Three millions! or, The way of the world
miraculous cure they wrought upon you, I must conclude that I was
mistaken.”
“Won’t you indulge an old friend so far as to take these half dozen
harmless pellets?” continued Dick, in the most insinuating tone.
“I really cannot do so, Mr. Birch. I am opposed to homœopathy on
principle. I will not countenance the humbug in any way, shape, or
fashion,” replied the doctor, eloquently.
“Do you think they would harm me?”
“You know best. You have taken enough of them to know what virtue they
contain.”
“Are you willing I should take them in your office?”
“Am I willing? Of course I am. You are your own physician. I am not
responsible for their effect upon you.”
“Should you advise me to take them?”
“To be consistent with my own belief, I should advise you not to take
them; but you are not under my medical treatment.”
“Do you think they will harm me?”
“I advise you not to take them. Have you the headache?”
“No; but I merely wish to prove, in defence of homœopathy, that they
are harmless,” replied Dick, as he tossed the six globules into his
mouth.
The doctor started. He looked troubled for a moment, though he
struggled to maintain his self-possession. He believed the globules
were pure strychnia. They were of the smallest size; but there was
poison enough in them to kill a man in a few hours. Dick knew they were
nothing but sugar of milk, with an infinitesimal mixture of belladonna.
Dr. Lynch was agitated. Dick Birch was calm.
“Having taken half a dozen myself, to make sure they are harmless, I
will go home and cure Julia’s headache with half a dozen more,” added
Dick.
“Don’t give them to her,” protested the doctor.
“Why not?”
“Don’t give them to her.”
“Why not?”
“My patients must not be trifled with!” exclaimed the doctor, almost
frantic at the idea of Julia’s taking the poison.
“You are in earnest, doctor?”
“I am.”
“Do you think they are poison?”
“Of course they are not poison.”
“Why do you object?”
Dr. Lynch, fearful that Dick would put his terrible threat into
execution, entered into a long disquisition on the practice of
medicine, and the quality and effects of various drugs, evidently for
the purpose of detaining him. Dick listened patiently, and to the
surprise of the medical gentleman, he did not begin to exhibit any of
the effects of the poison.
“Have a cigar, doctor? These are of the right sort,” said Dick,
producing his cigar-case.
“Excuse me. I must go and visit a patient now.”
“And I will go up and cure Julia’s headache.”
“No. If you insist upon doing that, I shall go up to Pine Hill, and
prevent her from taking them.”
“You are unreasonable, doctor.”
“I have not analyzed the globules yet.”
“When will you do so?”
“To-night, when I return. Give me the vial, Mr. Birch.”
“I will give you part of them.”
“Give me the whole.”
“No; I want part of them.”
Dick defended his system for an hour longer, without being troubled
even with the stomach-ache, very much to the surprise and disgust of
his host.
“Mr. Birch, you will excuse me now; for, really, I must visit my
patient.”
“Very well. I will remain till you return.”
“But I must lock my office.”
“O, no; I will keep office for you till you get back.”
“Really, Mr. Birch, it is after nine o’clock.”
“No matter for that.”
“I was up last night, and must retire as soon as I return.”
“Do you really wish to get rid of me?”
“Certainly not.”
“I think you do.”
“By no means.”
“Are you afraid I shall die of the poison?”
“What poison?”
“The globules.”
“Are they poison?”
“Don’t you think they are?”
“How should I know?”
“You ought to know. I see you object to having me die on your hands.”
“Do you intend to die?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“What do you mean by poison?”
The doctor was ghastly pale. His hands trembled.
“Nothing,” replied Dick.
“You spoke of poison,” stammered the doctor.
“Of course the globules are poison. Why did you object to Julia’s
taking them if they are not.”
“You ought to know best.”
“I do know best, doctor. They are not poison. You need not be alarmed
about me. I shall not die in your office.”
“I am not alarmed about you.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Why should I be?”
“Because you think I have taken poison; but I have not.”
“You are a little wild to-night, Mr. Birch.”
“Dr. Lynch, I came down here for the purpose of expressing my mind very
freely to you, and for the purpose of delivering a message with which I
was charged by Mr. Hungerford.”
“I am happy to hear anything you may have to say on your own account,
or Mr. Hungerford’s,” answered the doctor, gasping for breath as he
spoke.
“In the first place, let me speak for myself, and upbraid you for your
criminal carelessness. You left that vial of strychnia globules on the
table in the library, where any one might have taken them, and been
poisoned to death. You deserve to be hanged for a bungler, as you are!
If you wished to poison me, why didn’t you do it without exposing the
lives of others. Why didn’t you take my life like a man, and not render
half a dozen others liable to the fate you prepared for me! Why, you
careless wretch! I came very near giving the poison to Julia. You have
nearly taken her life, instead of mine. It was not my fault. I didn’t
know you had substituted strychnia for belladonna in my vial. The
crime would have been yours, not mine, if she had been sacrificed. Why
didn’t you put the poison into my ice-cream? Why didn’t you invite me
to a banquet of arsenic, strychnia, and hydrocyanic acid? Doctor, you
are a cowardly bungler, worthy the contempt of all decent assassins. I
commend to your attention De Quincey ‘On Murder considered as one of
the Fine Arts.’”
“Mr. Birch, you are sarcastic,” said Dr. Lynch, with a labored grin,
which looked like the sepulchral smile of the staring skull that lay on
a shelf in the office.
“I am nothing, if I am not more than that.”
“Your words insinuate that I have been guilty of something wrong.”
“Do they insinuate it? Don’t they charge it as plainly as words can
express human thought? I say, directly and unequivocally, that you have
attempted to poison me.”
“Mr. Birch!” exclaimed the doctor, springing to his feet, throwing back
his head, and looking as dignified as a trembling man could look.
“I know what you are going to say. Don’t trouble yourself to say it.”
“You accuse me of a crime at which the blood of an honest man creeps
with horror.”
“And for that reason your blood does _not_ creep with horror.”
“Mr. Birch, this is hard and cruel of you.”
“Don’t whine.”
“I speak as an innocent man,” continued the wretch, who, having faced
the full force of the accusation, was now beginning to recover from
the blow. “You charge me with a crime at which my soul revolts. You do
not give me the particulars. You do not furnish me with a particle of
evidence as to what you mean, and you ask me to defend myself.”
“No, I don’t. More than that, I will furnish no particulars, and I will
hear no defence.”
“Mr. Birch, this is very harsh, and very unchristian. I should at least
be told of what I am suspected,” whined the culprit.
“Suspected!” sneered Dick. “You are convicted and condemned.”
“Without being heard?”
“I have a message to deliver to you from Mr. Hungerford.”
“I am ready to hear it.”
“He desires me to say that he positively and imperatively forbids your
coming to Pine Hill again, under any circumstances that can possibly
occur.”
“This is very unjust and cruel,” groaned the doctor. “Without a word
of explanation, without an opportunity to remove any unfavorable
appearance that may be urged against me!”
“Let me add, for myself, that, if you cross the boundary line between
Pine Hill and the public highway, I will take the liberty to kick you
off the premises.”
“I did not expect this from you, Mr. Birch.”
“I have been so criminally indulgent towards you and your crimes that
you had no right to expect it, I confess.”
“I may be called to Pine Hill as a physician.”
“You will never be called there again as a physician. They would all
die before they would see you.”
“Does Julia know of this?”
“She does.”
“And Mrs. Hungerford?”
“And Mrs. Hungerford.”
“Is it possible they can treat me with so much harshness and injustice?”
“They fully concur with Mr. Hungerford and myself. Not one of them
would walk on the same side of the street with you.”
“I am human, and I will not attempt to conceal my grief and
astonishment at the conduct of the Hungerfords.”
“Do you expect them to pet you again, as they did before?”
“When they were sick, even unto death’s door, I dared not sleep. I
watched with Mrs. Hungerford as though she had been my own mother; with
Julia, as though she had been my own sister. I was permitted to be of
service to them. I labored night and day for them, as I would have done
for my own salvation.”
“If you had labored half as hard for your own salvation as you did for
them, you might have been worthy to stand in their presence now. Dr.
Lynch, it was like breaking the heart-strings of Mrs. Hungerford and
Julia to convict you of the intention to commit such an abominable
crime as that you meditated. They were grateful to you for what you
have done: they are so still; and they will remember your good deeds,
and grieve that the evil in your nature overshadowed the good. The blow
is as heavy to them as to you; but they cannot, and will not, tolerate
the presence of a murderer.”
“A murderer, Mr. Birch!”
“I call things by their right names, Dr. Lynch.”
“I can understand your motives,” added the culprit, bitterly. “I have
been a stumbling-block in your path, Mr. Birch, and you adopt this
method of prejudicing Miss Hungerford against me.”
“I have nothing to say, doctor,” added Dick, with dignity.
“I am banished from Pine Hill; but I shall defend myself before the
people, and explain why I am thus treated. This miserable charge which
you have trumped up shall be understood by the community.”
“Am I to infer that you threaten me and others?”
“If there is such a charge as you say, why don’t you take it to a court
of justice?”
“I have nothing more to say about it. I think I have been sufficiently
explicit.”
“But of course you intend to prosecute the matter legally.”
“I shall give no answer. I have discharged my whole duty to you and to
the Hungerfords.”
Dick put on his hat, and left the office, without even the ceremony of
bidding the doctor good night.
“One half million is gone, but the other is safe,” muttered the doctor,
as he rose from his chair half an hour later. “No matter; they can
prove nothing.”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
DICK BIRCH AND LADY.
Pine Hill could hardly be the same without Dr. Lynch that it had been
with him; but he went there no more. His name was not even mentioned
after a few days; by general consent all allusions to him were
avoided. It was not pleasant to think of him, for his conduct had been
loathsome. Eugene trembled when he thought of Julia’s escape from death
by poison; and he trembled when he thought of her escape from a union
with the doctor, which had at least been possible, and which would have
been worse than poison.
This second treachery on the part of the late demigod of Pine Hill
revived the remembrance of the first. The doctor’s penitence had been a
deception. He had never even regretted his first failure to ruin Dick
Birch, except so far as it subjected him to humiliation, and rendered
his rival more powerful and dangerous than before. His purpose was
to win the hand of Julia, and to this everything else had been made
subservient. The occupants of the Pine Hill mansion realized that
the honored visitor, the beloved physician, had been a hypocrite;