"My son!—and he is alive?" Buntingford bent closer, trying to see her face.
She turned to look at him, nodding silently.
"Where is he?"
"In London. It was about him—I came down here. I—I—want to get rid of him."
A look of horror crossed his face, as though in her faint yet violent words he caught the echoes of an intolerable past. But he controlled himself.
"Tell me more—I want to help you."
"You—you won't get any joy of him!" she said, still staring at him.
"He's not like other children—he's afflicted. It was a bad doctor—when
I was confined—up in the hills near Lucca. The child was injured.
There's nothing wrong with him—but his brain."
A flickering light in Buntingford's face sank.
"And you want to get rid of him?"
"He's so much trouble," she said peevishly. "I did the best I could for him. Now I can't afford to look after him. I thought of everything I could do—before—"