Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 60: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE PHYSICIAN AND THE LADY 43 You must have spoken of it to some one; tell me who it was. For the voice of that murdered woman cries up to Heaven for vengeance, and Heaven itself has marked me as its instrument in bringing the murderer to justice. Nay, more, does it not almost seem as if there were retribution in all this? As if I had penetrated too deeply into the mysteries of nature, had dragged forth unholy secrets, had tasted of the forbidden tree of knowledge, and am now to be punished for my fault? For think you not, Lady Saxon- dale, that it will be a cruel ordeal for me to proclaim all this to the knowledge of justice and involve your name in the transaction? ”’ “Doctor Ferney,”’ said her ladyship, now suddenly re- calling to mind her predetermination to assert her empire over him through the medium of that love of which she knew herself to be the object, “I believe you once enter- tained something like a feeling of friendship toward me, perhaps more than friendship — ”’ “Yes, yes; it was more —it is more,” interrupted the physician, “for the sentiment is deathless. Need I tell you that from the first moment I beheld you at my mother’s house nineteen years ago your image has never been absent from my mind? You know it — you know it. I gave you that assurance the other day, when you visited my house, and it is the truth, as I repeat it again this evening. But there is a duty, Lady Saxondale, which I have to perform, and though my own heart should break in accomplishing that duty, though it should crush me down with sorrow into the dust to drag your name before the tribunals of the country, yet what alternative have I? Alas! that duty must be performed. Tell me, therefore, on whom must our 3uspicions settle themselves? ”’ “ Doctor Ferney,”’ said her ladyship, ‘‘ do not tell me that you ever entertained the slightest love for me. No, no, it is impossible, you could not. If you had, you would not torment me thus now. God God! do you not compre- hend the immensity of the evil vou will work? ”’ “I see but two things which can tell against you,” an- swered the doctor. ‘“‘ The first is that you visited my house. Surely the purity of your own life, and my unsullied repu- tation, will combine to disarm scandal in that respect? And after all, may not a lady visit a physician? Then, as ) GOmicdoo S (C(O)