Mr. Crowe was lecturer on physiology and pathology; that is to say, he taught the students what the human body is in its normal state, and what happened to it when subject to disease. He claimed that the only gate to the true knowledge of a doctor’s work was the branch of science which formed his speciality; and, as the examiners seemed to take the same view, Mr. Crowe occupied a considerable share of the students’ time and attention. St. Bernard’s made a great fuss with Mr. Crowe, and grudged no expenditure on his department. He could have all sorts of costly and curious apparatus on application, because, in the present rage for experiment, it was found to pay. He had a beautiful laboratory for his work in the medical school, and in the hospital, fine new chambers attached to the post-mortem room, where he kept his microscopes, and made sections with the utmost patience and skill. Here he often spent whole nights alone; here it was more than rumoured the most gruesome things went on in secret, for, in the vaults below, there was a small menagerie. No one was supposed to have access to this inquisition-chamber, except he was either in Mr. Crowe’s employ, or in his completest confidence, for of late unpleasant discussions had taken place, and the subscribing public had made it pretty well known that they did not support St. Bernard’s for this sort of work. Thus, great care had to be exercised, and all Mr. Crowe’s familiars were cautioned to mind what they were about. The tabbies and the lap-dogs of the neighbourhood could venture abroad with less danger of being pressed for service at St. Bernard’s, and the porters had to go to Seven Dials for their purchases. These porters were characters in their way. Long service in this line of business had left its marks upon them. They were scarred and furrowed about the hands and arms with bites, cuts, and scratches, which had healed badly, and, to the skilled observer, sufficiently stamped them with the trade mark of the hospital. They were brutalized by their ghoul-like work, and, if given the opportunity of doing a stroke of business, would stick at nothing in the way of subjects, which did not actually jeopardize their necks.

Mr. Crowe was forty-two years old, of middle height, dark, and inclined to leanness. He had a decidedly malevolent aspect. His face was not that of the libertine, the schemer, or the man of pleasure; but a perfect pitilessness, an utter dissociation from any genial or loving characteristics, was boldly recorded on the lines of his face, and the very carriage of his body. Hard was not the word for it, cruel was not wide enough to comprehend his character. Disregard of all pain in others, contempt for those who professed to care for what troubled others; these were the distinguishing traits of Mr. Malthus Crowe’s moral character, and his face advertised it. Mr Crowe was rapidly becoming an authority in his branches of science, and accordingly brought much kudos to St. Bernard’s. Had not physiology been invented in these latter days, it is difficult to imagine what the world could have done for Mr. Crowe. He loved pain; he reverenced and esteemed it (in others, of course). He had inflicted it in every form, and watched its effects learnedly without flinching, both in animals and man. He always described it as a tonic—Nature’s great nerve bracer—but he never took it himself if he could help it. He declared the world could not get on without it.

He had married in early life the daughter of an Italian engineer, who lived at Cernobbio, on Lake Como. Having been in the habit of taking his long vacation tour in Switzerland and Italy, he had formed the acquaintance of several hospital surgeons of kindred tastes to his own, and had frequently visited them at Milan and Genoa, and compared notes on matters of mutual interest. One of these confrères had introduced him to his family, and so he met Olympia Casatelli, and, having some reason to think her prospects good, had married her, notwithstanding she was a Catholic, though her pronounced Garibaldian sentiments had left her without any very ardent attachment to the religion of her baptism.

Olympia was deeply imbued with the new Italian patriotism, and cordially detested the “rule of the monk.” Passionate in her love for her country, she eagerly caught at Mr. Crowe’s atheistic and revolutionary notions, and, repellent as he appeared to most women, he succeeded in winning her love, more by his professed sympathy with the cause of Italian independence, and his hatred of the Bourbon and Austrian, than by his own personal attractions. Downright ugliness in a clever man is often an additional attraction, even to a handsome woman; and Mr. Crowe’s science and revolutionary sympathies found their way to Olympia’s heart, during an autumn holiday he passed at the lakes. She must have loved him very much, or thought she did, or she could never have torn herself away from the beloved mountains and the blissful lake to bury herself in a wilderness of brick in the heart of London. However, she had not been married a year ere she began to pine for her picturesque home by the waterfall in the midst of the vineyard at Cernobbio.

She soon found that her husband’s interest in Italy was merely that of a destroyer—he cared only to upset the old order of things everywhere, loved anarchy for the sake of pulling down something venerated by Christian folk, and was insusceptible of sympathy with patriotism. Soon poor Olympia was disillusioned; her husband was absorbed so completely in his unpleasant branch of science, that she had little of his company, and gradually was entirely neglected. She had few friends in London, and none of the resources that would have helped an Englishwoman similarly situated. It was not long before Mr. Crowe threw off his mask. He cared for her less even than he cared for her country: it was plain that he had married for money, and had not realized his expectations. Working as he was doing for European fame, engaged in researches which could only indirectly bring him reward, it was irksome in the extreme for him to have to devote valuable time to patients and pupils, for the sake of earning a living. He had trusted to a good marriage to liberate him from these necessities. Never a very ardent lover, he showed disgust when his neglected wife sought a miserable refuge from her grief in narcotics. She gradually neglected her personal appearance, and declined her food, occupying herself with painting and music, but not sufficiently to absorb herself in these pursuits; she slowly wasted, and ultimately lost her health completely. Then her sleep forsook her, and she took chloral by her husband’s suggestion. Its fascination held her in a bondage, from which she had no sufficient energy to escape, and in mind and body the beautiful Olympia, so recently the flower of her mountain home, became a wreck, Her very presence soon became an annoyance to her husband, and for days together he would absent himself from the house. She was so irksome to him, that had he any deity in his pantheon who could have assisted him, he would have prayed for her death. The sole deity he acknowledged was the one who only helps those who help themselves; and at times a dark thought occurred to him that some day he should be compelled to come to his own assistance—the methods of carrying out such an idea were all too easy and too safe for a man with his knowledge and in his position.

CHAPTER XIX.
AN APT PUPIL.

Gentle friends,

Let’s kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;

Let’s carve him as a dish fit for the gods,