d
soul.

CHAPTER VII

SIR ELWIN GROVES' PATIENT

When a substantial legacy is divided into two shares, one of which
falls to a man, young, dissolute and clever, and the other to a girl,
pretty and inexperienced, there is laughter in the hells. But, to the
girl's legacy add another item--a strong, stern guardian, and the
issue becomes one less easy to predict.

In the case at present under consideration, such an arrangement led
Dr. Bruce Cairn to pack off Myra Duquesne to a grim Scottish manor in
Inverness upon a visit of indefinite duration. It also led to heart
burnings on the part of Robert Cairn, and to other things about to be
noticed.

Antony Ferrara, the co-legatee, was not slow to recognise that a
damaging stroke had been played, but he knew Dr. Cairn too well to put
up any protest. In his capacity of fashionable physician, the doctor
frequently met Ferrara in society, for a man at once rich, handsome,
and bearing a fine name, is not socially ostracised on the mere
suspicion that he is a dangerous blackguard. Thus Antony Ferrara was
courted by the smartest women in town and tolerated by the men. Dr.
Cairn would always acknowledge him, and then turn his back upon the
dark-eyed, adopted son of his dearest friend.

There was that between the two of which the world knew nothing. Had
the world known what Dr. Cairn knew respecting Antony Ferrara, then,
despite his winning manner, his wealth and his station, every door in
London, from those of Mayfair to that of the foulest den in Limehouse,
would have been closed to him--closed, and barred with horror and
loathing. A tremendous secret was locked up within the heart of Dr.
Bruce Cairn.

Sometimes we seem to be granted a glimpse of the guiding Hand that
steers men's destinies; then, as comprehension is about to dawn, we
lose again our temporal lucidity of vision. The following incident
illustrates this.

Sir Elwin Groves, of Harley Street, took Dr. Cairn aside at the club
one evening.

"I am passing a patient on to you, Cairn," he said; "Lord Lashmore."

"Ah!" replied Cairn, thoughtfully. "I have never met him."

"He has only quite recently returned to England--you may have
heard?--and brought a South American Lady Lashmore with him."

"I had heard that, yes."

"Lord Lashmore is close upon fifty-five, and his wife--a passionate
Southern type--is probably less than twenty. They are an odd couple.
The lady has been doing some extensive entertaini