Kate. Will you please kiss the students all round. (Sir Peter makes a gesture of objection.)
Sir P. Are you sorry you changed your position?
Kate. No, Sir Peter. I have been very happy here. Mr. Selwyn has always treated me with such consideration that, I am afraid, sometimes I forget that I am not one of the family; Mrs. Selwyn has never been unkind to me, and Mildred I have learnt to love almost as a sister.
Sir P. Good. My object in introducing you here being accomplished, I feel myself at liberty to explain it. The medical profession has its romantic episodes. I am going to tell you one.
Kate. Go on. I love romances. (faces Sir Peter)
Sir P. Three years ago, a patient of mine died—nothing remarkable in that—it’s a habit my patients have—leaving a grown-up son and a young daughter to inherit his very considerable fortune. He died beloved by his children and respected by all who knew him, but on his deathbed he confided to me a secret. He was a thief and a bigamist. When very young he had married a rich lady. This marriage he had concealed, and under a false name had married again. For some years he had lived a double life and had two families. By his first and lawful wife he had one child—a daughter; and having contrived to possess himself of the whole of this lady’s fortune, ultimately he deserted her. The fortune of the first wife he left to his children by the second, who are to this day quite unconscious of their father’s crime.
Kate. Sir Peter!
Sir P. In his later years, he had searched privately for his first wife and child, but he could find no trace of them. That search he bequeathed to me, and a pretty legacy it’s been! For a long time my inquiries were unavailing, but at last I discovered that the mother was dead.
Kate. And the daughter?
Sir P. Was one of my own nurses at Guy’s Hospital.