Number Five was near the centre of the row of little suburban houses
called Redburn Road.
When the cab drew up at the door Mr. Vimpany himself was visible,
looking out of the window on the ground floor--and yawning as he
looked. Iris beckoned to him impatiently. "Anything wrong?" he asked,
as he approached the door of the cab. She drew back, and silently
showed him what was wrong. The doctor received the shock with
composure. When he happened to be sober and sad, looking for patients
and failing to find them, Mr. Vimpany's capacity for feeling sympathy
began and ended with himself.
"This is a new scrape, even for Lord Harry," he remarked. "Let's get
him into the house."
The insensible man was carried into the nearest room on the ground
floor. Pale and trembling, Iris related what had happened, and asked if
there was no hope of saving him.
"Patience!" Mr. Vimpany answered; "I'll tell you directly."
He removed the bandages, and examined the wound. "There's been a deal
of blood lost," he said; "I'll try and pull him through. While I am
about it, Miss, go upstairs, if you please, and find your way to the
drawing-room." Iris hesitated. The doctor opened a neat mahogany box.
"The tools of my trade," he continued; "I'm going to sew up his
lordship's throat." Shuddering as she heard those words, Iris hurried
out of the room. Fanny followed her mistress up the stairs. In her own
very different way, the maid was as impenetrably composed as Mr.
Vimpany himself. "There was a second letter found in the gentleman's
pocket, Miss," she said. "Will you excuse my reminding you that you
have not read it yet."
Iris read the lines that follow: "Forgive me, my dear, for the last time. My letter is to say that I
shall trouble you no more in this world--and, as for the other world,
who knows? I brought some money back with me, from the goldfields. It
was not enough to be called a fortune--I mean the sort of fortune which
might persuade your father to let you marry me. Well! here in England,
I had an opportunity of making ten times more of it on the turf; and,
let me add, with private information of the horses which I might
certainly count on to win. I don't stop to ask by what cruel roguery I
was tempted to my ruin. My money is lost; and, with it, my last hope of
a happy and harmless life with you comes to an end. I die, Iris dear,
with the death of that hope. Something in me seems to shrink from
suicide in the ugly gloom of great overgrown London. I prefer to make
away with myself among the fields, where the green will remind me of
dear old Ireland. When you think of me sometimes, say to yourself the
poor wretch loved me--and perhaps the earth will lie lighter on Harry
for those kind words, and the flowers (if you favour me by planting a
few) may grow prettier on my grave."