Her Dark Inheritance

A night of storm and tempest, the wind blowing a perfect gale; and above its mad shrieking the sullen roar of the ocean, as it beat against the shore in angry vehemence, recoiling with wrathful force, as though to gather strength for a fresh onslaught. The little town of Chester, Massachusetts, near the beach, lay wrapped in gloom and darkness, under the lowering midnight sky, "while the rains descended and the floods came." It was a terrible night, that tenth of November. One man was destined to remember that night as long as he lived. Alone in his dingy little office, Doctor Frederick Lynne sat, absorbed in the contents of a medical journal, his grave face bent over the printed page upon which his eyes were fixed with eager interest, while the moments came and went unnoticed. He closed the journal at last with an impatient gesture, and pushed it aside. Arising slowly to his feet--a tall, dark, elderly man, with a troubled, anxious expression--he went slowly over to the bright wood-fire which burned upon the broad hearth, and stood gazing down into the bed of rosy coals, the anxious look deepening in his eyes. A poor country physician, with a wife and child depending upon his exertions, he found the struggle for subsistence growing harder every day.

"Ugh! what a night!" he muttered, "I dread to start for home. I believe I will wait until the storm subsides a little. Heigh-ho!" clasping his hands behind his head with a weary little gesture; "if only the struggle were not quite so hard--so desperate! If only I need not slave as I do! Hard work and poor pay. It is enough to make a man discouraged, especially a man with a wife like mine. She is always longing and wishing for fine clothes, and a better home and all the luxuries that only money can supply. It drives me nearly mad at times; and there's no way of escape only to come down here to the office and lock myself in. Heavens! I wish that I were rich. I would do almost anything in the world for money; anything--almost."

Tap, tap, tap, at the outer door of the office.

The entire building consisted of two rooms--a private consulting-room, and the office proper, which opened out upon the long, straight village street, with its sleepy-looking stores and the great, bare, unpainted hotel, which seemed perennially empty.

At sound of that unexpected summons, Doctor Lynne started in surprise. For five long years he had occupied that office, whose weather-beaten shingle told the passers-by that Frederick Lynne, M. D., might be found within; but never before within memory had he been summoned upon a night like this. Sickness was at a discount in healthy Chester, where people usually died of old age. But as he stood there, staring vacantly about him, trying to persuade himself that it had been only a freak of the imagination, once more that ghostly tapping sounded upon the stout oaken panels of the office door.

"It is some one!" ejaculated the astonished physician, going swiftly to the door and unbolting it.

"You'd better be all night about it," growled a voice from the door-step; and Lynne saw before him a tall man wrapped in a long dark cloak, the high collar turned up about his ears, a broad-brimmed sombrero pulled down over his brows so that no feature of the face was visible save a pair of flashing dark eyes and a prominent nose.

"Doctor Lynne, I presume?" queried the stranger.

The physician bowed.

"I am Doctor Lynne, sir," he returned, simply. "Are my services required?"