"No. Of me! Of course I know what you mean. But am I to give up all my patients to satisfy your detestable jealousy?"
"My jealousy! Do you think I am jealous of you?" said his wife, with a contemptuous smile.
"'Pon me word, you must think a lot of yourself! Why, who the deuce are you, any way? Tell me that. You married me for my money, and glad enough you were to get it."
She poured out the terrible torrent of invective in a slow, heavy, rumbling way; whilst he stood silent, motionless, listening. It was so true! And her hideous vulgarity—that was true too. It would never alter. She would be there always, clogging him, dragging him down to her own level. She was now as uneducated and idealess as when, at the age of twenty-two, he married her for the sake of her money; and now besides all that, she was hideous and old—older than himself in appearance. Quite an old woman!
And then the child!
CHAPTER II
Dr. Darkham's eyes turned to the hearthrug, and then turned away again hastily. He loathed to look upon this, his first-born and only child. He shrank with horror whenever he saw him. Physical deformity was an abomination in his eyes, beauty a thing to worship. Thus his only child was a living torture to him.
To the mother the unfortunate idiot was something to love—he was the first of her womb, and an object of love—but to the father he was loathsome.
The child had been born beautiful, but time had proved him deaf and dumb, and, worse than all, devoid of intellect; without a single idea, save, indeed, an overpowering adoration for his mother, a clinging, unreasoning love that knew no bounds.
For his father, the unhappy mute felt nothing but a settled, and often openly shown, aversion.