all day, beginning at six in the morning to meet the
central intelligence, he only rushes home for his
meals, and goes back to work till twelve or one o’clock
at night. Even then he cannot sleep. I
hear him tossing about with the pain in his back that
sitting at his desk brings on, and his hands are so
tired by writing, and with the heat, which has been
dreadful for the last few weeks, and has taken away
all the appetite he ever had. You would be shocked
to see him, he is so thin and altered; I cannot think
how he is to continue this, but he will not hear of
my writing to Lady Travis Underwood. He is never
angry, except when I try to persuade him, and you never
saw anything like his patience and gentleness to my
poor mother. She never did either, she cannot
understand it at all. At first she thought he
wanted to coax the confession out of her, and when
she found that it made no difference, she could not
recover from her wonder—he, whom she had
deserted in his babyhood, and so cruelly injured in
his manhood, to devote himself to toiling for her sake,
and never to speak harshly to her for one moment.
She knew I loved her, and she had always been good
to me, except when O’Leary forced her to be
otherwise, but his behaviour has done more to touch
her heart than anything, and I am sure she is, as
Pere Duchamps says, a sincere penitent. She
is revived by the summer heat, and can sit under the
stoop and enjoy the sweet air of the lake; but she
is very weak, and coughs dreadfully in the morning,
just when it is cooler, and my brother might get some
sleep. She tries to be good and patient with
us both, and it really does soothe her when my brother
can sit by her, and talk in his cheerful droll way;
but he can stay but a very short time. He has
to rush back to his horrid stuffy office, and then
she frets after him and says, ’But what right
have I to such a son?’ and she begins to cry
and cough.”
“Ah!” said Clement, as Geraldine, unable
to speak for tears, gave him the letter. “This
is a furnace of real heroism.”
“Christian heroism, I am sure,” said Geraldine.
“Oh, my boy, I am proud of him. He will
be all the better for his brave experiment.”
“Yes, he had an instinct that it would be wholesome,
besides the impelling cause. Real hardship is
sound training.”
“If it is not too hard,” said she.
“‘Let not their precious balms break my
head,’” said Clement.
“I do not like that pain in the back.
Remember how he dragged his limbs when first we had
him at home, and how delicate he was up to thirteen-only
eight years ago!”
“Probably it will not last long enough to do
him much harm.”
“And how nobly uncomplaining he is!”
“This has brought out all the good we always
trusted was in reserve.”
“Better than Emilia’s experiment,”
sighed Geraldine.
For Emilia Vanderkist, before her year was over, was
at home, having broken down, and having spent most
of her holidays with Mrs. Peter Brown, the wife of
Sir Ferdinand’s partner. She had come back,
not looking much the worse for her hospital experience,
but with an immense deal to say of the tyranny of
the matron, the rudeness of the nurses to probationers,
the hardness and tedium of the work to which she had
been put, and the hatefulness of patients and of doctors.