CHAPTER XII.
Dr. Rumsey did not reply to this for a moment, then he spoke quietly.
"Tell me everything," he said. "Nothing you can say will startle me, but if there is any possibility of my helping you I must know the case as far as you can give it me."
"I have but little to say," replied Awdrey. "I am paralyzed day after day simply by want of feeling. Even a sense of pain, of irritation, is a relief—the deadness of my life is so overpowering. Do you know the history of my house?"
"Your wife has told me. It is a queer story."
"It is a damnable story," said Awdrey. "With such a fate hanging over me, why was I born? Why did my father marry? Why did my mother bring a man-child into the world? Men with dooms like mine ought never to have descendants. I curse the thought that I have a child myself. It is all cruel, monstrous."
"But the thing you fear has not fallen upon you," said Dr. Rumsey.
"Has it not? I believe it has."
"How can you possibly imagine what is not the case?"