He sat there, crouching, mouthing; his head protruded between his knees, playing with the cinders, making passes at the fire with his long fingers. He was sixteen, but his face was the face of a child of seven. His mind had stood still; his body, however, had developed. He was short, clumsy, hideous; but there was strength—enormous strength—in the muscular arms and legs. The face vacant, without thought of any kind, was in some remarkable way beautiful. He had inherited his father's dark eyes—all his father's best points, indeed—and etherealised them. If his soul had grown with his body, he would have been one of Nature's greatest products; but his soul lay stagnant, and the glorious dark eyes held nothing.
His figure was terrible—short and broad. His hair had never grown, and the body had ceased to form upwards at twelve. He had now the appearance of a boy of that age, but the strength of his real years.
The mother sat in the lounging chair looking into the fire; the boy sat on the rug. Neither of them was doing anything besides. Suddenly the door opened.
The woman started and looked round. The poor creature on the rug still played with the cinders.
"Oh, you!" said Mrs. Darkham. Her husband had just come in.
"Yes. I am going out; I want a stamp."
"You'll find them in the table drawer, then," said his wife sullenly. Her voice was guttural, vulgar.
"So you're goin' out again," said she, taking up the poker and stirring the fire into a blaze. As she did so, a hot coal fell on the idiot's finger, and he threw himself backwards with a hideous howl.
"What is it, my darling, my lamb?"
The woman went on her knees, and caught the unwieldy mass of humanity to her with long arms. It had been but a slight burn, and after awhile the turmoil subsided. Mrs. Darkham rose from her knees, and the idiot went back to his play amongst the cinders.
"I believe you'd see him burnt alive with joy," said she, turning to her husband, a great animosity within her eyes.
"Your beliefs are so numerous, and are always so complimentary, that it is hard to reply," said Dr. Darkham, with a slow smile.
If her glance had betrayed animosity, his, to her, betrayed a most deadly hatred.
"Oh, there, you're at your sneers again!" said she shrugging her ample shoulders. "So you're going out this wet day. Where?"
"To"—slowly—"visit the sick."
"Same old answer," said she, trying to laugh contemptuously.
"What you mean is—only you haven't the courage to say it—that you're going to Rickton Villa."
"I dare say"—with admirable composure, though his heart is beginning to beat—"that I shall call in there on my way home to see Mrs. Greatorex."
"Mrs. Greatorex!"
She leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees, and peers at him insolently. In this position the detestable order of her gown becomes more apparent.
"Mrs. Greatorex, or her niece, eh?"
"I am not aware that Miss Nesbitt requires the services of any doctor. Where are these stamps?"
"No! Doesn't she? You seem as blind about her as you are about the finding of them stamps. And so it is Mrs. Greatorex you go to see three times a week? She pays you, I suppose?"
"Not now. Feeling herself better a little time ago, she told me to discontinue my visits. But I dislike leaving a cure half finished. So I told her I should still call occasionally. She is not very well off, as you are aware."
He said all this with the dry, business-like air of one who felt he was bound to speak, but then would do it as concisely as possible.
"She is well enough off to treat me as a nobody. Me—the wife of a man whose visits she accep's for nothing! She a pauper, and me who can ride in my carriage! Why, she wouldn't raise her eyes to mine if she could 'elp it. Can't see me sometimes, she can't. And so she's taking your time and your advice for nothing! and you give them, knowing how she treats your wife!"
The word "wife," so incessantly insisted on, seemed to grind his very soul. Yes, there she was, sodden, hideous, irredeemable, and—his wife!
"She is not well off, as I have told you; but she has a certain standing in the neighbourhood. And it is not well for a doctor to quarrel with those around him."
"Hypocrite!" said the woman, in a dull but furious way. The very stolidity of her often made the outburst the more remarkable.
"Don't you think I see into you? Don't you think I know you?—that I haven't known for the past six months the reason of your visits to the Villa?"
"Put an end to this," said the doctor, in a slow, cold voice.
"Are you mad?" His dark eyes glowed.
He was a tall, singularly gaunt man, and handsome. The deeply-set eyes were brilliant, and dark as night. As night too, unfathomable. The mouth was fixed, cold, determined, and suggestive of cruelty. The brow was broad and grand. He was about forty-five, and in manner was suave, low-voiced, and agreeable. Education and resolution had lifted him up from his first surroundings to a plane that made him level with those with whom he now desired to mix. But all his quality could not conceal the fact that he would be a bad man to fight with—that he possessed an indomitable will that would drive all things before it, till it gained the object of its desire.
"Mad? Don't think you'll make me that. I tell you again and again that I know very well why you visit at—"
He turned upon her, and by an impressive gesture stopped her.
"How dare you speak so of—"
"Miss Nesbitt?" She laughed aloud as she interrupted him.
"No. Of me! Of course I know what you mean. But am I to give up all my patients to satisfy your detestable jealousy?"
"My jealousy! Do you think I am jealous of you?" said his wife, with a contemptuous smile.
"'Pon me word, you must think a lot of yourself! Why, who the deuce are you, any way? Tell me that. You married me for my money, and glad enough you were to get it."
She poured out the terrible torrent of invective in a slow, heavy, rumbling way; whilst he stood silent, motionless, listening. It was so true! And her hideous vulgarity—that was true too. It would never alter. She would be there always, clogging him, dragging him down to her own level. She was now as uneducated and idealess as when, at the age of twenty-two, he married her for the sake of her money; and now besides all that, she was hideous and old—older than himself in appearance. Quite an old woman!
And then the child!
CHAPTER II
Dr. Darkham's eyes turned to the hearthrug, and then turned away again hastily. He loathed to look upon this, his first-born and only child. He shrank with horror whenever he saw him. Physical deformity was an abomination in his eyes, beauty a thing to worship. Thus his only child was a living torture to him.
To the mother the unfortunate idiot was something to love—he was the first of her womb, and an object of love—but to the father he was loathsome.
The child had been born beautiful, but time had proved him deaf and dumb, and, worse than all, devoid of intellect; without a single idea, save, indeed, an overpowering adoration for his mother, a clinging, unreasoning love that knew no bounds.
For