Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 7).djvu/462

N a certain evening in the winter of the year before last, I was sent for in a hurry to see a young man at a private hotel in the vicinity of Harley Street. I found my patient to be suffering from a violent attack of delirium tremens. He was very ill, and for a day or two his life was in danger. I engaged good nurses to attend him, and sat up with him myself for the greater part of two nights. The terrible malady took a favourable turn, the well-known painful symptoms abated. I persevered with the usual remedies to insure sleep, and saw that he was given plenty of nourishment, and about a week after his seizure Tollemache was fairly convalescent. I went to visit him one evening before he left his room. He was seated in a great armchair before the fire, his pipe was near him on the mantelpiece, and a number of Harper's Magazine lay open, and face downwards, on a table by his side. He had not yet parted with his nurse, but the man left the room when I appeared.

"I wish you'd give me the pleasure of your company for half an hour or so," said Tollemache, in a wistful sort of voice.

I found I could spare the time, and sat down willingly in a chair at the side of the hearth. He looked at me with a faint dawning of pleasure in his sunken eyes.

"What can I order for you?" he asked. "Brandy-and-soda and cigars? I'll join you in a weed, if you like."

I declined either to smoke or drink, and tried to draw the young man into a light conversation.

As I did so, finding my efforts, I must confess, but poorly responded to, I watched my patient closely. Hitherto he had merely been my patient. My mission had been to drag him back by cart-ropes if necessary from the edge of the valley of death. He was now completely out of danger, and although indulgence in the vice to which he was addicted would undoubtedly cause a repetition of the attack, there was at present nothing to render me medically anxious about him. For the first time, therefore, I gave Wilfred Tollemache the critical attention which it was my wont to bestow on those who were to be my friends.

He was not more than twenty-three or twenty-four years of age—a big, rather bony fellow, loosely built. He had heavy brows, his eyes were deeply set, his lips were a little tremulous and wanting in firmness, his skin was flabby. He had a very sweet and pleasant smile, however, and notwithstanding the weakness caused by his terrible infirmity, I saw at once that there were enough good points in him to make it worth any man's while to try to set him on his legs once more.

I drew the conversation round to his personal history, and found that he was willing enough to confide in me.

He was an American by birth, but had spent so much time in Europe, and in England in particular, that no very strong traces of his nationality were apparent in his bearing and manner. He was an only son, and had unlimited wealth at his command.

"How old are you?" I asked.

"Twenty-three, my last birthday."

"In short," I said, rising as I spoke, standing before the hearth, and looking down at him, "no man has brighter prospects than you—you have youth, money, and I doubt not, from the build of your head, an abundant supply of brains. In short, you can do anything you like with your life."

He gave a hollow sort of laugh, and poking the ashes out of his pipe, prepared to fill it again.

"I wouldn't talk cant, if I were you," he said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, that sort of speech of yours would befit a parson."

"Pardon me," I rejoined, "I but express the sentiments of any man who values moral worth, and looks upon life as a great responsibility to be accounted for."

He fidgeted uneasily in his chair. He was in no mood for any further advice, and I prepared to leave him.

"You will be well enough to go out tomorrow," I said, as I bade him good-bye.

He scarcely replied to me. I saw that he was in the depths of that depression which generally follows attacks like his. I said a word or two to the nurse at leaving, and went away.

It seemed unlikely that I should see much more of Tollemache; he would be well in a few days and able to go where he pleased;