THE VEILED DOCTOR: a novel

This ebook edition has been proofed and corrected for errors and compiled to be read with without errors!


*****

An excerpt from the beginning of of the first chapter:


Well out of the course of the present lines of travel there stands a sleepy old town, where the brooding quiet muffles every pulse of modern life. No latter-day institutions profane the antiquity of its streets; no steam whistles disturb its dreams of former grandeur. Years ago, when this had been a centre of the trade which found transportation in the heavy-bodied, ungraceful schooners and barks that lie rotting now in the grass-grown docks, there had been some talk of bringing the railroad this way. But the city fathers, in blue coats and brass buttons, took snuff together as they discussed the many disadvantages consequent upon such innovation.

They had refused right of way, refused to contribute to the stock of the baby enterprise, refused everything, in short, and so successfully blocked its progress that a different route was decided upon, and the old town, under its canopy of trees, fell forever out of step with the vanguard of commerce. But the retired sea captains who formed its population congratulated each other upon the wisdom of their choice as they smoked in the tiny amphibious parlors among the rare shells and curios gathered in a life's cruising. So, bustling prosperity ebbed away, and, like the tide in the sluggish harbor, nobody noticed its going until it was beyond recall.

In the centre of the old town, a jewel in a fit setting, there stands the largest and quietest house of all. The fan-light above the colonial doorway has looked down upon the same ruts in the streets for over a century, its brass floriated hinges have reflected generation after generation of the same families as they passed to and fro on their business in life. Here the wedding processions must all turn the corner to reach the old church on which the house's garden abutted. Here, too, the funerals wound their way, and Sunday after Sunday the tiny panes of the windows blinked at the people going to meeting from the time when balloon-skirts and periwigs were "macaroni" through all the changes of fashion, until now, if they think at all, they must wonder if powdered hair be in favor again, for all the heads that cross the road are either white or grizzled; young blood does not take over-kindly to the stagnant town, and soon drifts into more untrammelled channels. In the gambrel roof of the old house a window blinks from under its projecting shingles like the single eye of some sleepy Polyphemus, and behind it stretches a long and pleasant garden, where pear and apple trees peep over the high box hedge at the graveyard beyond.

There was a day when the house was replete with young life; when the high, narrow hall was decorated with flowers, and the great rooms that opened out on either hand smelled sweet with the wealth of many gardens robbed to make her new home beautiful in the eyes of Gordon Wickford's wife. There had always been a Wickford in the old house. Since colonial times, when the first of them built its solid walls, the family dominated the place socially, just as the windows in their roof looked down on the humbler homes around it. To be Madame Wickford was, as the quaint title implied, to be at the head of such society as the town afforded; it was the apex of every well-bred girl's hopes, and the end of every mother's scheming. Consequently, when the last man of the great family returned from college—beautiful, rich, and fired with real enthusiasm for his profession—there was no little cap-setting among his feminine neighbors.

People said he had not been quite as considerate of others' feelings as might be expected in so high-principled a young gentleman, but the reputation of a mild village " Juan " did not harm him in the eyes of the pretty, foolish maidens. There, for instance, was little Alice Marlow, next door, with whom he used to sing so sweetly that the news of his approaching marriage had obscured all the light in her narrow, quiet existence. She would probably have gone the way of her weak-chested tribe anyhow; but people were more romantic in those days, and blamed him severely when she died, or rather, to be more accurate, they blamed his new wife, who, not being one of themselves—an interloper, as it were—was fair game for gossip.

The woman he brought home from the city was certainly not of a consumptive type, and although there might be a question about her fascination, no one could deny her claim to such perfect beauty that it almost antagonized the beholder. It certainly went far towards her undoing with the good folk among whom she was to live. Her figure was lithe and round, with long limbs that ended in slender feet and hands. There were red flashes in the depths of her brown eyes, that looked out from under straight black brows. Her nose was delicately formed...