When he fell in love he threw his books to the winds, and, beyond verses addressed to his mistress, had no dealings with the Muse.
He was then a man to all outward appearance of singularly unemotional temperament. But under a placid demeanour he concealed a sensitive and enthusiastic nature, a nature of fire and spirit, subject to raptures and despairs, and desiring rapture almost as a necessity. Prose would not satisfy him; he must have the wine of poetry. To love was not enough for him; he must adore. Devotion was too tame; he must immolate himself.
He had lived most of his years since adolescence apart, and had never tried to make himself agreeable to any girl, until he told himself that life without Kate Ray would be simply intolerable. After marriage he treated his wife more like the goddess of a temple than the young, pretty, vain, foolish, flighty mistress of a home.
Kate, who loved flattery and fine clothes, and trivial gaiety, could not understand him. She thought him cold and formal at one time; a wild man, a lunatic at another. He did not stoop to flattery, or condescend to simulation. He was worshipful, not gallant. He praised her spirit and her soul, possessions to which she did not attach much importance. He said little about her eyes, or her figure, or her hair, which she knew to be beautiful, and of which she was inordinately vain.
She could not comprehend him. She did not try very hard. She never tried very hard to do anything, except dress well and look pretty. He was, no doubt, very grand, but she loved John Ainsworth all the while. John's ways and manner were perfectly intelligible to her, and when he came to her the second time secretly, and threw a romantic light upon their stolen meetings--when she heard his flattery and sighs and oaths--her weak will gave way, and she fled with him, taking the boy with her.
Now, after three years, and when Bramwell had made up his mind he should never see wife or child again, the boy had come from his wife's death-bed to his door. What was he to do with this helpless being?
He had decreed in his own soul, beyond the reach of appeal, that he would never see his wife again. It was plain she had not contemplated a meeting with him. It was plain she had put such a thing beyond her hopes--beyond, most likely, her desires. For had she not known where he lay hidden? and had she not refrained from seeking him, refrained even from letting him know she was alive? But when she found herself on the point of dissolution, when she had been told she had only a few hours to live, when the delirium of death was upon her, she had sent the child to him. She had at least the grace to feel her shame, and sufficient knowledge of him to be certain that no consideration on earth would induce him once more to look on her, the woman he had loved, who had betrayed his honour and laid his life in ruin.
But the boy? What was to be done with him?
The night before he had been too stupefied to think. When Philip left him he had taken the child to his own room and put him in his own bed, and the little fellow, overcome by fatigue and the lateness of the hour, had fallen asleep.
Now it was bright, clear, unclouded morning, the morning after the boy's advent. The little fellow still slept, but the father was broad awake. He had risen at five, and was sitting in the room where Philip had found him the evening before. His elbows rested on the table; his head leaned upon his hands.