"GENTLEMEN, our patient met with an accident in the hunting-field yesterday. According to his own statement, his horse fell with him and rolled over his lower extremities. I saw him soon after the occurrence, and found a simple comminuted fracture of his right thigh, which I immediately set in the usual way, as you will see. He felt very easy and comfortable last night. There is and was no strangulation of the limb. All seemed to be going on well until this morning, when I was hurriedly sent for, and found him slightly delirious, suffering from great prostration, his speech indistinct, pulse very feeble and intermittent, and him complaining of lancinating pain starting from a small cut. Within the last half-hour, aphasia first, and then insensibility, have come on. I came to the conclusion that very acute blood-poisoning had set in, and telegraphed for you immediately. I never in my life saw or heard of a case like it — so sudden, so deadly an onset."

       It was thus that Mr. Wilcox-Smith, a most respectable general medical practitioner, on November 3, 18—, addressed the consulting surgeon and me in the hall of the big manor-house of the little village of Nanton. Nanton is a five-minutes' run by train from Yorkstone, the large town where the said surgeon and I reside. I am a physician and professor of medicine in the Yorkstone School of Medicine.

       The young man who was lying prostrate was the young squire of Nanton Manor, who had but recently come in for his very fine property. He had, I afterwards heard, but recently become engaged in marriage to a very distant relation of his own, whose father lived about fifteen miles from Nanton. Miss Maud Banscott was the undisputed belle of the county. I have seen her frequently, and I must say that she was indeed a splendid creature, a perfect Mahommedan black-eyed houri of the Seventh Heaven in appearance — a sensuous, creamy-skinned creature, whose dark, fierce eyes and rather thick red lips told of what fuel for sensuous passion lay within her bosom. Graceful as the swan, she was the makings of an English Cleopatra, but not purely English according to some accounts. It was hinted that her mother bad a touch of the tar-brush in her composition.

       We went into the sick-room, and the surgeon set to examine the limb, and I to examine the general condition of the patient. His pupils were dilated, his pulse of but the smallest volume, and ebbing fast. He was perfectly unconscious. His respiration was carried on but slowly, shallowly, feebly, and by great efforts; evidently its nerve centre was being poisoned. In fact all the great centres of life seemed to be nearly exhausted, and doing their work in the faintest and feeblest manner. I shook my head; for it was evident that life could last but a few minutes longer. And it was as I expected. Before we left the room the sick man had breathed his last.

       As we left the room and were passing through the hall towards the dining-room, Captain Ashwell, a cousin of the dead man, looking fearfully wan and haggard, rushed in and stopped me with these words:

       "Dr. Barton, how's my cousin?"

       "It is all over — he is no more," I replied.

       He fixed his eyes on the floor, and said in an agitated voice:

       "What was the cause of his death? Was it some internal injury? He would hardly have died from a broken thigh? Perhaps it was the shock that killed him."

       "It was blood-poisoning, I think — a most unusual thing in one who had been so healthy. This house, too, has always enjoyed the reputation of being extremely healthy. If," I said — speaking more to myself than to my interlocutor — "if we were in India now, I would say that he had died of a cobra bite."

       As I uttered the last words, Ashwell started as if he had been struck a gigantic blow between the eyes.

       "But — but," he said doggedly, "there are no cobras in England. You don't really think that, surely?"

       "No; I said, if you'll remember, that I could only think so conditionally — that we were abroad, in India. You don't look well. Let me advise you to leave here as soon as possible."

       "Yes; I don't feel well lately. I will clear out as soon as I can. I think it must be my old enemy, the ague, coming on."

       Captain Arthur Ashwell was, as I have said, a cousin of the deceased. He was also the heir-at-law to the big estates of Nanton Manor. He was about thirty-five years of age, fair complexioned, tall, and good-looking, keen witted, and a bright, good fellow. He had seen a good deal of foreign service, and had been comparatively poor. The death of his cousin thus entirely changed his pecuniary position. I was an old acquaintance of his. We had known one another at Cambridge, where I had studied for some time. He was wild then, and I was a steady, hard-working, reading man, yet we had been very good friends.

       An inquest was held on the remains of the young squire, and a verdict of accidental death returned by the jury. A very large concourse of people attended the funeral, and Captain Ashwell, looking extremely ill, acted as chief mourner. I noticed that as the coffin was being lowered into the vault he was seized with a fit of shuddering and looked as if he was about to faint, an incident I remembered long afterwards.

       Some months passed, and the incidents connected with the death at Nanton Manor were fading rapidly from my memory, when one day Ashwell called on me for professional advice. He appeared even more haggard and careworn than at the funeral. I was shocked and surprised at his appearance.

       "I am completely out of sorts, Barton," he said, "and I will admit to you that there is something preying on my mind. What it is I cannot tell you. I want you to give me something that will back me up and make me sleep soundly at night. I sleep badly."

       "Do you drink much?" I asked.

       "I have drunk rather too much brandy of a night, lately. It is the only thing that makes me sleep at all; but it is losing its effects and making me nervous."

       "You must give up the night drinking and have change of scene and people. Go to Switzerland for a tour, or on a sporting expedition to America. Try to forget your trouble, whatever it is, in healthy excitement."

       "I cannot leave England at present — not until I'm married."

       He paused and stammered, evidently having said something he did not intend to divulge.

       "I was not aware," I replied, "that you were engaged. Who is the happy lady? I congratulate you."

       "Oh, I am not quite engaged. No. Only I thought I might like to be. A — a fellow in my position now, you know, is bound to think of marrying."

       He had evidently floundered and wished to get out of the quagmire as soon as possible, and abruptly changed the topic of conversation.

       After this visit he called on me frequently during the next five or six months, and instead of improving under my treatment he became decidedly worse. He who had formerly been of such a cheerful and lively disposition became notorious throughout the county for his moroseness, and I began to fear for his sanity. Nine months after his cousin's death I was astonished, and to a certain extent rejoiced, to hear that he was engaged to Maud Banscott, who had, as I have already said, been engaged also to the deceased squire. Certainly I would have preferred to hear that my friend was engaged to a more ordinary and quiet-dispositioned person, but any change from his present life I thought bound to improve him. It struck me as strange, of course, that he should select his late cousin's fiancée, more particularly so when I recalled to my mind the conversation about marrying we had when he consulted me first. After I heard of his engagement, he visited me no more, and in the excitement and worries of my practice I forgot all about my friend and his engagement until the 3rd of November arrived once more.

       On the 3rd of November I received the following letter:—

"Nanton Manor: November 2, 18—      

       "Dear Barton, — Come down to Nanton immediately on receiving this, which will be early to-morrow morning. I have a presentiment that something disastrously fatal will happen to me to-morrow, the 3rd. It will be, as you remember, the anniversary of my cousin's death. For God's sake, don't fail me in this.

       "You will never know all I have suffered for the last year. Oh, what a tempting, blighting, cursed thing is gold!

       "I wish when I am dead that my body be not placed in Nanton Manor vault, but that it be buried in a simple grave.

"Your friend of former years, "ARTHUR ASHWELL."

       I looked at my watch and saw that I had just fifteen minutes to catch the half-past eight train to Nanton. I immediately swallowed a cup of coffee and ate a slice of toast, and then hastened to the railway station. At twenty minutes to nine I was in Nanton Manor. The man-servant who opened the hall door for me looked at me in surprise, knowing who I was, but not knowing of any person being sick in the Manor I suppose.

       "Where is your master, John?" I asked.

       "He has not yet risen, sir. He was writing all yesterday, and I expect he is tired and has overslept himself."

       "Show me the way to his room," I said.

       He led me up the stairs. We arrived at his master's bedroom door and found it locked, and no signs of the room's occupant moving. I rapped with my knuckles on the door panels, but no answer came from within. I rapped more loudly again and again, and called, but still no answer came from within. The only responses elicited were the echoes resounding through the adjoining corridors. Finally I said to the servant, "We shall have to break in the door." And after some difficulty, by our combined efforts, we succeeded in bursting it open.

       We entered and found Captain Ashwell lying stark and still in bed, dead, and dead too for some hours! So I judged, as the body was perfectly cold. I immediately sent the man to summon the other servants and to despatch a messenger for the police. Then I looked round the room. On a small table near the bed I found a large bottle containing a small quantity of solution of chloral, so it was pretty evident what had caused death. Beside the bottle was a heavily sealed packet directed to me, and marked "Strictly, private and confidential — for Dr. Barton only." I tore open the envelope, and a hasty glance through its contents was sufficient to make me determine to retain the document &c. for the present, and say nothing about them to either the servants or police until I had fully thought over them. The packet contained a letter. directed to the deceased's fiancée and a long closely written document for me.

       The names of all the persons mentioned in this narrative are not, of course, the real names, and the name of the village is also changed. I feel sure the Captain Ashwell herein mentioned will never be recognised by any of his former acquaintances.

       The first thing I did after the arrival of the police on the scene was to drive over to Colonel Banscott's house and break the sad news to its inmates. When I arrived I asked to see Miss Banscott, and was shown into the drawing-room, where presently that lady joined me. I began:

       "Miss Banscott; I have come on a very sad errand indeed, with news that will be a great shock to you, I fear."

       "Something has happened to Arthur Ashwell? Do not keep me in suspense. Tell me the worst at once. Do not fear. Is — is he dead?"

       "Yes, he is dead," I replied; "he has died from the effects of an overdose of chloral. He left this note for you, enclosed with a document for me."

       She tore open the envelope, and as she read her face paled but her eyes remained brilliant. She did not faint, she did not cry out, there were no hysterics. Seemingly forgetful of my presence, she paced the floor like a tawny lioness deprived of her cubs.

       She muttered to herself:

       "Oh, Arthur, Arthur! why did you leave me? I would have borne half — nay, the whole of your guilt. You did not know how I loved you — how I love you! You were my all, my love! I would have protected and guarded you in my arms from those horrible dreams — ay! from ten thousand fiendish dead. Why, why did you not trust me?"

       Suddenly she paused in her walk, faced me, fixing her large lustrous eyes on me, in which fire suddenly glowed.

       "Do you know why Arthur Ash well died?" she cried.

       "Yes; you and I are the only persons who do, I believe," I replied.

       "Do you intend to blast his memory?" stridulously.

       "No; he is beyond the power of human justice now. Besides, there is no evidence to show that his statement is not the offspring of a diseased mind. It could serve no public good, and but pain his friends and relatives, to make public his statements."

       "It is well!" she cried. "If you dared to breathe a word against him, even on his own confession, I would kill you — yes! kill you without compunction."

       She resumed her walk up and down, and presently broke forth again.

       "Man! you cannot know what love like mine is. Oh, Arthur, Arthur! why did I not accept poverty with you at first? All light — all good has gone out of my life now!"

       "Pray compose yourself, my dear young lady," I interposed. "Time will heal even your deep wound. Think of what good you can do to your fellow-creatures and what you owe society."

       She laughed; an unpleasant laugh to hear — it was that of a musical hyæna.

       "What do I care for my fellow-creatures and society now? Society — bah! I hate everything — myself, everybody! You are shocked. I tell you, man, I am none of your whimpering, puling beings who, when their God whips them, turn, and cur-like lick his hand. My lady friends — friends, forsooth! — say I have African blood in my veins. I suppose it's so. Savage instincts are hereditary and strong within me. I am dangerous — yea! let society beware. Go —–"

       She turned on her heel and abruptly left the room. And I felt sadly as I betook myself to my happy home, thinking of what sins and sorrows there are hidden away everywhere in this world of ours.

       There was again an inquest at Nanton Manor, and at it I produced the letter I had received on the morning of the 3rd, but not the other document. As Ashwell was dead, there was nothing to be gained for the public weal by having the contents of the latter published in all the papers. It would not forward the ends of Justice, as the man was beyond the reach of the law's arm. It would possibly have afforded scandalmongers food for some days, but it would have given intense pain to my late friend's relatives and acquaintances.

       A verdict that "the deceased had died from the effects of an overdose of chloral, taken by himself whilst suffering from mental derangement," was returned by the coroner's jury, and the body was buried in a simple grave in Nanton graveyard, as he had requested.

THE DOCUMENT.

       Why do I desire to leave a record of my crime behind, and. thus blacken my memory? Why indeed, but that I feel it will possibly take the incubus off me which is pressing me down, down into the grave, and which I feel, if I do not divulge before dying, will continue to press on me still after death. And I feel as a certainty that to-morrow's sun in setting will look on my pallid corpse. To-morrow will be the accursed anniversary of my cousin's death — of the day from which I have been accursed, and shall continue to be so if there be a hereafter.

       This record I place entirely at your disposal, Dr. Barton, but I beg of you to treat my memory, and the feelings of my relations and friends, as gently as you can, consistently with the discharge of your duty to the state. Can a retribution for crime, though, be exacted from a dead man? (I shall be a dead man when this paper reaches your hands.) No; I hope, I trust not; and if not, keep my secret. Now to the story of my crime.

       Two years ago I was, as you know, a comparatively penniless soldier of fortune. I was in India, and applied for a year's sick leave and was given it. I returned to England, and in London I met my father's old friend Colonel Banscott, who was rejoiced to see me. Maud, his only daughter, too, seemed to take an interest in the battered and sick soldier, and the Colonel pressed me to visit them at their country residence for a month to recruit my health. I gladly accepted the invitation. Soon I was deeply in love with Maud. I knew my passion to be hopeless from the first, for was I not too poor to support a wife in comfort? But my ardent love stifled my common sense, and I still stayed on in Colonel Banscott's house after I found myself in the quagmire. I saw, yes — plainly — that Maud returned my love with all the ardour of her passionate nature. I felt mean in having gained her love, but it was inexpressibly sweet to me all the same.

       One evening in June my love and I were alone in the conservatory, and I could not restrain my passion from breaking into words. There and then I told her of my love, and I took her lithe form in my arms and kissed her again and again. Fatal ecstasy! She gave herself up entirely to my fond embrace, and returned my burning kisses with fervour. I asked her again and again if she loved me, and each time — it was music divine in my ears — she answered, "Yes, Arthur, as my life!" I asked her when she would be mine, and it was a fearful damper when she replied, "When you are rich and can support me. You must find some way to become rich at once, love." Alas, alas! where and how could I get riches?

       Then the time came when I was bound to take my departure from the home of my beloved, and just then my cousin came in for the Nanton property and asked me to stay with him. The offer I jumped at, for would I not be near my love at the Manor? From the Manor I called frequently on the Banscotts and had many interviews with Maud alone. Then came a day on which I had to visit London on business matters. The business detained me longer in town than I expected, and a month elapsed before I found myself once more in Nanton, and then I received a fearful shock. It was in this wise. Oh the evening of my arrival, my cousin and I dined alone. After dinner, as we sat together by the fire smoking our cigars over a split-whisky and soda, he said:

       "Look here, Arthur, a fellow in my present position must do some entertaining, and society expects him to get married. I want to tell you that I have proposed to a young lady and have been accepted."

       "My dear fellow," I replied, "allow me to congratulate you." Unsuspectingly I spoke, and continued, "Do I know her?"

       He continued without noticing my interruption.

       "I don't know that we are very deeply in love with one another, but she is a splendid creature and will do all honour to Nanton Manor. We haven't seen one another very frequently too, to be sure, but what of that in these days? I am not much of a lady's man, as you know. You are friendly with her people and with her, so you might do some of the attentions for me."

       "You speak in enigmas," I replied, feeling a strange sinking at my heart. "Who is the young lady?"

       "Whom should you think, but Maud Banscott? Banscott is, as you probably know, deeply in debt, so the match will suit his book very well."

       How can I describe my feelings? What jealousy and madness his words raised within my breast! But I managed to keep them from finding a vent through my lips.

       My cousin did not notice my agitation, as he was engaged with the poker, prodding a huge piece of coal in the fire, and had lapsed into a reverie which I suppose was pleasant. Finally he said:

       "You will run over to Banscott's place to-morrow, like a good fellow. I have some appointments to keep elsewhere, so you might make my excuses."

       "I will," I replied; but my voice was harsh and grating, and my cousin looked up and remarked:

       "I don't think you're quite well to-night, Arthur."

       "No," I replied, "I am tired and weary, and will go to bed if you don't mind."

       I did not sleep at all that night, but tossed on my bed, my heart racked with jealousy and envious disappointment.

       The next morning found Maud and me alone. I taxed her with want of love, I called her a flirt, a coquette, a siren, and a hundred opprobrious names, to all of which she never said a word. At last, maddened by her silence, I rose and cried, "Farewell! I curse the day I first saw your false fair face. You will never see me again!" With a cry of pain she sprang forward and threw her arms around my neck. "No! no! you shall not leave me," she cried. "You are my only love, my all. Arthur, listen to me. We are poor — my father is a pauper and so are you. Your cousin wants someone to be the head of his house. I am to represent his family and do the manorial honours, and in exchange he gives me a position and money. It is a fair exchange. It will be purely a marriage of convenience. He wants no love, and gives none. You must always stay by me." "Maud, Maud!" I cried, "do you know how such an arrangement is bound to end — in misery and shame to you, and — do you think I could play the mean part of hanger-on?" "No — I tell you," she cried passionately, "it is to be as I say. He has got his mistress, one of the gamekeeper's daughters, as you know full well. She probably understands his feelings, and he will be happy in her society. He dare not thwart or cross my path, and he knows it. If he did I would kill him. You are my all." And once more she twined her arms round me and pressed her lips to mine, and I, of course, weak fool, I, her abject slave, her worshipper, was as wax in her hands. Presently she said, "You are the next heir to the estate. What a pity it is that we are not living years ago, when you might pick a quarrel with that cousin of yours and kill him fairly."

       Two days later, how my heart bounded with unholy joy when I saw my cousin in the hunting-field go down before a fence and his horse roll over him. He was carried home on a stretcher, and the local surgeon was summoned. My unholy hopes were soon dispelled when the latter told me the injuries were not at all of a fatal character. I went to my room, and in that room the devil had laid a trap well-baited for me. The bait was the Nanton Manor property. I found that a small portmanteau which I had lost on my passage home from India had turned up, and that it was before me. Automatically I set to unpack it. As I was proceeding with the task, a small bottle rolled from out the folds of some of the clothes and dropped on the floor. I picked it up and wondered how it could have got mixed up with my clothes. I put it into my pocket, determined to destroy its contents as soon as possible, to prevent the possibility of any accidents. Let me explain what it was.

       In India, before I left for home, I had shared on a hill station a bungalow with a young doctor belonging to the Indian service. He was a very clever and original man, and was then studying the effects of cobra poison. The little bottle that fell on the floor was his, and had been accidentally mixed up with my things, how, I know not. It contained cobra poison mixed with glycerine, the latter to preserve the poisonous potency, I believe. I put it in my pocket, as I have said, and I soon forgot all about it for the time being.

       Early next morning I rose, determined to take a walk to refresh myself after a bad night's sleep. As I was about to pass the invalid's room, I saw the door was open. I entered. The patient was asleep, and the attendant had gone below on some errand. The patient had kicked the bed-clothes off the bed in his sleep. The dressings of a small wound on the upper part of his broken thigh had become displaced. The wound was clean cut, and oozing a little blood. Then the devil recalled to me some experiments I had seen the Indian doctor perform. I felt shocked at the depravity of my thoughts, but all the same I put my hand in my pocket and drew the little phial forth. Stealthily, automatically, I drew the cork, and dropped some of the contents into the wound. Then I hastened from the room and from the house. No one had seen me enter or leave the sick-room. Once in the open air, I walked rapidly through the country, agitated by hopes and fears, now praying that the poison was impotent, now hoping the reverse. I threw the phial into a river, and dropped a large stone on it which must have shattered it into infinitesimal pieces. And again I walked — walked. At last, after what seemed to me an age, I could stand the suspense that was gnawing in my breast no longer. I hastened to the house, where, on entering, you — oh, my friend! — you told me, without knowing the import of your words, that I was a murderer!

       Your judgment was right, but you allowed it to be biassed by circumstances.

       After my cousin's death, my conscience smote me but little during the daytime, but on the first night after, and on every succeeding night, my sleep was broken by bad dreams. In the daytime I was comparatively happy in the society of my love, and her love for me seemed to grow stronger as I became estranged from society. The moment, though, that sleep closed my eyes, my torture commenced. Cobras innumerable seemed to surround my bed, and hissed and struck at me from all sides. I sought your advice, but you prescribed change of scene and a mild tonic. To leave my love would be to leave all hope and happiness, and your tonic was as so much water. Of my own accord I had recourse to chloral, and I found that whilst under the influence of this drug I was at ease. But when its effects had passed off the dreams returned, and continued until I awoke. I calculated experimentally, and made my servant awake me before its effects could pass off, every morning. But in the few seconds that it took to arouse me from partial to complete consciousness, an appalling dream was invariably condensed. As time passed, these short dreams became worse. Sometimes a gigantic cobra seemed to coil himself round my body, and his vile, cold, slimy body seemed to come into contact with my naked flesh. Presently his head would reach within a few feet of my face, and then he would raise his hood, his eyes becoming angry red, and he would strike at me with a hiss, and I would shut my eyes in expectation of the dread wound; but he never inflicted it, and when I opened my eyes again, it was to find the head transformed into the pallid face of my dead cousin. Then, screaming, I would awake and find my servant bending over me.

       For the last two days my dreams have been still more fearfully appalling. On each it seemed to me that I was in a beautiful apartment; and my love was in my arms, pressing her warm lips and lithe form to mine. When lo! suddenly the room changed into the inside of a damp, slimy sepulchre — the inside of the Nanton Manor vault, which I have seen more than once — and the form in my arms became rigid and cold. Then, in surprise, on looking into my love's face, I found — oh God! — again the face of my dead cousin, the same face that I caught sight of through the open bedroom door in Nanton Manor Hall, the same livid pallid face, the same lustreless, staring, widely dilated eyes, close to me. I shrieked and tried to throw the body from me, but my efforts were vain. It seemed to me that I had to sit with the body in my arms for ages. Then, finally, a voice in fearful accents bade me prepare for death, and I awoke. Thus two nights have I spent, and now night is coming;rapidly on again — night that will not be followed by morn in this world for me, I fear, and I feel weak and sick at heart.

       I pray you to see that my body be not placed in Nanton Manor vault, but in a simple grave.

ARTHUR ASHWELL.      

       This was the document, and I pass from it without comment. Maud Banscott, two years after Arthur Ashwell's death, married a rich vulgar old man of the name of Jones, who had made an immense fortune in shoddy. Six months later she eloped with a little blackguard, and I heard nothing further of her until quite recently.

       A friend who resides in Paris came on a visit to me a short time ago, and in conversation remarked incidentally: "Oh, by the way, did you know a Miss Banscott from this part of the country, who married a Mr. Jones, and afterwards bolted with Lord Tanger? She went to Paris with the latter, and the story has it that she had a row with him three months later, and shot him. At any rate. he is very reticent about the affair, whatever it was, and never goes near her now. She keeps a splendid establishment, and is the leader of Parisian Bohemian society. Her salon on her evenings is crowded by the most distinguished men — statesmen, soldiers, littérrateurs, and artists — and I assure you it is a difficult thing to get an entrée there. Men rave about her, and duels innumerable have been fought amongst her Gallic admirers. A most extraordinary thing, though, is that on every 3rd of November she shuts her house up, clothes herself in mourning, and sees no one; and no one has the slightest idea of the reason why. Can you throw any light on the subject?"

       But I held my peace.

       Every 3rd of November Arthur Ashwell's grave is adorned by wreaths of immortelles and other flowers, and few have any idea whence they come.

CREGAN CONWAY.      

(THE END)