"I have struck you twice, sir," said he, with a disdainful smile, as he reseated himself.
"You are old, and your white hairs protect you; but you have a son, and I'll have him out at Chalk Farm"—it was really Chalk Farm then—"and—and—but, oh heaven!—he is the brother of Gertrude!"
"Bah! I thought so, you presumptuous beggar! Go—go! or I shall chastise you again. Go, I say! and remember well my words and my warning!"
I was trying to say something—I know not what—when the door opened and his son appeared with several servants, and before I could speak, I was thrust, dragged, beaten by many clenched hands, and forcibly expelled—yea, literally spurned—into the public street—I, Frederick Mortimer, M.D., &c., &c.
Right well did they know—old Chalcot and his son—that the very magnitude and depth of the insult to which they subjected me would protect them, and that, for her sake, they might have torn me limb from limb without revenge on my part. Yet every nerve and fibre tingled with shame and passion as I crossed the street, and while endeavouring to conceal my discoloured and lacerated face by my handkerchief, sought the seclusion of the park opposite, going to the very place where I was wont to meet my lost Gertrude, and where the charm of her presence seemed to hover still.
But where was she?
There I remained for some hours, in a state difficult to conceive. The insults to which I had been subjected drove me to the verge of insanity. My situation was unique, and I cannot now analyse or describe all the emotions that surged through my brain—memory furnishes nothing that will connect them. But there were rage and shame, grief, hatred, and love, and sorrow. It was here but yesterday she had said, prophetically, "To-morrow should end all!"
And all was ended, indeed!
France!—she was in France; there would I follow her, and yet be revenged upon them all. I started up to seek old Crammer, and resign my situation as his assistant.
The afternoon was far advanced, and many a patient must have been sorely neglected by that time. But what cared I if the world had burst like a bomb-shell beneath my feet? I sought the house in Bedford Street, with the red bottle in the fanlight, to find that its crimson glow paled beside the hue of Crammer's face. He was literally boiling and choking with indignation at me.