The History of Sir Richard Calmady

n to Mary Cathcart had retrograded rather than progressed. He wished his sister-in-law would be more correct in speech and behaviour. Then he held the conversation had been in bad taste. Th

to her husband's memory, and to this boy, born to so excellent a position and so great

arked at last. "You'll have

nd my beauty's of the kind wh

sauntered across the room and dropped into h

ou," he said, "if you prefer seeing

it's just the other way about, and that I must detain you,

ou-you have no fresh cause for anxiety

, black figure and dark, sensitive face

later, that I want to speak to Captain Ormiston now. We've got to be prepared for certain contingencies. Don't you go, Mr. March. Y

ension of serious issues. He looked hard at the doctor, cudgeling his brains as to what the latter's enigmatic speech might mean

ays to the table and shaded his

n what you call wrong

ill?" Ormi

uched up with gout. Bear that in mind, Captain Ormiston-that the child is well, I me

Ormiston asked sharply. "You don't mean t

dded his head. Ormiston perceived, and it moved

. "Technically you can hard

ad

ttled himself back in his chair.-"You had better understand it quite clearly," he continued, "at least as clearly as I can put

r of puppies he had seen in the sanctum of the veterin

o on,"

e before in all my practice and that was nothing very serious. This is an extraordinary exa

t-go on," Orm

e knee. "The foot is there-that is the amazing part of it-and, as far as I can see, is well formed and of the normal size; but so

lip of the decanter chattered against the lip of the glass. He gulped do

"how horrible! Poor Kitty, how

completeness, he had as yet no

done, Knott?"

usly n

t will

althy infant when I see one. And I ought to know 'em by no

be able

ctor answered, smiling sava

ave fainted, just then, had he yielded by ever so little. And this was the boy whom they had so longed for then! The child on whom they had set such fond hopes, who was to be the pride of his you

in as thorough-paced a disguise as ever s

e at all!" Ormiston put in fi

tell you. And so we have just got to consider how to make the best of him, both for his own sake and for Lady Calmady's. And you must understand he is a splendid, little animal, clean skinned and strong, as you would expect, being

ng somewhat mock

at times, unconscious and rather deplorable miracles. In this case it has worked strangely against itself-at

know?" Ormisto

little stronger, if we can, first. That woman, Mrs. Denny, is worth her weight in gold, and her weigh

n the same dej

is bound to kno

s a way young mothers have, and a very pretty way too. If we keep the child from her she will grow suspicious, and take means to find out for herself, an

man looked

o give the an

and she will play it nobly. Let this come upon her from a mean, wet-nurse, hospital-ward sort of level, and it may break her. What we have to do is to keep up her pluck. Remember we are only at the beginning of this business yet. In

he question anyhow," Roger

possible mitigation of the blow which must fall on Katherine Calmady. And, listening to his talk, he had, in the last quarter of an hour, gained conviction not only of this man's ability, but of his humanity, of his possession of the peculiar gentleness which

e, I think, could better break this terri

adding to himself,-"Got to revise my opinion of the black coat. Didn'

ig shoulders a li

py children, broken legs, and all the other pretty little amusements of a rather large practice, waiting for me. Suppose I happen to be twenty miles away on the far side of Westchurch, or

ntin, was here!" Ormiston exclaimed.

hen, who

rd, and looked keenly at Ormiston. He was extremely ugly just then, ugly as the weathe

mean that I've got to t

f racing cloud. The wind hissed up the grass slopes and shouted among the great trees crowning the ridge of the hill. The prospect was not calculated to encourage. Ormiston turned his back on it. But hardly more encouraging was the sombre, gray-blue-walled room. The vision of

wfully fond of her and proud of her," he went on. "She's behaved so splendidly ever since Richard's death, laid hold of all the business, never spared herself, been so able and so just. And now the baby coming, and being a

back to the table and stood

be hangman to my ow

ery rough. Only, you see, this hanging has to be put through-there's the nuisan

for the rush and sob of the

Julius?" Ormisto

herine-for Lady Calmady?" he said. "An

d there awhile struggling with his natural

against me altogether for bringing her such news. I'll be on hand for the next few days, and-you must explain

d himself, in reverential awe, before the thought of her martyrdom. How would her proud and naturally joyous spirit bear the bitter pains of it? Would it make, eventually, for evil or for good? And then-the ascetic within him asserting itself, notwithstanding the widening of outlook produced by the awakening of his heart-he was overtaken by a great horror of that which we call matter; by a revolt against the body, and those torments and shames, mental, moral, and physical, which the body brings along with it. Surely the dualists were right? It was u

im. He spent the remainder of that night, not in dreams of paradise and of spirits redeemed from the thraldom of the flesh, but in increasing the population of this astonishing pla