He told them something of the doctor's prison life; of an epidemic that had raged through the wards, when he offered his services to the jail physician and for many days and nights had gone without sleep in his efforts to assuage suffering; of women in the surgical wards who mentioned his name beside that of God in their prayers; of men to whom he had given new hope and a new outlook on life by curing them of obscure disease from which they had not known they suffered.
"I would have recommended him for pardon or parole years ago, but he forbade me. He said he had more opportunity for research here than elsewhere." The warden smiled. "By 'research' he meant help, of course, he held the modern theory that crime is always a thing for the surgeon's knife, or the physician, or the teacher, to handle. We let him practise his theories wherever possible, because he was of great assistance to us. He could do more with the prisoners than we could, being one of them. Whenever we had trouble with an inmate, his first punishment was Benoix. He did not often need a second. It is many years since the whipping-post, or the standing-irons, or solitary confinement, have been used in this place, as perhaps you know. Many of our prison reforms may be traced to Benoix' influence, though he will never get the credit of them. He said once, 'What is the use of making men desperate? What you want is to make them ashamed. And that comes from inside.' Young man," he turned to Philip, "convict or not, you need never be ashamed of your father."
"I never have been," said Philip.
They went away, each with a letter Jacques had left for them. Kate's was very short:
I have known always that you would come, and that I must not let you. I am going while I have the strength to go. Fill up your busy, useful life without me, Kate. I thank God that you have your children and my boy, whom you have made a man. Once I left him to your care. Now I leave you to his, without fear. He is worthy.
Do not trouble your great heart for me. I shall find my work in a world that is so full of people—work and friends, too. We cannot be together, you and I, but remember always that I am not far from you wherever I may go, never so far that any need of yours will not reach me.
Jacques.
She gave this letter, silently, to Philip, but he did not offer her his own. There were things his father had said to him in farewell not meant for other eyes to read; and for a long time they left him awed and silent.