Chapter 15

The Mark of Cain.

Next morning Barton entered his sitting-room in very high spirits, and took up his letters. He had written to Maitland the night before, saying little but, "Come home at once. Margaret is found. She is going to be my wife. You can't come too quickly, if you wish to hear of something very much to your advantage." A load was off his mind, and he felt as Romeo did just before the bad news about Juliet reached him.

In this buoyant disposition, Barton opened his letters. The first was in a hand he knew very well--that of a man who had been his fellow-student in Paris and Vienna, and who was now a prosperous young physician. The epistle ran thus:

"Dear Barton.--I'm off to the West of Ireland, for a fortnight People are pretty fit, as the season has not run far. Most of my patients have not yet systematically overeaten themselves. I want you to do something for me. Martin & Wright, the lawyers, have a queer little bit of medical jurisprudence, about which young Wright, who was at Oriel in our time, asked my opinion. I recommended him to see you, as it is more in your line; and my line will presently be attached to that eminent general practitioner, 'The Blue Doctor.' May he prosper with the Galway salmon!

"Thine,

"Alfred Franks."

"Lucky beggar!" thought Barton to himself, but he was too happy to envy even a man who had a fortnight of salmon-fishing before him.

The next letter he opened was in a blue envelope, with the stamp of Messrs. Martin & Wright. The brief and formal note which it contained requested Dr. Barton to call, that very day if possible, at the chambers of the respectable firm, on "business of great importance."

"What in the world can they want?" thought Barton. "Nobody can have left me any money. Besides, Franks says it is a point in medical jurisprudence. That sounds attractive. I'll go down after breakfast."

He walked along the sunny embankment, and that bright prospect of houses, trees, and ships have never seemed so beautiful. In an hour he was in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and had shaken hands with young Wright, whom he knew; had been introduced to old Wright, a somewhat stately man of business, and had taken his seat in the chair sacred to clients.

"Dr. Barton," said old Mr. Wright, solemnly, "you are, I think, the author of this book?"

He handed to Barton a copy of his own volume, in its gray paper cover, "Les Tatouages Étude Médico-Légale".

"Certainly," said Barton. "I wrote it when I was in Paris I had plenty of chances of studying tattooing in the military hospitals."

"I have not read it myself," said old Mr. Wright, "because I am not acquainted with the French language; but my son tells me it is a work of great