“Excuse me, doctor,” he interrupted. “No man who has seen that child as we have seen him can have the slightest doubt but that he is an idiot for life.”
“On the contrary, my lord, we must regard the matter from another point. Remember the shadow that rested on his mother before his birth. Where there is no hereditary taint—”
“What then? On the mere chance of the child being curable, do you suppose I am going to leave my money to him? No!” he cried excitedly. “My own life is too precarious for me to delay longer the settling of my affairs. My niece’s child is still my heir. I regard the other as non est. For heaven’s sake don’t let me have my feelings harrowed by the sight of that poor idiot any more. The mother shall have a handsome annuity. I pity her.”
And that day Lord Welbury made his will, leaving his immense fortune as he had said.
Once more I returned to my country practice; Mrs. Wilton and Charlie to Croft House.
Never was grief grander in its simplicity, or more nobly borne than that of Mrs. Wilton. She still prayed—prayed with the faith which we are told will move mountains. Her eyes, when not raised to heaven, were bent on her child, ever seeking for the dawning of that intelligence which she believed must come in answer to her prayers. She tried to teach him his childish lessons; she read, she talked to him; even chanted in a low, sad voice the nursery rhymes that happy mothers sing.
At last, one day, exercising over herself a supreme control, she told her son the story of his father’s death, told it in simple, child-like language, but with a pathos that might have moved a heart of stone.
The boy was standing at her knee, she holding his unresponsive hand. But, as she proceeded with her narration, he pressed gradually closer to her side. With a thrill of rapture she looked at the drooped eyelids, hoping, praying to see a tear glisten on the dark curled lashes. Trembling, she reached the climax of her sad tale, and bending over him:
“Charlie,” she whispered, “Charlie, he was dead! you understand?”
Alas, she knew then, even ere she had done speaking that the boy was incapable of understanding her. His eyes were closed. He slept!