, and anxious.
m so sorry to have been detained; I sent
' rtake it?” he
i now it was
his look that sought Milliceut’s and hers that
refnsed to be met.
“ It was not brought,” said she, very coldly.
“ And I do not think mamma will be any better
here. Mr. Winscombe has gone for a carriage
to take her home.”
The dark brows met over Bobert Winscombe’s
eyes, and his teeth set themselves, as in strong
pain. Mrs. Batolpho unclosed her eyes.
“ Who is that madwoman ? Why do .von have
her here? She has frightened me almost to
death,” she said.
“ I am very sorry. I would have helped it, if
could. She’s a patient, whom I have taken
into the house—for a time.”
The desolate, hopeless tone of his voice smote
upon Millicent’s heart; but she would not look
at him, or try to put down the unreasoning anger
burning in her heart against him, nor dul he
ouce Iqok at or speak to her, until after tlic
carriage had arrived, and Harry and he had
placed Mrs. Baiolplie within.
That evening, Dr. Winscombe came, as in duty
hound, to call upon his patient; but Millicent
did not appear.
The next morning, the brothers came together
for a visit, and Harry Winscombe proved him
self <>no oi tho best bred, sunniest, most sympa
thetic of young fellows.
From liis conversation, it appeared that he had
just graduated from Harvard, aud inclining to
liia hro hcr’s profession, was to spend some
months with him in preparatory studies. Then,
if he still remained of the same mind, lie-was to
go to a great medical school, at the beginning of
tho next year.
“ And during my sojourn here. Miss Batolphe,
shall throw mj’self upon your mercy for
society, and tho humanizing influence of ‘fair
woman,’” said he, gayly. Millicent smiled, hut
not quite so frankly, while she replied :
“Yes, indeed, you must come to us a great
deal. But you are not so destitute as you wish
to represent. You havo your Bister, there, at
home.”
“ Sophia I Yes, she is with ns—” • began
Harry, with rather a twist of tho merry mouth.
But just at that instant, Millicent caught a swift
warning look shot from Bohert’s eyes to his
brother’s, aud tho latter stopped abruptly.
Vexed, yet without knowing why, and impelled
by that strange perversity that so often makes
augry lovers long to wound tho beloved object,
Millv turned toward the doctor, saying;
“I suppose, however, Miss Winscombe is &
good deal engaged, at present, in attending your
resident patient. Isn’t it rather dangerous to
leave her alono with such a violent maniac?”
She meant to annoy him, but she was not pre
pared for tho livid pallor that suddenly over
spread his face; the bitter anger that shook his
voice, aud sparkled in his eyes ; or tho haughty
coldness with which he replied:
•‘You aro very good to trouble about my
Bister, or my patient; but I hope your anxiety
is groundless. I will, however, return to my
homo duties at once. Harry, are you ready ?”
When they were gone, Milly rushed to her own
room, threw herself down before her picture,
and cried until she could not see.
A day or two after this, Dr. Winscombe called,
alone, one day, and found both ladies in their
pretty little library.
“ Mrs. Batolphe,” he said, “ I want advice.
But, first, I must tell you a secret, that is a secret
until now—don’t go, if you please, Miss Hilli-
cent; I shall he glad to have your opinion as
well as vour mother’s in this affair.”
Mrs. Batolphe, liko most women of small ex
perience and limited mental capacity, was
always pleased to have her advice asked, and
was always very ready to give it.
“ I’m sure, I shall be
doctor,” she said.
Milly, without looking up, selected some
crewel from her basket, and began her conven
tional rose-bush, in the middlo of her conven
tional pond. Bobert Winscombe did not look at
her. In fact, he gave his chair an impatient
hitch, bringing it nearly with its back to the
embroidery frame.
“ Eight years ago.” lie began, abrnptly, “ when
I was just out of college, a green, romantic boy
of two-and-twenty, they sent me to the Wes't
Indies for a winter, on account of my health.
They’d better have tied a stone round my neck,
and pitohed me into the Atlautic, before I was
out of sight of land; for though my lungs got
sound, the end of it was, that, in a moment of
boyish passion—God knows, I soon found it was
not love—I married a Spanish girl, beautiful,
indeed, but with nothing else to recommend her.
In short, I ruined my life. That is to say, ruined
its domestic and social hopes, ruined whatever
i most happy to help yon,
a iness men draw from family ties. I took
nme to the West, and I think it broke my
mother s heart. At auy rate, she died in a year
or two, and my father said I had killed her. I
went abroad to study my profession, and when I
came home, my wife was in an insane asylum,,
and my father dead ; nofone left to me but my
brother Harry, and my half-sister, who never
forgave me lor her mother’s suffering and death,
aud what she called the disgrace I had brought
upon the family. Still, sho is a good woman,
and a devoted one, in her grim fashion. Sho
had beensonco a month to visit my wife ever
siuce she was shut up, and frankly offered to
come and make a home forme, whereverlmight
setile, if I wished it.
» “I did, and wo came here. Dr. Wctlierbee
asked nothing about my domestic concerns, and
I did not voluuteer any information. My sister
never opens her lips, if sho can help it, least or
all in tho way of gossip; and so it came about,,
with no premeditated deceit on my part, that
everybody has taken me for a single man.
“ Some weeks ago, I received a message, from
the physician in charge of the asylum, saying
that my wife had partially recovered her mind,
although liable still, if excited, to paroxysms of
furious mania. But tho doctor added that she
was dying ot an internal disease, in fact could
not live the ®;ar out, by any possibility. I went
to see her. You remember I was absent for
several days, and although neither her suffer
ings, nor her approaching death, could revive a
tenderness that never existed, or pity long since
worn out, I decided, as au act of duty toward the
woman who bore my name, to bring her home,
and devote myself to the care and' attention still
possible to offer her; to let her die at least in
the home that, in health, she never should have
entered. Was I right ? Tell me, Millicent, was
it not my duty to do this ?”
His voice had a piteous pleading in it, strangely
at variance with its usual robust tones ; bub
Milliceut’s was Meat* and ctfld as the north wind,
while she made answer:
“ I do not know why yon ask the question. Dr.
Winscombe, or why you even made a mystery of'
your marriage. It is not dishonorable to be the
husband of an afflicted ^voman, hut it Is most
dishonorable to assume tho character—any char
acter which does not beloDg to you.”
Millicent.. as she spoke, got up and left the
room. The doctor sighed, hut went on:
“ There isn’t much more to say. My brother
was traveling in the West just then; and I asked
him to bring my wife here under his escort.
She arrived when Millicent was at my house,
and I could not explain then; afterward, when,
you were there, she heard women’s voices, and
it brought on a paroxysm of jealous fury in
which I thought she would die. I waited to see
how it would end, and since—well, Mrs. Ba
tolphe, I have been a coward in the whole mat
ter—but I think you will forgive me, won’t
you ?”
“ That I will, my dear doctor, fully and freely:,
and after all I cannot blame you. It would
have Jaeen so disagreeable,” said the gentle
matron, fervently. “But what are you going,
to do?” ‘ °
“ This is the advice I told you I wanted. Shall
I tell everybody ? Will you tell two or three
people for me ? The poor creature cannot live
many weeks, not over two or three months at
most; but she has a right to my name, although
I might have beeD released by law long ago.”
Why did he wish so earnestly to insist to Mil-
liceut’s mother that by man’s law he might have
been free already, and that by God’s law of
death he must be tree before many weeks were
past? AU 1 why?
So it was settled that the news was to be told-
and Bobert Winscombe, as he rode away, said to
himself:
And when Milly knows all, she will, she
must forgive me; and she cannot but realize
that in a little while, a very little while, I shall
have the right to say, in so many words, I love-
you.”
His dark eyes lightened, as he said thi^ with,
a tender joy, as if already his probation were
over, add he could clasp the reward of so many
bitter years ot suffering and shame.
“He says she can’t, anyhow, live ever two or
three months, poor thing,” repeated Mrs. Ba
tolphe to her daughter. “ And I, for one, shan’t
blame him if he does not always remain s
widower. Shall you, Milly?”
“ Dear little mamma, my fancy is not so vivid,
as vours, and I can’t possibly tell how I shill
feel when Mrs. Winscombe 'is dead and buried.,
and Dr. Winscombe, after a decent mourning.'
marries again. I may be dead or married my-