The Great Discovery/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X.
Doctor Otway closed the door on his last patient. The little maid of all work, who lingered in the passage, looked at him with wide-open eyes. He did not usually accompany his patients on their departure, and his manner was strangely elated. And, being a maid of all work, she wondered.
“Remember what I told you,” he said abruptly as he opened the door to his father's sitting room. “I am not at home to any one except the lady I have described to you. Show her direct into my consulting room.”
“Yes, doctor.”
The door closed sharply. Old Jacob Otway, who lay inert and apparently indifferent on his couch by the fireside, turned his head in his son's direction.
“Well?” he said.
It was almost the first word he had spoken since that sudden violent outbreak on the night before. Doctor Otway came and stood by his side, looking down into the wizened face with a somber, critical interest.
“She has not come yet,” he said, “but she will come. I am sure of that. I know her. There will be a struggle, but she will come.”
“And then?”
The dim eyes flared up with a momentary cruel anticipation. Doctor Otway smiled.
“Then we shall both have what we want,” he said significantly.
“You say so. I do not understand.”
“Think a little. Mortimer de Warren has a son whom he loves, and that son loves a woman who is coming here to-night. Doesn't that suggest anything to you?”
“Yes, yes! But why should she come? Peter is rich, and you”
Otway laughed.
“You don't understand women, father. Women have their own moral code, which is higher in their eyes than money and all the laws in the world. Yesterday she would not have come; to-day she will.” The doorbell jangled faintly. Otway went to the door of his consulting room. “You see!” he said. “I am right. Are you satisfied?”
“Yes, quite satisfied.” The grin that distorted the once meek and kindly face was terrible in its ruthless triumph. “Quite satisfied. Wilfred, what will you do?”
There was no answer. The door between them closed, and in the silence of the drab consulting room Enid and Otway faced each other. He had drawn back as though in painful surprise, and she came toward him, her hands outstretched in wild pleading, her lovely face pale with grief and despair.
“I had to come,” she breathed. “All to-day I have been fighting it out, but in the end you won. You had to win after last night. Until then I could not have done it. I couldn't have betrayed any one who was honest and just and true as—as I thought he was. But now”
“Now?” he echoed as she broke off.
He had taken her hands, and was drawing her nearer. His eyes shone with the knowledge of victory.
“Now it is all over. Last night, when I understood that you and I had been cheated wilfully, cruelly; that those three men—Peter, his father, my father—had just bought and sold your happiness—and mine—then I could not bear it any longer. I can't live with the man I despise like that.”
“You despised him before,” he interrupted sharply.
“Yes, but not like that.” She passed her hand over her forehead with a movement of utter horror. “Wilfred, I have run away. Whatever happens, I can't go on with that old life, knowing what I know.”
He was very close to her now; her fair, disordered hair brushed against his shoulder? she could feel his breath on her face.
“You shan't. You don't need to. You are a brave woman. You stand high above the ordinary worldly scruples. Despise them. Come with me! We will go abroad together and start life afresh. I have money enough for the start. Will you trust me?”
She drew back a little, staring at him with dazed, uncomprehending eyes.
“Trust you? I have no one else. But your work—your discovery?”
He laughed harshly.
“Never mind that. That's all over, anyhow. Come! You, too, are all I have left.”
Yet even as he caught her, half resisting, half fainting, in his arms, there was the sound of an eager knocking at the door, and she drew away from him, an exclamation of fear on her lips.
“What is it?”
“Nothing—the servant. Wait a moment.” .
He crossed the room, placing himself between her and the door, which he half opened.
“What do you want?” he demanded angrily.
“Please, doctor, a gentleman is out there. He says it's urgent. He must see you.”
“Did he give his name?”
“Yes, doctor. Mr. Peter de Warren, he said.”
There was a moment's blank silence. Otway looked back over his shoulder at the woman behind him. She was swaying uncertainly, and the deadly whiteness of her face warned him. He came back quickly to her side.
“Go into the next room. My father is there, but he won't bother you. Don't be afraid. It is better we should get it over now. He need not know you are here.”
She obeyed him without resistance, almost without consciousness. Only when the door had been softly closed did panic break over her. The old man, lying in an uneasy sleep by the fire, looked spectral in the half darkness; his low, irregular breathing sounded unnatural, terrifying; and now and again he chuckled to himself, as though over some secret satisfaction.
Enid, crouching against the door, listened in helpless fascination until another sound aroused her. It was Peter's voice. She heard it distinctly, although it was in no way raised; and the quiet, steady accents filled her with a new fear. Of what? For whom? For Peter? She knew that Wilfred was passionate, reckless, and strong. He hated Peter with a justifiable hatred. And Peter was insignificant, weak.
She remembered vividly the great, bulky ruffian lying unconscious in the garret where Otway had rescued her. And the fear became definite. Whether it was for Peter or Otway she did not know.
Very softly she turned the handle of the door. There was a curtain on the other side, which hid her, while to her every detail in the scene was visible. The lamp had been lighted. Otway stood in the shadow, his elbows propped on the mantelshelf, his massive head thrown back, in an attitude of insolent attention. In the circle of light she saw her husband.
No greater, more dramatic contrast could have been imagined than between these two men—the one rugged, powerful, truculent; the other slight, delicate, almost foppish. Enid was conscious of a mad, hysterical desire to laugh as she saw the white carnation in the button-hole of the inimitably cut frock coat. It was so like Peter—ineffectually dainty to the last. But as she saw his face the desire to laugh died. He had been speaking, and now appeared to await an answer. It came in an easy, contemptuous drawl.
“You say you have an explanation to offer for this unexpected visit,” Otway said. “I should be glad to hear it as quickly as possible. My time is precious.”
“I am in your debt,” said Peter simply.
“Are you referring to last night? Have you come to offer me another check?”
“No.”
There was something in the monosyllable, in the whole attitude of the visitor, which seemed to catch Otway's closer attention. He drew nearer, folding his arms.
“Well?”
“I have come to pay my debt.”
“I am afraid I do not understand.”
Peter bent his head; he began playing with the fringe of the tablecloth with the nervous restlessness which Enid knew so well.
“I think I can explain. I am in your debt. I owe you more than money. You were checked in the beginning of your career, and you lost the woman whom you loved and who loved you. I do not know or care whether you believe me when I say that I was innocent of the misguided plan for my—happiness. The point is immaterial. I hold myself responsible. I propose to make good.”
“That is impossible.”
“I think not, and I think I understand you, Doctor Otway. You are ambitious, and you love strongly. You have been thwarted in both directions. I can give you back one or two of the things that you have lost.”
Otway laughed roughly.
“Indeed?”
“Please listen to me. I will be brief and frank. You said once that among a hundred men there was always one whom you called an 'odd life.' You meant by that a useless life, a life that stood in the way of others, in itself valueless, but which for you would be intensely valuable.”
“Mr. de Warren, if you have come on professional matters”
“Yes, I come on professional matters. I am that 'odd' life!”
Otway came slowly forward. He was measuring the quiet, upright little figure with penetrating eagerness.
“Will you be more explicit?”
“Is it necessary? I recognize myself as one of the world's drones. Except to my father, I am nothing to any one; and my father must bear his share of the atonement. I am in your way, and in—Enid's way.” For the first time the stoic composure of his features broke, but only for an instant. “You see, I understand. She is so awfully honest and good, and—and I don't want to drive her into anything—that would make her anything else—in her own eyes. I might—well, clear out my own way, but she might reproach herself; it might make her unhappy. And we must try and avoid that. You see, I have been thinking it all over.”
“For pity's sake, get to the point!”
“It is just this: You have made a discovery—you have discovered a new serum against diphtheria. I understand that the quantities necessary have yet to be discovered, and that the first experiment, essential to final success, must almost certainly be fatal.”
“Yes. What are you getting at?”
“I offer myself—as the first experiment.”
It was very quiet in the little room. But in the tense, painful stillness there was something living and vibrant, and out of the dingy shadows there arose something which blinded the woman hidden behind the curtains. It was as though she saw for the first time. Out of weakness there had come forth strength, and out of insignificance a simple, unshaken heroism.
“I don't want to be held for your murder,” said Otway from between white lips.
“That is easily avoided. You will give me the serum, with instructions how to use it. When I am taken ill, I shall send for you as for an ordinary doctor. You will attend me and draw your conclusions as to the worth of your discovery. No one will blame you if I succumb to—diphtheria.”
Again silence. Otway had turned his back to his visitor, and Enid saw his face distorted with the violence of his temptation. She shrank back as from an abyss which had been revealed to her in a flare of lightning.
“In the cause of science,” said Peter, smiling faintly.
Otway went to his medical cupboard and unlocked it. He took out the colorless phial, and held it up to the light.
“Half a dozen drops, and the first symptoms of diphtheria should make their appearance in twenty-four hours,” he said scarcely above his breath. “If six drops were the correct quantity the symptoms would pass, leaving you entirely immune.”
“But the chance is slight.”
“Very slight. I have only experimented with a luckless rabbit or two. The human constitution is of a different kind.”
“And the rabbits died,” said Peter, with the same smile.
“They died.”
The two men looked at each other over the table. Peter held out his hand. It looked more than usually fragile.
“Won't you give me that stuff?”
“Wait a moment. You can hold your tongue?”
“Yes. I can promise you that much.”
“To the end?”
“To the end.”
“Are you sure of yourself—you, a coward?”
Peter laughed unsteadily.
“Oh, that's all right. I've given myself time. When I give myself time I'm all right. My confounded nerves can't play me tricks.”
“Do you realize what you are tempting me to do?”
“I am asking you to have the courage of your opinion.”
Otway made no answer. He went to the cupboard, and brought back a delicate syringe, which he held for an instant, testing the steel point against the palm of his hand.
“Will you roll back your sleeve?”
Peter obeyed with the care of a confirmed dandy.
“You had better make the injection yourself. You must fill the syringe from the phial. So!” Otway fumbled clumsily with the tiny glass bottle. His hands shook. “It's my nerves now,” he said between his teeth.
“Nerves are beastly things,” said Peter sympathetically. He took the phial and the syringe, and looked at them with a thoughtful interest. Otway bent toward him. The perspiration stood out in great beads on his forehead.
“You know what you are doing?” he said. “It is—it may be death.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Why are you doing it?”
“Tn the cause of science.”
“That's a lie!”
It seemed to Enid that the slight, boyish figure grew and towered for a moment over the man before him.
“And because I love my wife.”
Enid pushed aside the curtains. Before either of the two men could move or speak, she had crossed the room and wrenched the phial from Peter's hands. The next instant it lay in the fender, shattered into a hundred fragments.
“I am glad you love your wife, Peter,” she said brokenly, “because it seems, after all, that she loves you.” Then suddenly she laid her hands on his shoulders, half laughing, half crying. “Peter, I'm a runaway. I ran away from you because I didn't understand you or myself. I do now. Will you take me back?”
“Enid—my wife!” He seized her hands and kissed them. “I love you!” he said. “I wanted to set you free. I thought”
He broke off, and she felt that he was trembling for the first time in that strange interview. Over his bowed head she met the somber question in Otway's eyes.
“I am sorry,” she said. “I have misled you because I misled myself. I tempted you—to commit a crime. It was a crime. However wronged you were, you had no right to accept the atonement of Peter's life. It happens to be of value, after all, to me. It is worth more to me than your discovery—yes, and the cause you serve. It is mine, and I cannot give it up for the whole world. Peter, if you can forgive me, take me home.”
Otway held open the door. The evil had gone out of his face, leaving it haggard, but curiously at peace.
“Perhaps you have judged rightly,” he said. “Perhaps there is something greater than my discovery, and one day I may be glad that you have found it.”
He waited until the outer door banged to. Then he went back to the fender, and ground the broken fragments of the phial to powder.