But it was when excited beyond this second stage, it was when not only awakened but lifted into the expression of enthusiasm, that the wonderful qualities of his voice were displayed. Then it became full and rich and flexible and organ-toned, at once delicate and powerful. It sounded as though not only the words, but the music also, were written on the great scroll before his eyes, and he was reading both with authority.
It was the spirit in the eyes and the spirit in the voice Philip Ray worshipped. He knew the heart of this man was made of gold, but in the eyes and the voice he found the spirit of a seer, a hero, a prophet.
The spirit of this man Kate Ray never knew, never even perceived. She was too busy with the thought of her own physical beauty to notice anything in the man but his plain appearance and unusual ways. He had more money than ever she had hoped to share with a husband, but he cared nothing for the things she liked or coveted. He would not take a house in London: he would not move into even Beechley. The only value he set upon a competency was because of the power it gave him over books, and because of the privilege it afforded him of living far away from the hurly-burly of men. His union with Kate Ray was an ill-assorted marriage, and the greatest evil that can arise out of an ill-assorted marriage had come of it.
From the day Kate left his house he never opened a volume of verse. At first he plunged into a vortex of excitement, from which he did not emerge until he had lost in gambling everything but Boland's Ait, which brought in no revenue, and an income of about a hundred a year from some property in the neighbourhood of the island.
When he regained his senses, and resolved upon retiring into solitude, he recognised the importance, the necessity of finding some occupation for his mind. He would have nothing which could remind him of the past, nothing which could recall to his mind the peaceful days at Shoreham or the joy and hope that his sweetheart and wife had brought into his life. All that was to be forgotten for ever. His life was over. It was immoral to anticipate the stroke of death. Between him and death there lay nothing to desire but oblivion, and work was the best thing in which to drown thought. He would devote the remainder of his life to history, philosophy, science.
Although he had been on the island now more than two years, he had still no definite idea of turning his studies to practical account. He read and read and made elaborate notes and extracts from books. But his designs were vague and nebulous. He called it all work. It kept his mind off the past: that was the only result of all his labours. He had no object to work for. He shuddered at the bare idea of notoriety or fame, and he did not need money, for his means were sufficient for his simple wants. Work was with him merely a draught of Lethe. He numbed his brain with reading, and when he could read no longer he copied out passages from his books or forced himself to think on subjects which would not have been bearable three years ago. He was not so much conquering himself as dulling his power to feel.
Now, in upon this life had come the boy, bringing with him more potent voices from the past than all the verses of all the poets; and, worst of all, bringing with him the face of his disgraced, dead wife!
What should he do? Either madness or death would be a relief, but neither would come. The two things of which men are most afraid are madness and death, and here was he willing to welcome either with all the joy of which his broken heart was still capable.
When that baby was born he had felt no affection for it on its own account. It seemed inexpressibly dear to her, and therefore it was after her the most precious being in all the world to him. Up to that time he knew his wife's heart had not gone out to him in love as his heart had gone out to her. He believed that the child would be the means of winning his beautiful wife's love for him. He had read in books innumerable that wives who had been indifferent towards their husbands in the early days of marriage grew affectionate when children came. For this reason he welcomed with delight the little stranger. This baby would be a more powerful bond between them than the promises made by her at the altar. It would not only reconcile her to the life-long relations upon which they had entered, but endear him to her.
But she broke her vow, broke the bond between them, and in fleeing from his house took with her the child, the creature that was dearer to her than he! Here was food for hopelessness more bitter than despair.