that narrow parchment mask. He had seen terrible faces in the hospital — faces on which disease had set dreadful marks — but he had never seen a face that impressed him so painfully as this withered countenance, with its indescribable horror of death outlived, a face that should have been hidden under a coffin-lid years and years ago.
The Italian physician was standing on the other side of the fireplace, smoking a cigarette, and looking down at the little old woman brooding over the hearth as if he were proud of her.
'Good evening, Mr Stafford; you can go to your room, Bella, and write your everlasting letter to your mother at Walworth.' said Lady Ducayne. 'I believe she writes a page about every wild flower she discovers in the woods and meadows. I don't know what else she can find to write about,' she added, as Bella quietly withdrew to the pretty little bedroom opening out of Lady Ducayne's spacious apartment. Here, as at Cap Ferrino, she slept in a room adjoining the old lady's.
'You are a medical man, I understand, Mr Stafford.'
'I am a qualified practitioner, but I have not begun to practise.'
'You have begun upon my companion, she tells me.'
'I have prescribed for her, certainly, and I am happy to find my prescription has done her good; but I look upon that improvement as temporary. Her case will require more drastic treatment.'
'Never mind her case. There is nothing the matter with the girl absolutely nothing except girlish nonsense; too much liberty and not enough work.'
'I understand that two of your ladyship's previous companions died of the same disease,' said Stafford, looking first at Lady Ducayne, who gave her tremulous old head an impatient jerk, and then at Parravicini, whose yellow complexion had paled a little under Stafford's scrutiny.
'Don't bother me about my companions, sir,' said Lady Ducayne. 'I sent for you to consult you about myself not about a parcel of anaemic girls. You are young, and medicine is a progressive science, the newspapers tell me. Where have you studied?'
'In Edinburgh — and in Paris.'
'Two good schools. And know all the new-fangled theories, the modern discoveries — that remind one of the medieval witchcraft, of Albertus Magnus, and George Ripley; you have studied hypnotism — electricity?'
'And the transfusion of blood,' said Stafford, very slowly, looking at Parravicini.
'Have you made any discovery that teaches you to prolong human life any elixir any mode of treatment? I want my life prolonged, young man. That man there has been my physician for thirty years. He does all he can to keep me alive — after his lights. He studies all the new theories of all the scientists but he is old; he gets older every day — his brain-power is going — he is bigoted prejudiced can't receive new ideas can't grapple with new systems. He will let me die if I am not on my guard against him.'
'You are of an unbelievable ingratitude, Ecclenza,' said Parravicini.
'Oh, you needn't complain. I have paid you thousands to keep me alive. Every year of my life has swollen your hoards; you know there is nothing to come to you when I am gone. My whole fortune is left to endow a home for indigent women of quality who have reached their ninetieth year. Come, Mr Stafford, I am a rich woman. Give me a few years more in the sunshine, a few years more above ground, and I will give you the price of a fashionable London practice — I will set you up at the West End.'
'How old are you, Lady Ducayne?'
'I was born the day Louis XVI was guillotined.'
'Then I think you have had your share of the sunshine and the pleasures of the earth, and that you should spend your few remaining days in repenting your sins and trying to make atonement for the young lives that have been sacrificed to your love of life.'
'What do you mean by that, sir?'
'Oh, Lady Ducayne, need I put your wickedness and your physician's still greater wickedness in plain words? The poor girl who is now in your employment has been reduced from robust health to a condition of absolute danger by Doctor Parravicini's experimental surgery; and I have no doubt those other two young women who broke down in your service were treated by him in the same manner. I could take upon myself to demonstrate — by most convincing evidence, to a jury of medical men — that Doctor Parravicini has been bleeding Miss Rolleston after putting her under chloroform, at intervals, ever since she has been in your service. The deterioration in the girl's health speaks for itself; the lancet marks upon the girl's arms are unmistakable; and her description of a series of sensations, which she calls a dream, points unmistakably to the administration of chloroform while she was sleeping. A practice so nefarious, so murderous, must, if exposed, result in a sentence only less severe than the punishment of murder.'
'I laugh,' said Parravicini, with an airy motion of his skinny fingers; 'I laugh at once at your theories and at your threats. I, Parravicini Leopold, have no fear that the law can question anything I have done.'
'Take the girl away, and let me hear no more of her,' cried Lady Ducayne, in the thin, old voice, which so poorly matched the energy and fire of the wicked old brain that guided its utterances. 'Let her go back to her mother — I want no more girls to die in my service. There are girls enough and to spare in the world, God knows.'
'If you ever engage another companion — or take another English girl into your service, Lady Ducayne, I will make all England ring with the story of your wickedness.'
'I want no more girls. I don't believe in his experiments. They have been full of danger for me as well as for the girl — an air bubble, and I should be gone. I'll have no more of his dangerous quackery. I'll find some new man — a better man than you, sir, a discoverer like Pasteur, or Virchow, a genius to keep me alive. Take your girl away, young man. Marry her if you like. I'll write a cheque for a thousand pounds, and let her go and live on beef and beer, and get strong and plump again. I'll have no more such experiments. Do you hear, Parravicini?' she screamed, vindictively, the yellow, wrinkled face distorted with fury, the eyes glaring at him.
The Staffords carried Bella Rolleston off to Varese next day, she very loath to leave Lady Ducayne, whose liberal salary afforded such help for the dear mother. Herbert Stafford insisted, however, treating Bella as coolly as if he had been the family physician, and she had been given over wholly to his care.
'Do you suppose your mother would let you stop here to die?' he asked. 'If Mrs Rolleston knew how ill you are,
