“Statement of claim in the case of Colford v. Therne; damages laid at 10,000 pounds, which, I daresay, you will agree is not too much for the loss of a young wife. You see, doctor, Sir Thomas is downright wild with you, and so are all the late lady’s people. As he can’t lock you up, he intends to ruin you by means of an action. If he had listened to me, that is what he would have begun with, leaving the criminal law alone. It’s a nasty treacherous thing is the criminal law, and you can’t be sure of your man however black things may look against him. I never thought they could convict you, doctor, never; for, as the old judge said, you see it is quite unusual to prosecute criminally in cases of this nature, and the jury won’t send a man to jail for a little mistake of the sort. But they will ‘cop’ you in damages, a thousand or fifteen hundred, and then the best thing that you can do will be to go bankrupt, or perhaps you had better clear before the trial comes on.”
I groaned aloud, but the little man went on cheerfully:—
“Same solicitors, I suppose? I’ll take the other things to them so as not to bother you more than I can help. Good-afternoon; I’m downright glad that they didn’t convict you, and as for old Bell, he’s as mad as a hatter, though of course everybody knows what the jury meant—the judge was pretty straight about it, wasn’t he?—he chooses to think that it amounts to calling him a liar. Well, now I come to think of it, there are one or two things—so perhaps he is. Good-afternoon, doctor. Let’s see, you have the original and I will take the duplicate,” and he vanished.
When the clerk had gone I went on thinking. Things were worse than I had believed, for it seemed that I was not even clear of my legal troubles. Already this trial had cost me a great deal, and I was in no position to stand the financial strain of a second appearance in the law courts. Also the man was right; although I had been acquitted on the criminal charge, if the same evidence were given by Sir John Bell and the nurse in a civil action, without any manner of doubt I should be cast in heavy damages. Well, I could only wait and see what happened.
But was it worth while? Was anything worth while? The world had treated me very cruelly; a villain had lied away my reputation and the world believed him, so that henceforth I must be one of its outcasts and black sheep; an object of pity and contempt among the members of my profession. It was doubtful whether, having been thus exposed and made bankrupt, I could ever again obtain a respectable practice. Indeed, the most that I might hope for would be some small appointment on the west coast of Africa, or any other poisonous place, which no one else would be inclined to accept, where I might live—until I died.
The question that occurred to me that evening was whether it would not be wiser on the whole to accept defeat, own myself beaten, and ring down the curtain—not a difficult matter for a doctor to deal with. The arguments for such a course were patent; what were those against it?
The existence of my child? Well, by the time that she grew up, if she lived to grow up, all the trouble and scandal would be forgotten, and the effacement of a discredited parent could be no great loss to her. Moreover, my life was insured for 3000 pounds in an office that took the risk of suicide.
Considerations of religion? These had ceased to have any weight with me. I was brought up to believe in a good and watching Providence, but the events of the last few months had choked that belief. If there was a God who guarded us, why should He have allowed the existence of my wife to be sacrificed to the carelessness, and all my hopes to the villainy, of Sir John Bell? The reasoning was inconclusive, perhaps—for who can know the ends of the Divinity?—but it satisfied my mind at the time, and for the rest I have never really troubled to reopen the question.
The natural love of life for its own sake? It had left me. What more had life to offer? Further, what is called “love of life” frequently enough is little more than fear of the hereafter or of death, and of the physical act of death I had lost my terror, shattered as I was by sorrow and shame. Indeed, at that moment I could have welcomed it gladly, since to me it meant the perfect rest of oblivion.
So in the end I determined that I would leave this lighted house of Life and go out into the dark night, and at once. Unhappy was it for me and for hundreds of other human beings that the decree of fate, or chance, brought my designs to nothing.