“Then,” said Mrs. Agar, “that was a murder?”
She was looking out of the window, towards the stone terrace, already conscious that the scene that she had witnessed there would never be effaced from her memory while she had life.
After a little pause Mark Ruthine spoke.
“No,” he answered, “it was not that. Your son was not responsible for his actions when he did it. I think I can prove that. I do not yet know what it was. It was very singular. I think it was some sort of mental aberration—temporary, I hope, and think. We will see when he recovers himself—when the circulation is restored.”
While he spoke he continued to examine his patient. He spoke in his natural tone, without attempting to lower his voice, for he knew that Arthur Agar had no comprehension of things terrestrial at that time.
“It was not,” he went on, “the action of a sane man. Besides, he could not have done it. In his right mind he could not have killed Seymour Michael, who was a strong man. As it is, I think that there was some sort of paralysis in Seymour Michael—a paralysis of fear. He seemed too frightened to attempt to defend himself. Besides, why should your son do it?”
“He was born hating him.”
Mark Ruthine slowly turned, still upon his knees. He rose, and in his dark face there was that strange eagerness again, like the eagerness of a sportsman approaching some unknown quarry in the jungle.
“What do you mean, Mrs. Agar?” he asked.
“I mean that he was born with a hatred for that man stronger than anything that was in him. His soul was given to him full of hate for Seymour Michael. Such things are when a woman bears a child in the midst of great passion.”