LITMIR.BIZ

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to drink: guard against it by keeping him from alcohol of any kind. He may show physical weakness; watch him carefully. But nine-tenths of so-called hereditary disease or vice are due to example and conditions of life."

      "If we do not know the character of the parents—they may be criminals. What if the child should inherit these instincts?"

      The doctor, who had been standing, took a chair, and prepared himself to argue the point. He was a young man, with a strong jaw and a square forehead. He had a face and features of rude but vigorous handling; such a face as a noble life would make beautiful in age, and an ignoble life would make hideous. Every man has as many faces as there are years of his life, and we heed them not; yet each follows each in a long procession, ending with the pale and waxen face in the coffin—that solemn face which tells so much.

      "There is," he said, "a good deal of loose talk about heredity. Some things external are hereditary—face, eyes, figure, stature, hands, certainly descend from father to son; some diseases, especially those of the nervous kind; some forms of taste and aptitude, especially those which are artistic. Things which are not natural, but acquired, are never hereditary—never. If the boy's father is the greatest criminal in the country, it won't hurt him a bit, because he is taken away too early to have observed or imitated. The sons are said to take after the mothers; that is, perhaps, because they have always got the models before them. In your case, you will naturally become the child's most important model. Later on, will come in the male influence. If there is, for instance, a putative father——"

      "There will be, of course, my husband."

      The doctor bowed again. Then there was a husband living. "He will become the boy's second model," he said. "In other words, madam, the vices of the boy's parents—if they have vices—will not affect him in the least. Gout, rheumatism, asthma, consumption,—all these things, and many more, a child may inherit; but acquired criminality, never. Be quite easy on that point."

      "My desire is that the child may become as perfect a gentleman at all points as his—as my husband."

      "Why should he not? He has no past to drag him down. You will train him and mould him as you please—exactly as you please."

      "You have not told me anything about the mother, except that she is in want."

      "Why should you learn her name, or she yours?"

      "I have no desire to learn her name. I was thinking whether she is the kind of woman to feel the loss of her child."

      The doctor, as yet inexperienced in the feminine nature, marvelled at this sympathy with the mother whose child the lady was buying.

      "Well," he said, "she is a young woman—of respectable character, I believe; good looking; in her speech something of a cockney, if I understand that dialect."

      "The more respectable she is, the more she will feel the loss of her child."

      "Yes; but there is another consideration. This poor creature has a husband who has deserted her."

      "Then her child should console her."

      "Her husband is a comedian—actor—singing fellow,—a chap who asks for nothing but enjoyment. As for wife and children, they may look out for themselves. When I saw him, I read desertion in his face; in his wife's face, it was easy to read neglect."

      "Poor creature!"

      "Now he's gone—deserted her. Nothing will do but she must go in search of him. Partly for money to help her along, partly because the workhouse is her only refuge, she sells her baby."

      The lady was silent for a while, then she sighed. "Poor creature! There are, then, people in the world as unhappy as I myself?"

      "If that is any consolation, there are. Well, madam, you now know the whole history; and, as it doesn't concern you, nor the child, best forget it at once."

      "Poor mother!"

      She kept harping on the bereavement, as though Providence, and not she herself, was the cause.

      "I have told her that the boy will be brought up in ease—affluence even"—the lady inclined her head—"and she is resigned."

      "Thank you. And when——?"

      "You would like to go up to London this afternoon? Well, I will myself bring the child to the railway station. Once more, as regards heredity. If the child should inherit his mother's qualities, he will be truthful and tenacious, or obstinate and perhaps rather stupid; if his father's, he will be artistic and musical, selfish, cold-hearted, conceited."

      "He might inherit the better qualities of both."

      "Ah, then he will be persevering, high-principled, a man of artistic feeling—perhaps of power,—ambitious, and desirous of distinction. I wish, madam, that he may become so perfect and admirable a young man." He rose. "I have only, I think, to receive the money which will start this poor woman on her wild-goose chase. Thank you. Ten five-pound notes. I will take care that the woman has it at once."

      "For your own trouble, Dr. Steele?"

      "My fee is three guineas. Thank you."

      "I shall be on the platform or in the train at a quarter before three. Please look about for an Indian ayah, who will receive the child. You are sure that there will never be any attempt made to follow and discover my name?"

      "As to discovery," he said, "you may rest quite easy. For my own part, my work lies in this slum of Birmingham; it is not likely that I shall ever get out of it. I am a sixpenny doctor; you are a woman of society: I shall never meet you. This little business will be forgotten to-morrow. If, in the future, by any accident I were to meet you, I should not know you. If I were to know you, I should not speak to you. Until you yourself give me leave, even if I should recognize you, I should not speak about this business."

      "Thank you," she said coldly. "It is not, however, likely that you will be tempted."

      He took up an open envelope lying on the table—it was the envelope in which the lady had brought the notes,—replaced them, and put them in his pocket. Then he opened the door for the lady, who bowed coldly, and went out.

      A few days before this, the same lady, with an Indian ayah, was bending over a dying child. They sent for the nearest medical man. He came. He tried the usual things; they proved useless. The child must die.

      The child was dead.

      The child was buried.

      The mother sat stupefied. In her hand she held a letter—her husband's latest letter. "In a day or two," he said, "my life's work will be finished. In a fortnight after you get this, I shall be at Southampton. Come to meet me, dear one, and bring the boy. I am longing to see the boy and the boy's mother. Kiss the boy for me;" and so on, and so on—always thinking of the boy, the boy, the boy! And the boy was dead! And the bereaved father was on his way home! She laid down the letter, and took up a telegram. Already he must be crossing the Alps, looking forward to meeting the boy, the boy, the boy!

      And the boy was dead.

      The ayah crouched down on a stool beside her mistress, and began whispering in her own language. But the lady understood.

      As she listened her face grew harder, her mouth showed resolution.

      "Enough," she said; "you have told me enough. You can be silent?—for my sake, for the sake of the sahib? Yes—yes—I can trust you. Let me think."

      Presently she went out; she walked at random into street after street. She stopped, letting chance direct her, at a surgery with a red lamp, in a mean quarter. She read the name. She entered, and asked to see Dr. Steele, not knowing anything at all about the man.

      She was received by a young man of five and twenty or so. She stated her object in calling.

      "The child I want," she said, "should be something like the child I have lost. He must have light hair and blue eyes."

      "And

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