CHAPTER FORTY FIVE.
Jenny was standing at the window, watching the people go by, when a cabdrew up and Leigh sprang out, to let himself in with his latch-key; andshe was half-way down to meet him as he was coming up.
"Pierce," she whispered excitedly. "Claud Wilton has been. He has, heis sure, found Kate; and he is coming again to fetch you to where sheis."
Leigh staggered, and caught at the balustrade to save himself fromfalling.
"Where is she?" he panted.
"I--don't know; he was not quite sure, but he is coming again. He saysno one but you has a right to be there when she is found; and Pierce--Pierce--he is going to bring her here!"
Leigh stood gazing straight before him, feeling as if he could hardlybreathe, and he followed his sister into the drawing-room, but hadhardly sunk into a chair when there was a tremendous peal at the bell.
"Here he is!" cried Jenny; and Leigh sprang from his seat to hurry down,but restrained himself, and to his sister's despair, stood waiting.
"Pierce, dear," she whispered, "pray go."
"I have no right," he said huskily; and Jenny wrung her hands and triedvainly for what she deemed the correct words to say.
The painful silence was broken by the appearance of the maid.
"A gentleman to see you, sir; very important."
"Mr Wilton?" cried Jenny.
"No, ma'am, a strange gentleman," said the girl. "Someone very bad."
Leigh exhaled his pent-up breath with a sigh of relief, and went quicklydown to where his visitor was waiting, looking wild and ghastly.
Garstang!--the man he had been watching for months without result, butwho looked at him as one whom he had never met before.
"Will you come with me directly?" he cried. "My house--only in the nextstreet. I'd better tell you at once, so that you may bring someantidote with you. I need not explain--a young lady--my wife--a foolishquarrel--a little jealousy--and she has taken some of that new sedative,Xyrania--a poisonous dose, I fear."
"A young lady--my wife," rang in Leigh's ears like the death knell ofall hopes. Then he was right: this man had carried her off with herconsent, and it had come to this.
"Do you not hear me, sir?" cried Garstang; "Mr--I don't know your name;I came to the first red lamp. You are a doctor?"
"Yes, yes, of course," cried Leigh, hastily.
"Then, for God's sake, come on before it is too late!"
Leigh was the calm, cold, collected physician once again, and he spokein a strange tone that he did not know as his own.
"Xyrania," he said; and he went to a case of bottles and jars, took downone of the former, poured a small quantity into a phial, corked it, andsaid solemnly--
"Lead the way, sir--quick; but I must tell you that an overdose of thatdrug means sleep from which there is no awaking."
Garstang uttered a low, harsh sound, and motioned towards the door,leading the way; while Leigh followed him, with his brain feeling, inaddition to the terrific crushing weight of depression as if all theworld were nothing now, confused and strange, as he wondered that theman did not recognise him; and too much stunned to grasp the fact thathe who had filled so large a measure of his thoughts for months hadnever met him face to face--probably had never heard of him, save assome doctor in practice at Northwood.
Then, as they hurried along the pavement, and at the end of anotherhundred yards turned into Great Ormond Street, Leigh felt oppressed byanother thought--that after all, Kate, if it were she he was being takento see, must have been for months past in the house he had so oftengazed at in passing, with an intense desire to enter, but had alwayscrushed down that desire, telling himself that it was insane.
Meanwhile Garstang was talking to him in a hurried excited tone,uttering words that hardly reached his companion's understanding; but hecaught fragments about "unhappy temper--insomnia--indulgence in thepotent drug--his agony and despair"--and then he cried wildly, as hepaused at the door of the familiar house with its overhanging eaves, andinserted the latch-key:
"Doctor--any fee you like to demand, but you must save my wife's life."
"Must save his wife's life!" groaned Leigh, mentally, as his heart gavewhat seemed to be one heavy throb. Then he stepped into the greatgloomy hall.
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