"If anybody had,
we'd have had the law on him long ago."
"And is Lady Burnham often seen about?" I inquired.
"Never!" was the reply. "She ain't passed the gates of the Park this
twelve months and more."
He looked about him covertly, and:
"It's my belief," he affirmed, lowering his quavering voice almost to
a whisper, "that she'll never pass them gates again alive."
"Oh," said I. "This seems to be a very cheerful neighborhood. Yet in
spite of your wishes on my behalf, I must confess I should like a
glimpse of this black doctor. Does he practice about here?"
"Practice? Is it likely?"
"Then he has private means?"
"His house belongs to the estate," was the reply; "and you can't tell
me he ever pays any rent. As to his means I don't know nothing about
that."
I gathered little more of interest from my acquaintance of "The
Threshers," but indeed I had gathered enough, and as I wended my way
back to the Abbey Inn, I was turning over in my mind the extraordinary
story that he had related to me concerning Dr. Damar Greefe.
Clearly the man lived the life of a pariah and I knew not whether to
pity him or otherwise. In an ignorant community it is a dreadful thing
to earn such a reputation as that which evidently attached to the
Eurasian doctor; and this talk of the evil eye took me back
automatically to the early days of this quaint spot, where, cut off
from the larger things of life, the simple folk continued to hold the
same beliefs which had stirred their forefathers.
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