“Look here, doctor,” he said, “I am honest, I am; right or wrong I believe in this anti-vaccination business, and we are going to run the election on it. If you don’t believe in it—and you have no particular call to, since every man can claim his own opinion—you’d better let it alone, and look on all this talk as nothing. You are our first and best man, but we have several upon the list; I’ll go on to one of them,” and he took up his hat.
I let him take it; I even let him walk towards the door; but, as he approached it, I reflected that with that dogged burly form went all my ambitions and my last chance of advancement in life. When his hand was already on the handle, not of premeditation, but by impulse, I said:—
“I don’t know why you should talk like that, as I think that I have given good proof that I am no believer in vaccination.”
“What’s that, doctor?” he asked turning round.
“My little girl is nearly four years old and she has never been vaccinated.”
“Is it so?” he asked doubtfully.
As he spoke I heard the nurse going down the passage and with her my daughter, whom she was taking for her morning walk. I opened the door and called Jane in, a beautiful little being with dark eyes and golden hair.
“Look for yourself,” I said, and, taking off the child’s coat, I showed him both her arms. Then I kissed her and sent her back to the nurse.
“That’s good enough, doctor, but, mind you, she mustn’t be vaccinated now.”
As he spoke the words my heart sank in me, for I understood what I had done and the risk that I was taking. But the die was cast, or so I thought, in my folly. It was too late to go back.