Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 6).djvu/72

The doctor made no further effort to dispel her gloomy forebodings; perhaps in his heart he knew that she had spoken the truth. He looked around the bare, comfortless room in search of a water-jug.

"What sound is that?" inquired the woman, after a long pause, opening wide her large dark eyes, that glowed with a preternatural brightness. "Music! A band, isn't it?"

"Yes; it is the band of Radford's Circus. They're having a grand performance to-night. Somebody's benefit, I believe."

"Ah!"

She bent her head to catch the faint, fluctuating strains of the band. As she listened, a strange, restless, half-startled look came into her face; it almost seemed as if the sound called up memories—dark and bitter memories—of the past.

"Gilbert Ferris."

"Doctor," she said, at length, "I want you to do me a favour. It is the first I have asked, and it will be the last. Would you go down to that circus presently, and look for the ringmaster, Gilbert Ferris? You'll find him somewhere about the place; you can't mistake him—a tall, fine-looking man, with honest grey eyes, and a pleasant face. Tell him I must see him to-night; tell him I'm dying, and have something on my mind that must be told. But wait. What o'clock is it now? Only nine? The performance won't be over for an hour yet, and he may be too late, after all. Sit down here, Doctor, and I'll tell you the story, while I have strength enough left."

"Very well," he replied. "But let me see you swallow off this first."

She stretched out her white, trembling hand for the glass, and gulped down the nauseous mixture.

"That's right," said the doctor, approvingly. "Now for your story."

"Twelve months ago," she began, "I had the ill-luck to fall in with that very circus. I was brought up to the life, you know—had been on the ropes ever since I was a child, and even then I was considered no bad acrobat. I and another girl—'Liz' we used to call her—were both engaged at the same time by Mr. Radford's manager. We were to perform together on the trapeze. Liz was a merry, saucy, wilful little thing; pretty enough, as far as that went, but too fond of admiration. On the trapeze she was a regular little dare-devil; didn't seem to care what risks she ran, and took a delight in scaring the people below with her foolhardy tricks.

"She and I were never the best friends; we didn't pull well together, somehow. She thought me too silent and stand-off, I suppose, and I—well, I have told you my opinion of her. I may have been a bit jealous of her popularity, too, for she was all the rage just then. For a time. we contented ourselves with trying to out-rival each other on the trapeze. But very soon we got to be rivals in another sense, and in a way that widened the breach between us. We both fell in love, and both loved the same man—Gilbert Ferris!

"Her's was a light, thoughtless sort of love, all on the surface, while mine was hidden deep down in the darkest corner of my heart. She took no pains to conceal her fondness for him, but no power on earth could have torn such an admission from me. She threw herself in his way. I shunned him. And yet, her love was mere child's play compared to mine; if he had been out of her sight, a month—a week—might have cured her of it. She had a dozen other things to occupy her thoughts; I had but the one, and I nourished it and brooded over it in secret, until it seemed to become a part of my very life. I loved him though he was