"There are thousands of fathers who hold my views and act as I have acted," he said.
"And there are so many thousands of sons who have to pay for those views that you and men like you spend your lives in trying to save them."
The Doctor drew in his breath. "Wh—what d'you mean?" he stammered.
"Ah! that gets you, doesn't it? Now you're beginning to see what I'm driving at, don't you? Put your mind back to the night you found Graham here with me. You saved him from forging your name, and that was good. But what led him up to that? Did you ask yourself? Did you go to Graham and gain his confidence? Did you wonder whether there was a woman behind it all who would never have come into his life if you had dealt by him like a man and a father,—the sort of woman who has made necessary these things round your laboratory and caused you to bend over your experiments for years and years?"
"Good God! What do you mean?"
Peter raised his voice. "Why should your sons be immune? What have you ever done to render them so? Why am I now standing here with this revolver in my hand? Look at me! A few hours ago I had health and everything in the world that makes life worth living, except a father. At this moment, because I've never had a father, I'm so terrified that I should be a criminal if I married the girl I love that I'm going to kill myself."
"Why? What have you done?"
"I've been two nights in the bed of the sort of woman whose work you are trying to undo."
The Doctor staggered, and then rose up in his wrath. "You have? You, my son,—with such a mother—with such home influence! You mean to tell me that you've descended to such depths of immorality that you've gone back on everything that your education has made of you? It's unthinkable—unbelievable. You must be a mere animal to have done such a thing."
What else he would have said in his emotion and horror no one can say.