If the reader has any doubts upon the point, let him imagine a time
when, as used to happen in the days of our forefathers, almost
everybody suffered from smallpox at some period of their lives, those
escaping only whose blood was so fortified by nature that the disease
could not touch them. Let him imagine a state of affairs—and there are
still people living whose parents could remember it—when for a woman
not to be pitted with smallpox was to give her some claim to beauty,
however homely might be her features. Lastly, let him imagine what all
this means: what terror walked abroad when it was common for smallpox
to strike a family of children, and when the parents, themselves the
survivors of similar catastrophes, knew well that before it left the
house it would take its tithe of those beloved lives. Let him look at
the brasses in our old churches and among the numbers of children
represented on them as kneeling behind their parents; let him note what
a large proportion pray with their hands open. Of these, the most, I
believe, were cut off by smallpox. Let him search the registers, and
they will tell the same tale. Let him ask old people of what their
mothers told them when they were young of the working of this
pestilence in their youth. Finally, let him consider how it comes
about, if vaccination is a fraud, that some nine hundred and
ninety-nine medical men out of every thousand, not in England only, but
in all civilised countries, place so firm a belief in its virtue. Are
the doctors of the world all mad, or all engaged in a great conspiracy
to suppress the truth?

These were my real views, as they must be the views of most intelligent
and thoughtful men; but I did not think it necessary to promulgate them
abroad, since to do so would have been to deprive myself of such means
of maintenance as remained to me. Indeed, in those days I told neither
more nor less than the truth. Evil results occasionally followed the
use of bad lymph or unclean treatment after the subject had been
inoculated. Thus most of the cases of erysipelas into which I examined
arose not from vaccination but from the dirty surroundings of the
patient. Wound a million children, however slightly, and let flies
settle on the wound or dirt accumulate in it, and the result will be
that a certain small proportion will develop erysipelas quite
independently of the effects of vaccination.

In the same way, some amount of inoculated disease must follow the
almost promiscuous use of lymph taken from human beings. The danger is
perfectly preventable, and ought long ago to have been prevented, by
making it illegal, under heavy penalties, to use any substance except
that which has been developed in calves and scientifically treated with
glycerine, when, as I believe, no hurt can possibly follow. This is the
verdict of science and, as tens of thousands can testify, the common
experience of mankind.

CHAPTER VII
CROSSING THE RUBICON

My appearance as an expert before the Royal Commission gave me
considerable importance in the eyes of a large section of the
inhabitants of Dunchester. It was not the wealthiest or most
influential section indeed, although in it were numbered some rich and
powerful men. Once again I found myself with a wide and rapidly
increasing practice, and an income that was sufficient for my needs.
Mankind suffers from many ailments besides that of smallpox, indeed in
Dunchester this question of the value of vaccination was at that time
purely academical, as except for an occasional case there had been no
outbreak of smallpox for years. Now, as I have said, I was a master of
my trade, and soon proved myself competent to deal skilfully with such
illnesses, surgical or medical, as I was called upon to treat. Thus my
practice grew, especially among the small tradespeople and artisans,
who did not belong to clubs, but preferred to pay for a doctor in whom
they had confidence.

Three years and more had gone by since that night on which I sat
opposite to a wine-glass full of poison and was the prey of visions,
when once again I received a call from Stephen Strong. With this
good-hearted, though misguided man, and his amiable, but weak-minded
wife, I had kept up an intimacy that in time ripened into genuine
friendship. On every Sunday night, and sometimes oftener, I took supper
with them, and discussed with Mrs. Strong the important questions of
our descent from the lost Tribes and whether or no the lupus from which
she suffered was the result of vaccination in infancy.

Owing to a press of patients, to whom I was obliged to attend, I was
not able to receive Mr. Strong for nearly half an hour.

“Things are a bit different from what they used to be, doctor,” he said
as he entered the room looking much the same as ever, with the
exception that now even his last hairs had gone, leaving him completely
bald, “there’s six more of them waiting there, and all except one can
pay a fee. Yes, the luck has turned for you since you were called in to
attend cobbler Samuels’ children, and you haven’t seen the top of it
yet, I can tell you. Now, what do you think I have come to see you
about?”

“Can’t say. I give it up.”

“Then I will tell you. You saw in yesterday’s paper that old brewer
Hicks, the member for Dunchester, has been raised to the peerage. I
understand he told the Government that if they kept him waiting any
longer he would stop his subscription to the party funds, and as that’s
5000 pounds a year, they gave in, believing the seat to be a safe one.
But that’s just where they make their mistake, for if we get the right
man the Rads will win.”

“And who is the right man?”

“James Therne, Esq., M.D.,” he answered quietly.

“What on earth do you mean?” I asked. “How can I afford to spend from
1000 to 2000 pounds upon a contested election, and as much more a year
in subscriptions and keeping up the position if I should chance to be
returned? And how, in the name of fortune, can I be both a practising
physician and a member of Parliament?”

“I’ll tell you, doctor, for, ever since your name was put forward by
the Liberal Council yesterday, I have seen these difficulties and been
thinking them out. Look here, you are still young, handsome, clever,
and a capital speaker with a popular audience. Also you are very
hard-working and would rise. But you’ve no money, and only what you
earn at your profession to live on, which, if you were a member of
Parliament, you couldn’t continue to earn. Well, such a man as you are
is wanted and so he must be paid for.”

“No, no,” I said, “I am not going to be the slave of a Radical Five
Hundred, bound to do what they tell me and vote as they like; I’d
rather stick to my own trade, thank you.”

“Don’t you be in a hurry, young man; who asked you to be any one’s
slave? Now, look here—if somebody guarantees every farthing of expense
to fight the seat, and 1200 pounds a year and outgoings if you should
be successful, and a bonus of 5000 pounds in the event of your being
subsequently defeated or electing to give up parliamentary life, will
you take on the job?”

“On those terms, yes, I think so, provided I was sure of the guarantor,
and that he was a man from whom I could take the money.”

“Well, you can soon judge of that, doctor, for it is I, Samuel Strong,
and I’ll deposit 10,000 pounds in the hands of a trustee before you
write your letter of acceptance. No, don’t thank me. I do it for two
reasons—first, because, having no chick or kin of my own, I happen to
have taken a fancy to you and wish to push you on. The world has
treated you badly, and I want to see you one of its masters, with all
these smart people who look down on you licking your boots, as they
will sure enough if you grow rich and powerful. That’s my private
reason. My public one is that you are the only man in Dunchester who
can win us the seat, and I’d think 10,000 pounds well spent if it put
those Tories at the bottom of the poll. I want to show them who is
“boss,” and that we won’t be lorded over by bankers and brewers just
because they are rich men who have bought themselves titles.”

“But you are a rich man yourself,” I interrupted.

“Yes, doctor, and I spend my money in helping those who will help the
people. Now, before you give me any answer, I’ve got to ask you a thing
or two,” and he drew a paper from his pocket. “Are you prepared to
support the abolition of ‘tied’ houses?”

“Certainly. They are the worst monopoly in England.”

“Graduated income-tax?”

“Yes; the individual should pay in proportion to the property
protected.”

“An Old Age Pension scheme?”

“Yes, but only by means of compulsory insurance applicable to all
classes without exception.”

“Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church?”

“Yes, provided its funds are pooled and reapplied to Church purposes.”

“Payment of members and placing the cost of elections on the rates?”

“Yes, the door of Parliament should not be shut in the face of all
except the very rich. Election expenditure is at present only a veiled
form of corruption. If it were put upon the rates it could be reduced
by at least a half, and elections would be fewer.”

“Home Rule—no, I needn’t ask you that, for it is a dead horse which we
don’t want to flog, and now-a-days we are all in favour of a big navy,
so I think that is about everything—except, of course,
anti-vaccination, which you’ll run for all it’s worth.”

“I never said that I would, Mr. Strong,” I answered.

He looked at me curiously. “No, and you never said you wouldn’t. Now,
doctor, let us come to an understanding about this, for here in
Dunchester it’s worth more than all the other things put together. If
this seat is to be won, it will be won on anti-vaccination. That’s our
burning question, and that’s why you are being asked to stand, because
you’ve studied the thing and are believed to be one of the few doctors
who don’t bow the knee to Baal. So look here, let’s understand each
other. If you have any doubts about this matter, say so, and we will
have done with it, for, remember, once you are on the platform you’ve
got to go the whole hog; none of your scientific finicking, but appeals
to the people to rise up in their thousands and save their innocent
children from being offered to the Moloch of vaccination, with enlarged
photographs of nasty-looking cases, and the rest of it.”

I listened and shivered. The inquiry into rare cases of disease after
vaccination had been interesting work, which, whatever deductions
people might choose to draw, in fact committed me to nothing. But to
become one of the ragged little regiment of medical dissenters, to
swallow all the unscientific follies of the anti-vaccination agitators,
to make myself responsible for and to promulgate their distorted
figures and wild statements—ah! that was another thing. Must I appear
upon platforms and denounce this wonderful discovery as the “law of
useless infanticide”? Must I tell people that “smallpox is really a
curative process and not the deadly scourge and pestilence that doctors
pretend it to be”? Must I maintain “that vaccination never did, never
does, and never can prevent even a single case of smallpox”? Must I
hold it up as a “law (!) of devil worship and human sacrifice to
idols”?

If I accepted Strong’s offer it seemed that I must do all these things:
more, I must be false to my instincts, false to my training and
profession, false to my scientific knowledge. I could not do it. And
yet—when did a man in my position ever get such a chance as that which
was offered to me this day? I was ready with my tongue and fond of
public speaking; from boyhood it had been my desire to enter
Parliament, where I knew well that I should show to some advantage.
Now, without risk or expense to myself, an opportunity of gratifying
this ambition was given to me. Indeed, if I succeeded in winning this
city, which had always been a Tory stronghold, for the Radical party I
should be a marked man from the beginning, and if my career was not one
of assured prosperity the fault would be my own. Already in imagination
I saw myself rich (for in this way or in that the money would come), a
favourite of the people, a trusted minister of the Crown and
perhaps—who could tell?—ennobled, living a life of dignity and repute,
and at last leaving my honours and my fame to those who came after me.

On the other hand, if I refused this offer the chance would pass away
from me, never to return again; it was probable even that I should lose
Stephen Strong’s friendship and support, for he was not a man who liked
his generosity to be slighted, moreover he would believe me unsound
upon his favourite dogmas. In short, for ever abandoning my brilliant
hopes I condemned myself to an experience of struggle as a doctor with
a practice among second-class people.

After all, although the thought of it shocked me at first, the price I
was asked to pay was not so very heavy, merely one of the usual
election platform formulas, whereby the candidate binds himself to
support all sorts of things in which he has little or no beliefs.
Already I was half committed to this anti-vaccination crusade, and, if
I took a step or two farther in it, what did it matter? One crank more
added to the great army of British enthusiasts could make little
difference in the scheme of things.

If ever a man went through a “psychological moment” in this hour I was
that man. The struggle was short and sharp, but it ended as might be
expected in the case of one of my history and character. Could I have
foreseen the dreadful issues which hung upon my decision, I believe
that rather than speak it, for the second time in my life I would have
sought the solace to be found in the phials of my medicine chest. But I
did not foresee them, I thought only of myself, of my own hopes, fears
and ambitions, forgetting that no man can live to himself alone, and
that his every deed must act and re-act upon others until humanity
ceases to exist.

“Well,” said Mr. Strong after a two or three minutes’ pause, during
which these thoughts were wrestling in my mind.

“Well,” I answered, “as you elegantly express it, I am prepared to go
the whole hog—it is a case of hog _versus_ calf, isn’t it?—or, for the
matter of that, a whole styful of hogs.”

I suppose that my doubts and irritation were apparent in the inelegant
jocosity of my manner. At any rate, Stephen Strong, who was a shrewd
observer, took alarm.

“Look here, doctor,” he said, “I am honest, I am; right or wrong I
believe in this anti-vaccination business, and we are going to run the
election on it. If you don’t believe in it—and you have no particular
call to, since every man can claim his own opinion—you’d better let it
alone, and look on all this talk as nothing. You are our first and best
man, but we have several upon the list; I’ll go on to one of them,” and
he took up his hat.

I let him take it; I even let him walk towards the door; but, as he
approached it, I reflected that with that dogged burly form went all my
ambitions and my last chance of advancement in life. When his hand was
already on the handle, not of premeditation, but by impulse, I said:—

“I don’t know why you should talk like that, as I think that I have
given good proof that I am no believer in vaccination.”

“What’s that, doctor?” he asked turning round.

“My little girl is nearly four years old and she has never been
vaccinated.”

“Is it so?” he asked doubtfully.

As he spoke I heard the nurse going down the passage and with her my
daughter, whom she was taking for her morning walk. I opened the door
and called Jane in, a beautiful little being with dark eyes and golden
hair.

“Look for yourself,” I said, and, taking off the child’s coat, I showed
him both her arms. Then I kissed her and sent her back to the nurse.

“That’s good enough, doctor, but, mind you, _she mustn’t be vaccinated
now_.”

As he spoke the words my heart sank in me, for I understood what I had
done and the risk that I was taking. But the die was cast, or so I
thought, in my folly. It was too late to go back.

“Don’t be afraid,” I said, “no cow poison shall be mixed with her
blood.”

“Now I believe you, doctor,” he answered, “for a man won’t play tricks
with his only child just to help himself. I’ll take your answer to the
council, and they will send you the formal letter of invitation to
stand with the conditions attached. Before you answer it the money will
be lodged, and you shall have my bond for it. And now I must be going,
for I am wasting your time and those patients of yours will be getting
tired. If you will come to supper to-night I’ll have some of the
leaders to meet you and we can talk things over. Good-bye, we shall win
the seat; so sure as my name is Stephen Strong we shall win on the A.V.
ticket.”

He went, and I saw those of my patients who had sat out the wait. When
they had gone, I considered the position, summing it up in my own mind.
The prospect was exhilarating, and yet I was depressed, for I had bound
myself to the chariot wheels of a false doctrine. Also, by implication,
I had told Strong a lie. It was true that Jane had not been vaccinated,
but of this I had neglected to give him the reason. It was that I had
postponed vaccinating her for a while owing to a certain infantile
delicacy, being better acquainted than most men with the risks
consequent on that operation, slight though it is, in certain
conditions of a child’s health, and knowing that there was no danger of
her taking smallpox in a town which was free from it. I proposed,
however, to perform the operation within the next few days; indeed, for
this very purpose I had already written to London to secure some
glycerinated calf lymph, which would now be wasted.

The local papers next morning appeared with an announcement that at the
forthcoming bye-election Dunchester would be contested in the Radical
interest by James Therne, Esq., M.D. They added that, in addition to
other articles of the Radical faith, Dr. Therne professed the doctrine
of anti-vaccination, of which he was so ardent an upholder that,
although on several occasions he had been threatened with prosecution,
he declined to allow his only child to be vaccinated.

In the same issues it was announced that the Conservative candidate
would be Sir Thomas Colford.

So the die was cast. I had crossed the Rubicon.

CHAPTER VIII
BRAVO THE A.V.’S

In another week the writ had been issued, and we were in the thick of
the fight. What a fight it was! Memory could not record; tradition did
not even record another half as fierce in the borough of Dunchester.
For the most part, that is in many of our constituencies, it is not
difficult for a candidate standing in the Radical interest, if he is
able, well-backed, and not too particular as to what he promises, to
win the seat for his party. But Dunchester was something of an
exception. In a sense it was corrupt, that is, it had always been
represented by a rich man, who was expected to pay liberally for the
honour of its confidence. Pay he did, indeed, in large and numberless
subscriptions, in the endowment of reading-rooms, in presents of public
parks, and I know not what besides.

At least it is a fact that almost every advantage of this nature
enjoyed to-day by the inhabitants of Dunchester, has been provided for
them by former Conservative members for the borough.

Under these circumstances it is not to be wondered at that in choosing
a candidate the majority of the electors of the city were apt to ask
two leading questions: first, Is he rich? and secondly, What will he do
for the town if he gets in?

Now, Sir Thomas Colford was very rich, and it was whispered that if he
were elected he would be prepared to show his gratitude in a
substantial fashion. A new wing to the hospital was wanted; this it was
said would be erected and endowed; also forty acres of valuable land
belonging to him ran into the park, and he had been heard to say that
these forty acres were really much more important to the public than to
himself, and that he hoped that one day they would belong to it.

It is small wonder, then, that the announcement of his candidature was
received with passionate enthusiasm. Mine, on the contrary, evoked a
chorus of disapproval, that is, in the local press. I was denounced as
an adventurer, as a man who had stood a criminal trial for wicked
negligence, and escaped the jail only by the skin of my teeth. I was
held up to public reprobation as a Socialist, who, having nothing
myself, wished to prey upon the goods of others, and as an
anti-vaccination quack who, to gain a few votes, was ready to infest
the whole community with a loathsome disease. Of all the accusations of
my opponents this was the only one that stung me, because it alone had
truth in it.

Sir John Bell, my old enemy, one of the nominators of Sir Thomas
Colford, appeared upon the platform at his first meeting, and, speaking
in the character of an old and leading citizen of the town, and as one
who had doctored most of them, implored his audience not to trust their
political fortunes to such a person as myself, whose doctrines were
repudiated by almost every member of the profession, which I disgraced.
This appeal carried much weight with it.

From all these circumstances it might have been supposed that my case
was hopeless, especially as no Radical had even ventured to contest the
seat in the last two elections. But, in fact, this was not so, for in
Dunchester there existed a large body of voters, many of them employed
in shoe-making factories, who were almost socialistic in their views.
These men, spending their days in some hive of machinery, and their
nights in squalid tenements built in dreary rows, which in cities such
people are doomed to inhabit, were very bitter against the upper
classes, and indeed against all who lived in decent comfort.

This was not to be marvelled at, for what can be expected of folk whose
lot, hard as it is, has none of the mitigations that lighten the
troubles of those who live in the country, and who can at least breathe
the free air and enjoy the beauties that are common to all? Here, at
Dunchester, their pleasures consisted for the most part in a dog fight
or some such refining spectacle, varied by an occasional “boose” at the
public-house, or, in the case of those who chanced to be more
intellectually inclined, by attending lectures where Socialism and
other advanced doctrines were preached. As was but natural, this class
might be relied upon almost to a man to vote for the party which
promised to better their lot, rather than for the party which could
only recommend them to be contented and to improve themselves. To
secure their support it was only necessary to be extravagant of
promises and abusive of employers who refused to pay them impossible
wages.

Next in importance to these red-hot “forwards” came the phalanx of
old-fashioned people who voted Liberal because their fathers had voted
Liberal before them. Then there were the electors who used to be
Conservative but, being honestly dissatisfied with the Government on
account of its foreign policy, or for other reasons, had made up their
minds to transfer their allegiance. Also there were the dissenters, who
set hatred of the Church above all politics, and made its disendowment
and humiliation their watchword. In Dunchester these were active and
numerous, a very tower of strength to me, for Stephen Strong was the
wealthiest and most important of them.

During the first day or two of the canvass, however, a careful estimate
of our electoral strength showed it to be several hundred votes short
of that of our opponents. Therefore, if we would win, we must make
converts by appealing to the prejudices of members of the electorate
who were of Conservative views; in other words, by preaching “fads.”

Of these there were many, all useful to the candidate of pliant mind,
such as the total drink-prohibition fad, the anti-dog-muzzling fad, and
others, each of which was worth some votes. Even the Peculiar People, a
society that makes a religion of killing helpless children by refusing
them medical aid when they are ill, were good for ten or twelve. Here,
however, I drew the line, for when asking whether I would support a
bill relieving them from all liability to criminal prosecution in the
event of the death of their victims, I absolutely declined to give any
such undertaking.

But although all these fancies had their followers, it was the
anti-vaccination craze that really had a hold in Dunchester. The
“A.V.’s,” as they called themselves, were numbered by hundreds, for the
National League and other similar associations had been at work here
for years, with such success that already twenty per cent. of the
children born in the last decade had never been vaccinated. For a while
the Board of Guardians had been slow to move, then, on the election of
a new chairman and the representations of the medical profession of the
town, they instituted a series of prosecutions against parents who
refused to comply with the Vaccination Acts. Unluckily for the
Conservative party, these prosecutions, which aroused the most bitter
feelings, were still going on when the seat fell vacant; hence from an
electoral point of view the question became one of first-class
importance.

In Dunchester, as elsewhere, the great majority of the anti-vaccinators
were already Radical, but there remained a residue, estimated at from
300 to 400, who voted “blue” or Conservative. If these men could be
brought over, I should win; if they remained faithful to their colour,
I must lose. Therefore it will be seen that Stephen Strong was right
when he said that the election would be won or lost upon
anti-vaccination.

At the first public meeting of the Conservatives, after Sir Thomas’s
speech, the spokesman of the anti-vaccination party rose and asked him
whether he was in favour of the abolition of the Compulsory Vaccination
laws. Now, at this very meeting Sir John Bell had already spoken
denouncing me for my views upon this question, thereby to some extent
tying the candidate’s hands. So, after some pause and consultation, Sir
Thomas replied that he was in favour of freeing “Conscientious
Objectors” to vaccination from all legal penalties. Like most half
measures, this decision of course did not gain him a single vote,
whereas it certainly lost him much support.

On the same evening a similar question was put to me. My answer may be
guessed, indeed I took the opportunity to make a speech which was
cheered to the echo, for, having acted the great lie of espousing the
anti-vaccination cause, I felt that it was not worth while to hesitate
in telling other lies in support of it. Moreover, I knew my subject
thoroughly, and understood what points to dwell upon and what to gloze
over, how to twist and turn the statistics, and how to marshal my facts
in such fashion as would make it very difficult to expose their
fallacy. Then, when I had done with general arguments, I went on to
particular cases, describing as a doctor can do the most dreadful which
had ever come under my notice, with such power and pathos that women in
the audience burst into tears.

Finally, I ended by an impassioned appeal to all present to follow my
example and refuse to allow their children to be poisoned. I called on
them as free men to rise against this monstrous Tyranny, to put a stop
to this system of organised and judicial Infanticide, and to send me to
Parliament to raise my voice on their behalf in the cause of helpless
infants whose tender bodies now, day by day, under the command of the
law, were made the receptacles of the most filthy diseases from which
man was doomed to suffer.

As I sat down the whole of that great audience—it numbered more than
2000—rose in their places shouting “We will! we will!” after which
followed a scene of enthusiasm such as I had never seen before,
emphasised by cries of “We are free Englishmen,” “Down with the
baby-butchers,” “We will put you in, sir,” and so forth.

That meeting gave me my cue, and thenceforward, leaving almost every
other topic on one side, I and my workers devoted ourselves to
preaching the anti-vaccination doctrines. We flooded the constituency
with tracts headed “What Vaccination Does,” “The Law of Useless
Infanticide,” “The Vaccine Tyranny,” “Is Vaccination a Fraud?” and so
forth, and with horrible pictures of calves stretched out by pulleys,
gagged and blindfolded, with their under parts covered by vaccine
vesicles. Also we had photographs of children suffering from the
effects of improper or unclean vaccination, which, by means of magic
lantern slides, could be thrown life-sized on a screen; indeed, one or
two such children themselves were taken round to meetings and their
sores exhibited.

The effect of all this was wonderful, for I know of nothing capable of
rousing honest but ignorant people to greater rage and enthusiasm than
this anti-vaccination cry. They believe it to be true, or, at least,
seeing one or two cases in which it is true, and having never seen a
case of smallpox, they suppose that the whole race is being poisoned by
wicked doctors for their own gain. Hence their fierce energy and
heartfelt indignation.

Well, it carried me through. The election was fought not with foils but
with rapiers. Against me were arrayed the entire wealth, rank, and
fashion of the city, reinforced by Conservative speakers famous for
their parliamentary eloquence, who were sent down to support Sir Thomas
Colford. Nor was this all: when it was recognised that the fight would
be a close one, an eloquent and leading member of the House was sent to
intervene in person. He came and addressed a vast meeting gathered in
the biggest building of the city. Seated among a crowd of workmen on a
back bench I was one of his audience. His speech was excellent, if
somewhat too general and academic. To the “A.V.” agitation, with a
curious misapprehension of the state of the case, he devoted one
paragraph only. It ran something like this:—

“I am told that our opponents, putting aside the great and general
issues upon which I have had the honour to address you, attempt to gain
support by entering upon a crusade—to my mind a most pernicious
crusade—against the law of compulsory vaccination. I am not concerned
to defend that law, because practically in the mind of all reasonable
men it stands beyond attack. It is, I am told, suggested that the Act
should be amended by freeing from the usual penalties any parent who
chooses to advance a plea of conscientious objection against the
vaccination of his children. Such an argument seems to me too puerile,
I had almost said too wicked, to dwell upon, for in its issue it would
mean that at the whim of individuals innocent children might be exposed
to disease, disfigurement, and death, and the whole community through
them to a very real and imminent danger. Prophecy is dangerous, but,
speaking for myself as a private member of Parliament, I can scarcely
believe that responsible ministers of any party, moved by the pressure
of an ill-informed and erroneous opinion, would ever consent under this
elastic plea of conscience to establish such a precedent of surrender.
Vaccination with its proved benefits is outside the pale of party.
After long and careful study, science and the medical profession have
given a verdict in its favour, a verdict which has now been confirmed
by the experience of generations. Here I leave the question, and,
turning once more before I sit down to those great and general issues
of which I have already spoken, I would again impress upon this vast
audience, and through it upon the constituency at large,” etc., etc.,
etc.

Within a year it was my lot to listen to an eminent leader of that
distinguished member (with the distinguished member’s tacit consent)
pressing upon an astonished House of Commons the need of yielding to
the clamour of the anti-vaccinationists, and of inserting into the
Bill, framed upon the report of a Royal Commission, a clause forbidding
the prosecution of parents or guardians willing to assert before a
bench of magistrates that they objected to vaccination on conscientious
grounds.

The appeal was not in vain; the Bill passed in its amended form; and
within twenty years I lived to see its fruits.

At length came the polling day. After this lapse of time I remember
little of its details. I, as became a Democratic candidate, walked from
polling-station to polling-station, while my opponent, as became a
wealthy banker, drove about the city in a carriage and four. At eight
o’clock the ballot-boxes were sealed up and conveyed to the town-hall,
where the counting commenced in the presence of the Mayor, the
candidates, their agents, and the necessary officers and assistants.
Box after box was opened and the papers counted out into separate
heaps, those for Colford into one pile, those for Therne into another,
the spoiled votes being kept by themselves.

The counting began about half-past nine, and up to a quarter to twelve
nobody could form an idea as to the ultimate result, although at that
time the Conservative candidate appeared to be about five and thirty
votes ahead. Then the last ballot-box was opened; it came from a poor
quarter of the city, a ward in which I had many supporters.

Sir Thomas Colford and I, with our little knots of agents and
sub-agents, placed ourselves one on each side of the table, waiting in
respectful silence while the clerk dealt out the papers, as a player
deals out cards. It was an anxious moment, as any one who has gone
through a closely-contested parliamentary election can testify. For ten
days or more the strain had been great, but, curiously enough, now at
its climax it seemed to have lost its grip of me. I watched the
_dénoûment_ of the game with keenness and interest indeed, but as
though I were not immediately and personally concerned. I felt that I
had done my best to win, and no longer cared whether my efforts ended
in success or failure. Possibly this was the result of the apathy that
falls upon overstrained nerves. Possibly I was oppressed by the fear of
victory and of that Nemesis which almost invariably dogs the steps of
our accomplished desires, of what the French writer calls _la page
effrayante . . . des désirs accomplis_. At least just then I cared
nothing whether I won or lost, only I reflected that in the latter
event it would be sad to have told so many falsehoods to no good
purpose.

“How does it stand?” asked the head Conservative agent of the officer.

The clerk took the last numbers from the counters and added up the
figures.

“Colford, 4303; Therne, 4291, and two more bundles to count.”

Another packet was counted out.

“How does it stand?” asked the agent.

“Colford, 4349; Therne, 4327, and one more bundle of fifty to count,”
answered the clerk.

The agent gave a sigh of relief and smiled; I saw him press Sir
Thomas’s hand in congratulations, for now he was sure that victory was
theirs.

“The game is up,” I whispered to Strong, who, as my principal
supporter, had been admitted with me to the hall.

He ground his teeth and I noticed in the gaslight that his face was
ghastly pale and his lips were blue.

“You had better go out,” I said, “you are overtaxing that dilated heart
of yours. Go home and take a sleeping draught.”

“Damn you, no,” he answered fiercely in my ear, “those papers come from
the Little Martha ward, where I thought there wasn’t a wrong ’un in the
crowd. If they’ve sold me, I’ll be even with them, as sure as my name
is Strong.”

“Come,” I said with a laugh, “a good Radical shouldn’t talk like that.”
For me the bitterness was over, and, knowing the worst, I could afford
to laugh.

The official opened the last packet and began to count aloud.

The first vote was for “Therne,” but bad, for the elector had written
his name upon the paper. Then in succession came nine for “Colford.”
Now all interest in the result had died away, and a hum of talk arose
from those present in the room, a whispered murmur of congratulations
and condolences. No wonder, seeing that to win I must put to my credit
thirty-two of the forty remaining papers, which seemed a thing
impossible.

The counter went on counting aloud and dealing down the papers as he
counted. One, two, three, four, and straight on up to ten for Therne,
when he paused to examine a paper, then “One for Colford.” Then, in
rapid successful, “Five, ten, fifteen for Therne.”

Now the hum of conversation died away, for it was felt that this was
becoming interesting. Of course it was practically impossible that I
should win, for there were but fourteen papers left, and to do so I
must secure eleven of them!

“Sixteen for Therne,” went on the counter, “seventeen, eighteen,
nineteen, twenty.”

Now the excitement grew intense, for if the run held in two more votes
I should tie. Every eye was fixed upon the counter’s hand.

To the right and left of him on the table were two little piles of
voting papers. The pile to the right was the property of Colford, the
pile to the left was sacred to Therne. The paper was unfolded and
glanced at, then up went the hand and down floated the fateful sheet on
to the left-hand pile. “Twenty-one for Therne.” Again the process was
repeated, and again the left-hand pile was increased. “Twenty-two for
Therne.”

“By heaven! you’ve tied him,” gasped Stephen Strong.

There were but seven papers left, and the candidate who secured four of
them would be the winner of the election.

“Twenty-three for Therne, twenty-four, twenty-five”—a silence in which
you could hear the breath of other men and the beating of your own
heart.

“_Twenty-six for Therne_, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, all
for Therne.”

Then, bursting from the lips of Stephen Strong, a shrill hoarse cry,
more like the cry of a beast than that of a man, and the words, “By
God! we’ve won. The A.V.’s have done it. Bravo the A.V.’s!”

“Silence!” said the Mayor, bringing his fist down upon the table, but
so far as Stephen Strong was concerned, the order was superfluous, for
suddenly his face flushed, then turned a dreadful ashen grey, and down
he sank upon the floor. As I leant over him and began to loosen his
collar, I heard the Conservative agent say in strident tones:—

“There is some mistake, there must be some mistake. It is almost
impossible that Dr. Therne can have polled twenty-nine votes in
succession. On behalf of Sir Thomas Colford, I demand a recount.”

“Certainly,” answered some official, “let it be begun at once.”

In that ceremony I took no part; indeed, I spent the next two hours,
with the help of another doctor, trying to restore consciousness to
Stephen Strong in a little room that opened off the town-hall. Within
half an hour Mrs. Strong arrived.

“He still breathes,” I said in answer to her questioning glance.

Then the poor little woman sat herself down upon the edge of a chair,
clasped her hands and said, “If the Lord wills it, dear Stephen will
live; and if the Lord wills it, he will die.”

This sentence she repeated at intervals until the end came. After two
hours there was a knocking at the door.

“Go away,” I said, but the knocker would not go away. So I opened. It
was my agent, who whispered in an excited voice, “The count’s quite
correct, you are in by seven.”

“All right,” I answered, “tell them we want some more brandy.”

At that moment Stephen Strong opened his eyes, and at that moment also
there arose a mighty burst of cheering from the crowd assembled on the
market-place without, to whom the Mayor had declared the numbers from a
window of the town-hall.

The dying man heard the cheering, and looked at me inquiringly, for he
could not speak. I tried to explain that I was elected on the recount,
but was unable to make him understand. Then I hit upon an expedient. On
the floor lay a Conservative rosette of blue ribbon. I took it up and
took also my own Radical colours from my coat. Holding one of them in
each hand before Strong’s dying eyes, I lifted up the Radical orange
and let the Conservative blue fall to the floor.

He saw and understood, for a ghastly smile appeared upon his distorted
face. Indeed, he did more—almost with his last breath he spoke in a
hoarse, gurgling whisper, and his words were, “_Bravo the A.V.’s!_”

Now he shut his eyes, and I thought that the end had come, but, opening
them presently, he fixed them with great earnestness first upon myself
and then upon his wife, accompanying the glance with a slight movement
of the head. I did not know what he could mean, but with his wife it
was otherwise, for she said, “Don’t trouble yourself, Stephen, I quite
understand.”

Five minutes more and it was over; Stephen Strong’s dilated heart had
contracted for the last time.

“I see it has pleased the Lord that dear Stephen should die,” said Mrs.
Strong in her quiet voice. “When you have spoken to the people out
there, doctor, will you take me home? I am very sorry to trouble, but I
saw that after he was gone Stephen wished me to turn to you.”

CHAPTER IX
FORTUNE

My return to Parliament meant not only the loss of a seat to the
Government, a matter of no great moment in view of their enormous
majority, but, probably, through their own fears, was construed by them
into a solemn warning not to be disregarded. Certain papers and
opposition speakers talked freely of the writing on the wall, and none
saw that writing in larger, or more fiery letters, than the members of
Her Majesty’s Government. I believe that to them it took the form not
of Hebraic characters, but of two large Roman capitals, the letters A
and V.

Hitherto the anti-vaccinators had been known as troublesome people who
had to be reckoned with, but that they should prove strong enough to
wrest what had been considered one of the safest seats in the kingdom
out of the hands of the Unionists came upon the party as a revelation
of the most unpleasant order. For Stephen Strong’s dying cry, of which
the truth was universally acknowledged, “_The A.V.’s have done it.
Bravo the A.V.’s!_” had echoed through the length and breadth of the
land.

When a Government thinks that agitators are weak, naturally and
properly it treats them with contempt, but, when it finds that they are
strong enough to win elections, then their arguments become more worthy
of consideration. And so the great heart of the parliamentary Pharaoh
began to soften towards the anti-vaccinators, and of this softening the
first signs were discernible within three or four days of my taking my
seat as member for Dunchester.

I think I may say without vanity, and the statement will not be
contradicted by those who sat with me, that I made a good impression
upon the House from the first day I entered its doors. Doubtless its
members had expected to find in me a rabid person liable to burst into
a foam of violence at the word “vaccination,” and were agreeably
surprised to find that I was much as other men are, only rather quieter
than most of them. I did not attempt to force myself upon the notice of
the House, but once or twice during the dinner hour I made a few
remarks upon subjects connected with public health which were received
without impatience, and, in the interval, I tried to master its forms,
and to get in touch with its temper.

In those far-away and long-forgotten days a Royal Commission had been
sitting for some years to consider the whole question of compulsory
vaccination; it was the same before which I had been called to give
evidence. At length this commission delivered itself of its final
report, a very sensible one in an enormous blue-book, which if adopted
would practically have continued the existing Vaccination Acts with
amendments. These amendments provided that in future the public
vaccinator should visit the home of the child, and, if the conditions
of that home and of the child itself were healthy, offer to vaccinate
it with glycerinated calf lymph. Also they extended the time during
which the parents and guardians were exempt from prosecution, and in
various ways mitigated the rigour of the prevailing regulations. The
subject matter of this report was embodied in a short Bill to amend the
law and laid before Parliament, which Bill went to a standing
committee, and ultimately came up for the consideration of the House.

Then followed the great debate and the great surprise. A member moved
that it should be read that day six months, and others followed on the
same side. The President of the Local Government Board of the day, I
remember, made a strong speech in favour of the Bill, after which other
members spoke, including myself. But although about ninety out of every
hundred of the individuals who then constituted the House of Commons
were strong believers in the merits of vaccination, hardly one of them
rose in his place to support the Bill. The lesson of Dunchester amongst
others was before their eyes, and, whatever their private faith might
be, they were convinced that if they did so it would lose them votes at
the next election.

At this ominous silence the Government grew frightened, and towards the
end of the debate, to the astonishment of the House and of the country,
the First Lord of the Treasury rose and offered to insert a clause by
virtue of which any parent or other person who under the Bill would be
liable to penalties for the non-vaccination of a child, should be
entirely freed from such penalties if within four months of its birth
he satisfied two justices of the peace that he conscientiously believed
that the operation would be prejudicial to that child’s health. The
Bill passed with the clause, which a few days later was rejected by the
House of Lords. Government pressure was put upon the Lords, who thereon
reversed their decision, and the Bill became an Act of Parliament.

Thus the whole policy of compulsory vaccination, which for many years
had been in force in England, was destroyed at a single blow by a
Government with a great majority, and a House of Commons composed of
members who, for the most part, were absolute believers in its virtues.
Never before did agitators meet with so vast and complete a success,
and seldom perhaps did a Government undertake so great a responsibility
for the sake of peace, and in order to shelve a troublesome and
dangerous dispute. It was a very triumph of opportunism, for the
Government, aided and abetted by their supporters, threw over their
beliefs to appease a small but persistent section of the electors.
Convinced that compulsory vaccination was for the benefit of the
community, they yet stretched the theory of the authority of the parent
over the child to such an unprecedented extent that, in order to
satisfy his individual prejudices, that parent was henceforth to be
allowed to expose his helpless infant to the risk of terrible disease
and of death.

It is not for me to judge their motives, which may have been pure and
excellent; my own are enough for me to deal with. But the fact remains
that, having power in their hands to impose the conclusions of a
committee of experts on the nation, and being as a body satisfied as to
the soundness of those conclusions, they still took the risk of
disregarding them. Now the result of their action is evident; now we
have reaped the seed which they sowed, nor did they win a vote or a
“thank you” by their amiable and philosophic concessions, which earned
them no gratitude but indignation mingled with something not unlike
contempt.

So much for the anti-vaccination agitation, on the crest of whose wave
I was carried to fortune and success. Thenceforward for many long years
my career was one of strange and startling prosperity. Dunchester
became my pocket borough, so much so, indeed, that at the three
elections which occurred before the last of which I have to tell no one
even ventured to contest the seat against me. Although I was never
recognised as a leader of men, chiefly, I believe, because of a secret
distrust which was entertained as to my character and the sincerity of
my motives, session by session my parliamentary repute increased, till,
in the last Radical Government, I was offered, and for two years
filled, the post of Under-Secretary to the Home Office. Indeed, when at
last we went to the country over the question of the China War, I had
in my pocket a discreetly worded undertaking that, if our party
succeeded at the polls, my claims to the Home Secretaryship should be
“carefully considered.” But it was not fated that I should ever again
cross the threshold of St. Stephen’s.

So much for my public career, which I have only touched on in
illustration of my private and moral history.

The reader may wonder how it came about that I was able to support
myself and keep up my position during all this space of time, seeing
that my attendance in Parliament made it impossible for me to continue
in practise as a doctor. It happened thus.

When my old and true friend, Stephen Strong, died on the night of my
election, it was found that he was even richer than had been supposed,
indeed his personalty was sworn at 191,000 pounds, besides which he
left real estate in shops, houses and land to the value of about 23,000
pounds. Almost all of this was devised to his widow absolutely, so that
she could dispose of it in whatever fashion pleased her. Indeed, there
was but one other bequest, that of the balance of the 10,000 pounds
which the testator had deposited in the hands of a trustee for my
benefit. This was now left to me absolutely. I learned the fact from
Mrs. Strong herself as we returned from the funeral.

“Dear Stephen has left you nearly 9000 pounds, doctor,” she said
shaking her head.

Gathering from her manner and this shake of her head that the legacy
was not pleasing to her, I hastened to explain that doubtless it was to
carry into effect a business arrangement we had come to before I
consented to stand for Parliament.

“Ah, indeed,” she said, “that makes it worse, for it is only the
payment of a debt, not a gift.”

Not knowing what she could mean, I said nothing.

“Doubtless, doctor, if dear Stephen had been granted time he would have
treated you more liberally, seeing how much he thought of you, and that
you had given up your profession entirely to please him and serve the
party. That is what he meant when he looked at me before he died, I
guessed it from the first, and now I am sure of it. Well, doctor, while
I have anything you shall never want. Of course, a member of Parliament
is a great person, expected to live in a style which would take more
money than I have, but I think that if I put my own expenses at 500
pounds a year, which is as much as I shall want, and allow another 1000
pounds for subscriptions to the anti-vaccination societies, the society
for preventing the muzzling of dogs, and the society for the discovery
of the lost Tribes of Israel, I shall be able to help you to the extent
of 1200 pounds a year, if,” she added apologetically, “you think you
could possibly get along on that.”

“But, Mrs. Strong,” I said, “I have no claim at all upon you.”

“Please do not talk nonsense, doctor. Dear Stephen wished me to provide
for you, and I am only carrying out his wishes with his own money which
God gave him perhaps for this very purpose, that it should be used to
help a clever man to break down the tyranny of wicked governments and
false prophets.”

So I took the money, which was paid with the utmost regularity on
January the first and June the first in each year. On this income I
lived in comfort, keeping up my house in Dunchester for the benefit of
my little daughter and her attendants, and hiring for my own use a flat
quite close to the House of Commons.

As the years went by, however, a great anxiety took possession of me,
for by slow degrees Mrs. Strong grew as feeble in mind as already she
was in body, till at length, she could only recognise people at
intervals, and became quite incompetent to transact business. For a
while her bankers went on paying the allowance under her written and
unrevoked order, but when they understood her true condition, they
refused to continue the payment.

Now my position was very serious. I had little or nothing put by, and,
having ceased to practise for about seventeen years, I could not hope
to earn an income from my profession. Nor could I remain a member of
the House, at least not for long. Still, by dint of borrowing and the
mortgage of some property which I had acquired, I kept my head above
water for about eighteen months. Very soon, however, my financial
distress became known, with the result that I was no longer so
cordially received as I had been either in Dunchester or in London. The
impecunious cannot expect to remain popular.

At last things came to a climax, and I was driven to the step of
resigning my seat. I was in London at the time, and thence I wrote the
letter to the chairman of the Radical committee in Dunchester giving
ill-health as the cause of my retirement. When at length it was
finished to my satisfaction, I went out and posted it, and then walked
along the embankment as far as Cleopatra’s Needle and back again. It
was a melancholy walk, taken, I remember, upon a melancholy November
afternoon, on which the dank mist from the river strove for mastery
with the gloomy shadows of advancing night. Not since that other
evening, many many years ago, when, after my trial, I found myself face
to face with ruin or death and was saved by Stephen Strong had my
fortunes been at so low an ebb. Now, indeed, they appeared absolutely
hopeless, for I was no longer young and fit to begin the world afresh;
also, the other party being in power, I could not hope to obtain any
salaried appointment upon which to support myself and my daughter. If
Mrs. Strong had kept her reason all would have been well, but she was
insane, and I had no one to whom I could turn, for I was a man of many
acquaintances but few friends.

Wearily I trudged back to my rooms to wait there until it was time to
dress, for I had a dinner engagement at the Reform Club. On the table
in the little hall lay a telegram, which I opened listlessly. It was
from a well-known firm of solicitors in Dunchester, and ran:—

“Our client, Mrs. Strong, died suddenly at three o’clock. Important
that we should see you. Will you be in Dunchester to-morrow? If not,
please say where and at what hour we can wait upon you in town.”

“Wait upon you in town,” I said to myself as I laid down the telegram.
A great firm of solicitors would not wish to wait upon me unless they
had something to tell me to my advantage and their own. Mrs. Strong
must have left me some money. Possibly even I was her heir. More than
once before in life my luck had turned in this sudden way, why should
it not happen again? But she was insane and could not appoint an heir!
Why had not those fools of lawyers told me the facts instead of leaving
me to the torment of this suspense?

I glanced at the clock, then taking a telegraph form I wrote: “Shall be
at Dunchester Station 8:30. Meet me there or later at the club.” Taking
a cab I drove to St. Pancras, just in time to catch the train. In my
pocket—so closely was I pressed for money, for my account at the bank
was actually overdrawn—I had barely enough to pay for a third-class
ticket to Dunchester. This mattered little, however, for I always
travelled third-class, not because I liked it but because it looked
democratic and the right sort of thing for a Radical M.P. to do.

The train was a fast one, but that journey seemed absolutely endless.
Now at length we had slowed down at the Dunchester signal-box, and now
we were running into the town. If my friend the lawyer had anything
really striking to tell me he would send to meet me at the station,
and, if it was something remarkable, he would probably attend there
himself. Therefore, if I saw neither the managing clerk nor the junior
partner, nor the Head of the Firm, I might be certain that the news was
trivial, probably—dreadful thought which had not occurred to me
before—that I was appointed executor under the will with a legacy of a
hundred guineas.

The train rolled into the station. As it began to glide past the
pavement of wet asphalt I closed my eyes to postpone the bitterness of
disappointment, if only for a few seconds. Perforce I opened them again
as the train was stopping, and there, the very first thing they fell
upon, looking portly and imposing in a fur coat, was the rubicund-faced
Head of the Firm himself. “It _is_ good,” I thought, and supported
myself for a moment by the hat-rack, for the revulsion of feeling
produced a sudden faintness. He saw me, and sprang forward with a
beaming yet respectful countenance. “It is _very_ good,” I thought.

“My dear sir,” he began obsequiously, “I do trust that my telegram has
not incommoded you, but my news was such that I felt it necessary to
meet you at the earliest possible moment, and therefore wired to you at
every probable address.”

I gave the porter who took my bag a shilling. Practically it was my
last, but that lawyer’s face and manner seemed to justify the
expenditure which—so oddly are our minds constituted—I remember
reflecting I might regret if I had drawn a false inference. The man
touched his hat profusely, and, I hope, made up his mind to vote for me
next time. Then I turned to the Head of the Firm and said:—

“Pray, don’t apologise; but, by the way, beyond that of the death of my
poor friend, _what_ is the news?”

“Oh, perhaps you know it,” he answered, taken aback at my manner,
“though she always insisted upon its being kept a dead secret, so that
one day you might have a pleasant surprise.”

“I know nothing,” I answered.

“Then I am glad to be the bearer of such good intelligence to a
fortunate and distinguished man,” he said with a bow. “I have the
honour to inform you in my capacity of executor to the will of the late
Mrs. Martha Strong that, with the exception of a few legacies, you are
left her sole heir.”

Now I wished that the hat-rack was still at hand, but, as it was not, I
pretended to stumble, and leant for a moment against the porter who had
received my last shilling.

“Indeed,” I said recovering myself, “and can you tell me the amount of
the property?”

“Not exactly,” he answered, “but she has led a very saving life, and
money grows, you know, money grows. I should say it must be between
three and four hundred thousand, nearer the latter than the former,
perhaps.”

“Really,” I replied, “that is more than I expected; it is a little
astonishing to be lifted in a moment from the position of one with a
mere competence into that of a rich man. But our poor friend was—well,
weak-minded, so how could she be competent to make a binding will?”

“My dear sir, her will was made within a month of her husband’s death,
when she was as sane as you are, as I have plenty of letters to show.
Only, as I have said, she kept the contents a dead secret, in order
that one day they might be a pleasant surprise to you.”

“Well,” I answered, “all things considered, they have been a pleasant
surprise; I may say a _very_ pleasant surprise. And now let us go and
have some dinner at the club. I feel tired and thirsty.”

Next morning the letter that I had posted from London to the chairman
of my committee was, at my request, returned to me unopened.

CHAPTER X
JANE MEETS DR. MERCHISON

Nobody disputed my inheritance, for, so far as I could learn, Mrs.
Strong had no relatives. Nor indeed could it have been disputed, for I
had never so much as hypnotised the deceased. When it was known how
rich I had become I grew even more popular in Dunchester than I had
been before, also my importance increased at headquarters to such an
extent that on a change of Government I became, as I have said,
Under-Secretary to the Home Office. Although I was a useful man
hitherto I had always been refused any sort of office, because of the
extreme views which I professed—on platforms in the constituencies—or
so those in authority alleged. Now, however, these views were put down
to amiable eccentricity; moreover, I was careful not to obtrude them.
Responsibility sobers, and as we age and succeed we become more
moderate, for most of us have a method in our madness.

In brief, I determined to give up political knight-errantry and to
stick to sober business. Very carefully and in the most conservative
spirit I took stock of the situation. I was still a couple of years on
the right side of fifty, young looking for my age (an advantage), a
desirable _parti_ (a great advantage, although I had no intention of
re-marrying), and in full health and vigour. Further, I possessed a
large fortune all in cash or in liquid assets, and I resolved that it
should not diminish. I had experienced enough of ups and downs; I was
sick of vicissitudes, of fears and uncertainties for the future. I said
to my soul: “Thou hast enough laid up for many days; eat, drink and be
merry,” and I proceeded to invest my modest competence in such a
fashion that it brought in a steady four per cent. No South African
mines or other soul-agonising speculations for me; sweet security was
what I craved, and I got it. I could live with great comfort, even with
modest splendour, upon about half my income, and the rest of it I
purposed to lay out for my future benefit. I had observed that brewers,
merchants and other magnates with cash to spare are in due course
elevated to the peerage. Now I wished to be elevated to the peerage,
and to spend an honoured and honourable old age as Lord Dunchester. So
when there was any shortage of the party funds, and such a shortage
soon occurred on the occasion of an election, I posed as the friend
round the corner.

Moreover, I had another aim. My daughter Jane had now grown into a
lovely, captivating and high-spirited young woman. To my fancy, indeed,
I never saw her equal in appearance, for the large dark eyes shining in
a fair and _spirituelle_ face, encircled by masses of rippling chestnut
hair, gave a _bizarre_ and unusual distinction to her beauty, which was
enhanced by a tall and graceful figure. She was witty also and
self-willed, qualities which she inherited from her American mother,
moreover she adored me and believed in me. I, who since my wife’s death
had loved nothing else, loved this pure and noble-minded girl as only a
father can love, for my adoration had nothing selfish in it, whereas
that of the truest lover, although he may not know it, is in its
beginnings always selfish. He has something to gain, he seeks his own
happiness, the father seeks only the happiness of his child.

On the whole, I think that the worship of this daughter of mine is a
redeeming point in my character, for which otherwise, sitting in
judgment on it as I do to-day, I have no respect. Jane understood that
worship, and was grateful to me for it. Her fine unsullied instinct
taught her that whatever else about me might be unsound or tarnished,
this at least rang true and was beyond suspicion. She may have seen my
open faults and divined my secret weaknesses, but for the sake of the
love I bore her she overlooked them all, indeed she refused to
acknowledge them, to the extent that my worst political extravagances
became to her articles of faith. What I upheld was right; what I
denounced was wrong; on other points her mind was open and intelligent,
but on these it was a shut and bolted door. “My father says so,” was
her last argument.

My position being such that I could ensure her a splendid future, I was
naturally anxious that she should make a brilliant marriage, since with
monstrous injustice destiny has decreed that a woman’s road to success
must run past the altar. But as yet I could find no man whom I
considered suitable or worthy. One or two I knew, but they were not
peers, and I wished her to marry a peer or a rising politician who
would earn or inherit a peerage.

And so, good easy man, I looked around me, and said that full surely my
greatness was a-ripening. Who thinks of winter and its frosts in the
glow of such a summer as I enjoyed?

For a while everything went well. I took a house in Green Street, and
entertained there during the sitting of Parliament. The beauty of the
hostess, my daughter Jane, together with my own position and wealth, of
which she was the heiress, were sufficient to find us friends, or at
any rate associates, among the noblest and most distinguished in the
land, and for several seasons my dinner parties were some of the most
talked about in London. To be asked to one of them was considered a
compliment, even by men who are asked almost everywhere.

With such advantages of person, intelligence and surroundings at her
command, Jane did not lack for opportunities of settling herself in
life. To my knowledge she had three offers in one season, the last of
them from perhaps the best and most satisfactory _parti_ in England.
But to my great and ever-increasing dismay, one after another she
refused them all. The first two disappointments I bore, but on the
third occasion I remonstrated. She listened quite quietly, then said:

“I am very sorry to vex you, father dear, but to marry a man whom I do
not care about is just the one thing I can’t do, even for your sake.”

“But surely, Jane,” I urged, “a father should have some voice in such a
matter.”

“I think he has a right to say whom his daughter shall not marry,
perhaps, but not whom she shall marry.”

“Then, at least,” I said, catching at this straw, “will you promise
that you won’t become engaged to any one without my consent?”

Jane hesitated a little, and then answered: “What is the use of talking
of such a thing, father, as I have never seen anybody to whom I wish to
become engaged? But, if you like, I will promise you that if I should
chance to see any one and you don’t approve of him, I will not become
engaged to him for three years, by the end of which time he would
probably cease to wish to become engaged to me. But,” she added with a
laugh, “I am almost certain he wouldn’t be a duke or a lord, or
anything of that sort, for, provided a man is a gentleman, I don’t care
twopence about his having a title.”

“Jane, don’t talk so foolishly,” I answered.

“Well, father,” she said astonished, “if those are my opinions at least
I got them from you, for I was always brought up upon strictly
democratic principles. How often have I heard you declare in your
lectures down at Dunchester that men of our race are all equal—except
the working-man, who is better than the others—and that but for social
prejudice the ‘son of toil’ is worthy of the hand of any titled lady in
the kingdom?”

“I haven’t delivered that lecture for years,” I answered angrily.

“No, father, not since—let me see, not since old Mrs. Strong left you
all her money, and you were made an Under-Secretary of State, and lords
and ladies began to call on us. Now, I shouldn’t have said that,
because it makes you angry, but it is true, though, isn’t it?” and she
was gone.

That August when the House rose we went down to a place that I owned on
the outskirts of Dunchester. It was a charming old house, situated in
the midst of a considerable estate that is famous for its shooting.
This property had come to me as part of Mrs. Strong’s bequest, or,
rather, she held a heavy mortgage on it, and when it was put up for
sale I bought it in. As Jane had taken a fancy to the house, which was
large and roomy, with beautiful gardens, I let my old home in the city,
and when we were not in town we came to live at Ashfields.

On the borders of the Ashfields estate—indeed, part of the land upon
which it was built belongs to it—lies a poor suburb of Dunchester
occupied by workmen and their families. In these people Jane took great
interest; indeed, she plagued me till at very large expense I built a
number of model cottages for them, with electricity, gas and water laid
on, and bicycle-houses attached. In fact, this proved a futile
proceeding, for the only result was that the former occupants of the
dwellings were squeezed out, while persons of a better class, such as
clerks, took possession of the model tenements at a totally inadequate
rent.

It was in visiting some of the tenants of these cottages that in an
evil hour Jane first met Dr. Merchison, a young man of about thirty,
who held some parish appointment which placed the sick of this district
under his charge. Ernest Merchison was a raw-boned, muscular and rather
formidable-looking person, of Scotch descent, with strongly-marked
features, deep-set eyes, and very long arms. A man of few words, when
he did speak his language was direct to the verge of brusqueness, but
his record as a medical man was good and even distinguished, and
already he had won the reputation of being the best surgeon in
Dunchester. This was the individual who was selected by my daughter
Jane to receive the affections which she had refused to some of the
most polished and admired men in England, and, as I believe, largely
for the reason that, instead of bowing and sighing about after her, he
treated her with a rudeness which was almost brutal.

In one of these new model houses lived some people of the name of
Smith. Mr. Smith was a compositor, and Mrs. Smith, _née_ Samuels, was
none other than that very little girl whom, together with her brother,
who died, I had once treated for erysipelas resulting from vaccination.
In a way I felt grateful to her, for that case was the beginning of my
real success in life, and for this reason, out of several applicants,
the new model house was let to her husband as soon as it was ready for
occupation.

Could I have foreseen the results which were to flow from an act of
kindness, and that as this family had indirectly been the cause of my
triumph so they were in turn to be the cause of my ruin, I would have
destroyed the whole street with dynamite before I allowed them to set
foot in it. However, they came, bringing with them two children, a
little girl of four, to whom Jane took a great fancy, and a baby of
eighteen months.

In due course these children caught the whooping-cough, and Jane
visited them, taking with her some delicacies as a present. While she
was there Dr. Merchison arrived in his capacity of parish doctor, and,
beyond a curt bow taking no notice of Jane, began his examination, for
this was his first visit to the family. Presently his eye fell upon a
box of sweets.

“What’s that?” he asked sharply.

“It’s a present that Miss Therne here has brought for Tottie,” answered
the mother.

“Then Tottie mustn’t eat them till she is well. Sugar is bad for
whooping-cough, though, of course, a young lady couldn’t be expected to
know that,” he added in a voice of gruff apology, then went on quickly,
glancing at the little girl’s arm, “No marks, I see. Conscientious
Objector? Or only lazy?”

Then Mrs. Smith fired up and poured out her own sad history and that of
her poor little brother who died, baring her scarred arm in proof of
it.

“And so,” she finished, “though I do not remember much about it myself,
I do remember my mother’s dying words, which were ‘to mind what the
doctor had told her, and never to have any child of mine vaccinated,
no, not if they crawled on their knees to ask it of me.’”

“The doctor!” said Merchison with scorn, “you mean the idiot, my good
woman, or more likely the political agitator who would sell his soul
for a billet.”

Then Jane rose in wrath.

“I beg your pardon for interrupting you, sir,” she said, “but the
gentleman you speak of as an idiot or a political agitator is Dr.
Therne, my father, the member of Parliament for this city.”

Dr. Merchison stared at her for a long while, and indeed when she was
angry Jane was beautiful enough to make any one stare, then he said
simply, “Oh, indeed. I don’t meddle with politics, so I didn’t know.”

This was too much for Jane, who, afraid to trust herself to further
speech, walked straight out of the cottage. She had passed down the
model garden and arrived at the model gate when she heard a quick
powerful step behind her, and turned round to find herself face to face
with Dr. Merchison.

“I have followed you to apologise, Miss Therne,” he said; “of course I
had no idea who you were and did not wish to hurt your feelings, but I
happen to have strong feelings about vaccination and spoke more roughly
than I ought to have done.”

“Other people, sir, may also have strong opinions about vaccination,”
answered Jane.

“I know,” he said, “and I know, too, what the end of it all will be, as
you will also, Miss Therne, if you live long enough. It is useless
arguing, the lists are closed and we must wait until the thing is put
to the proof of battle. When it is, one thing is sure, there will be
plenty of dead,” he added with a grim smile. Then taking off his hat
and muttering, “Again I apologise,” he returned into the cottage.

It seems that for a while Jane was very angry. Then she remembered
that, after all, Dr. Merchison had apologised, and that he had made his
offensive remarks in the ignorance and prejudice which afflicted the
entire medical profession and were more worthy of pity than of anger.
Further, she remembered that in her indignation she had forgotten to
acknowledge or accept his apology, and, lastly, she asked him to a
garden-party.

It is scarcely necessary for me to dwell upon the subsequent
developments of this unhappy business—if I am right in calling it
unhappy. The piteous little drama is played, both the actors are dead,
and the issue of the piece is unknown and, for the present, unknowable.
Bitterly opposed as I was to the suit of Merchison, justice compels me
to say that, under the cloak of a rough unpromising manner, he hid a
just and generous heart. Had that man lived he might have become great,
although he would never have become popular. As least something in his
nature attracted my daughter Jane, for she, who up to that time had not
been moved by any man, became deeply attached to him.

In the end he proposed to her, how, when or where I cannot say, for I
never inquired. One morning, I remember it was that of Christmas Day,
they came into my library, the pair of them, and informed me how
matters stood. Merchison went straight to the point and put the case
before me very briefly, but in a manly and outspoken fashion. He said
that he quite understood the difficulties of his position, inasmuch as
he believed that Jane was, or would be, very rich, whereas he had
nothing beyond his profession, in which, however, he was doing well. He
ended by asking my consent to the engagement subject to any reasonable
conditions that I might choose to lay down.

To me the shock was great, for, occupied as I was with my own affairs
and ambitions, I had been blind to what was passing before my face. I
had hoped to see my daughter a peeress, and now I found her the
affianced bride of a parish sawbones. The very foundation of my house
of hopes was sapped; at a blow all my schemes for the swift
aggrandisement of my family were laid low. It was too much for me.
Instead of accepting the inevitable, and being glad to accept it
because my child’s happiness was involved, I rebelled and kicked
against the pricks.

By nature I am not a violent man, but on that occasion I lost my temper
and became violent. I refused my consent; I threatened to cut my
daughter off with nothing, but at this argument she and her lover
smiled. Then I took another ground, for, remembering her promise that
she would consent to be separated for three years from any suitor of
whom I did not approve, I claimed its fulfilment.

Somewhat to my surprise, after a hurried private consultation, Jane and
her lover accepted these conditions, telling me frankly that they would
wait for three years, but that after these had gone by they would
consider themselves at liberty to marry, with my consent if possible,
but, if necessary, without it. Then in my presence they kissed and
parted, nor until the last did either of them attempt to break the
letter of their bond. Once indeed they met before that dreadful hour,
but then it was the workings of fate that brought them together and not
their own design.

CHAPTER XI
THE COMING OF THE RED-HEADED MAN

Half of the three years of probation had gone by and once more we found
ourselves at Dunchester in August. Under circumstances still too recent
to need explanation, the Government of which I was a member had decided
to appeal to the country, the General Election being fixed for the end
of September, after the termination of harvest. Dunchester was
considered to be a safe Radical seat, and, as a matter of parliamentary
tactics, the poll for this city, together with that of eight or ten
other boroughs, was fixed for the earliest possible day, in the hope
that the results might encourage more doubtful places to give their
support. Constituencies are very like sheep, and if the leaders jump
through a certain gap in the political hedge the flock, or a large
proportion of it, will generally follow. All of us like to be on the
winning side.

Few people who are old enough to remember it will ever forget the
August of two years ago, if only because of the phenomenal heat. Up to
that month the year had been very cold, so cold that even during July
there were some evenings when a fire was welcome, while on several days
I saw people driving about the roads wrapped up in heavy ulsters. But
with the first day of August all this changed, and suddenly the climate
became torrid, the nights especially being extraordinarily hot. From
every quarter of the country came complaints of the great heat, while
each issue of the newspapers contained lists of those who had fallen
victims to it.

One evening, feeling oppressed in the tree-enclosed park of Ashfields,
I strolled out of it into the suburb of which I have spoken. Almost
opposite the private garden of the park stands a board school, and in
front of this board school I had laid out an acre of land presented by
myself, as a playground and open space for the use of the public. In
the centre of this garden was a fountain that fell into a marble basin,
and around the fountain, but at some distance from it, stood iron
seats. To these I made my way and sat down on one of them, which was
empty, in order to enjoy the cool sound of the splashing water, about
which a large number of children were playing.

Presently, as I sat thus, I lifted my eyes and saw the figure of a man
approaching towards the other side of the fountain. He was quite fifty
yards away from me, so that his features were invisible, but there was
something about his general aspect which attracted my attention at
once. To begin with, he looked small and lonely, all by himself out
there on the wide expanse of gravel; moreover, the last rays of the
setting sun, striking full upon him, gave him a fiery and unnatural
appearance against the dense background of shadows beyond. It is a
strange and dreadful coincidence, but by some extraordinary action of
the mind, so subtle that I cannot trace the link, the apparition of
this man out of the gloom into the fierce light of the sunset reminded
me of a picture that I had once seen representing the approach to the
Norwegian harbour of the ship which brought the plague to the shores of
Scandinavia. In the picture that ship also was clothed with the fires
of sunset, while behind it lay the blackness of approaching night. Like
this wanderer that ship also came forward, slowly indeed, but without
pause, as though alive with a purpose of its own, and I remember that
awaiting it upon the quay were a number of merry children.

Shaking myself free from this ridiculous but unpleasant thought, I
continued to observe the man idly. Clearly he was one of the great army
of tramps, for his coat was wide and ragged and his hat half innocent
of rim, although there was something about his figure which suggested
to me that he had seen better days. I could even imagine that under
certain circumstances I might have come to look very much like this
poor man, now doubtless turned into a mere animal by drink. He drew on
with a long slow step, his head stretched forward, his eyes fixed upon
the water, as he walked now and again lifting a long thin hand and
scraping impatiently at his face and head.

“That poor fellow has got a touch of prickly heat and is thirsty,” I
thought, nor was I mistaken, for, on arriving at the edge of the
fountain, the tramp knelt down and drank copiously, making a moaning
sound as he gulped the water, which was very peculiar and unpleasant to
hear. When he had satisfied his thirst, he sat himself upon the marble
edge of the basin and suddenly plunged his legs, boots and all, into
the water. Its touch seemed to please him, for with a single swift
movement he slipped in altogether, sitting himself down on the bottom
of the basin in such fashion that only his face and fiery red beard,
from which the hat had fallen, remained above the surface, whereon they
seemed to float like some monstrous and unnatural growth.

This unusual proceeding on the part of the tramping stranger at once
excited the most intense interest in the mind of every child on the
playground, with the result that in another minute forty or fifty of
them had gathered round the fountain, laughing and jeering at its
occupant. Again the sight brought to my mind a strained and
disagreeable simile, for I bethought me of the dreadful tale of Elisha
and of the fate which overtook the children who mocked him. Decidedly
the heat had upset my nerves that night, nor were they soothed when
suddenly from the red head floating upon the water came a flute-like
and educated voice, saying—

“Cease deriding the unfortunate, children, or I will come out of this
marble bath and tickle you.”

Thereat they laughed all the more, and began to pelt the bather with
little stones and bits of stick.

At first I thought of interfering, but as it occurred to me that the
man would probably be violent or abusive if I spoke to him, and as,
above all things, I disliked scenes, I made up my mind to fetch a
policeman, whom I knew I should find round the corner about a hundred
yards away. I walked to the corner, but did not find the policeman,
whereon I started across the square to look for him at another point.
My road led me past the fountain, and, as I approached it, I saw that
the water-loving wanderer had been as good as his word. He had emerged
from the fountain, and, rushing to and fro raining moisture from his
wide coat, despite their shrieks half of fear and half of laughter, he
grabbed child after child and, drawing it to him, tickled and kissed
it, laughing dementedly all the while, in a fashion which showed me
that he was suffering from some form of mania.

As soon as he saw me the man dropped the last child he had caught—it
was little Tottie Smith—and began to stride away towards the city at
the same slow, regular, purposeful gait with which I had seen him
approach the fountain. As he passed he turned and made a grimace at me,
and then I saw his dreadful face. No wonder it had looked red at a
distance, for the _erythema_ almost covered it, except where, on the
forehead and cheeks, appeared purple spots and patches.

Of what did it remind me?

Great Heaven! I remembered. It reminded me of the face of that girl I
had seen lying in the _plaza_ of San Jose, in Mexico, over whom the old
woman was pouring water from the fountain, much such a fountain as that
before me, for half unconsciously, when planning this place, I had
reproduced its beautiful design. It all came back to me with a shock,
the horrible scene of which I had scarcely thought for years, so
vividly indeed that I seemed to hear the old hag’s voice crying in
cracked accents, “_Si, senor, viruela, viruela!_”

I ought to have sent to warn the police and the health officers of the
city, for I was sure that the man was suffering from what is commonly
called confluent smallpox. But I did not. From the beginning there has
been something about this terrible disease which physically and morally
has exercised so great an influence over my destiny, that seemed to
paralyse my mental powers. In my day I was a doctor fearless of any
other contagion; typhus, scarletina, diphtheria, yellow fever, none of
them had terrors for me. And yet I was afraid to attend a case of
smallpox. From the same cause, in my public speeches I made light of
it, talking of it with contempt as a sickness of small account, much as
a housemaid talks in the servants’ hall of the ghost which is supposed
to haunt the back stairs.

And now, coming as it were from that merry and populous chamber of life
and health, once again I met the Spectre I derided, a red-headed,
red-visaged Thing that chose me out to stop and grin at. Somehow I was
not minded to return and announce the fact.

“Why,” they would say, “_you_ were the one who did not believe in
ghosts. It was _you_ who preached of vile superstitions, and yet merely
at the sight of a shadow you rush in with trembling hands and bristling
hair to bid us lay it with bell, book, and candle. Where is your faith,
O prophet?”

It was nonsense; the heat and all my incessant political work had tried
me and I was mistaken. That tramp was a drunken, or perhaps a crazy
creature, afflicted with some skin disease such as are common among his
class. Why did I allow the incident to trouble me?

I went home and washed out my mouth, and sprinkled my clothes with a
strong solution of permanganate of potash, for, although my own folly
was evident, it is always as well to be careful, especially in hot
weather. Still I could not help wondering what might happen if by any
chance smallpox were to get a hold of a population like that of
Dunchester, or indeed of a hundred other places in England.

Since the passing of the famous Conscience Clause many years before, as
was anticipated would be the case, and as the anti-vaccinators intended
should be the case, vaccination had become a dead letter amongst at
least seventy-five per cent. of the people.[*] Our various societies
and agents were not content to let things take their course and to
allow parents to vaccinate their children, or to leave them
unvaccinated as they might think fit. On the contrary, we had
instituted a house-to-house canvass, and our visitors took with them
forms of conscientious objection, to be filled in by parents or
guardians, and legally witnessed.

[*] Since the above was written the author has read in the press that
in Yorkshire a single bench of magistrates out of the hundreds in
England has already granted orders on the ground of “conscientious
objection,” under which some 2000 children are exempted from the scope
of the Vaccination Acts. So far as he has seen this statement has not
been contradicted. At Ipswich also about 700 applications, affecting
many children, have been filed. To deal with these the Bench is holding
special sessions, sitting at seven o’clock in the evening.

At first the magistrates refused to accept these forms, but after a
while, when they found how impossible it was to dive into a man’s
conscience and to decide what was or what was not “conscientious
objection,” they received them as sufficient evidence, provided only
that they were sworn before some one entitled to administer oaths. Many
of the objectors did not even take the trouble to do as much as this,
for within five years of the passing of the Act, in practice the
vaccination laws ceased to exist. The burden of prosecution rested with
Boards of Guardians, popularly elected bodies, and what board was
likely to go to the trouble of working up a case and to the expense of
bringing it before the court, when, to produce a complete defence, the
defendant need only declare that he had a conscientious objection to
the law under which the information was laid against him? Many idle or
obstinate or prejudiced people would develop conscientious objections
to anything which gives trouble or that they happen to dislike. For
instance, if the same principle were applied to education, I believe
that within a very few years not twenty-five per cent. of the children
belonging to the classes that are educated out of the rates would ever
pass the School Board standards.

Thus it came about that the harvest was ripe, and over ripe, awaiting
only the appointed sickle of disease. Once or twice already that sickle
had been put in, but always before the reaping began it was stayed by
the application of the terrible rule of isolation known as the improved
Leicester system.

Among some of the natives of Africa when smallpox breaks out in a
kraal, that kraal is surrounded by guards and its inhabitants are left
to recover or perish, to starve or to feed themselves as chance and
circumstance may dictate. During the absence of the smallpox laws the
same plan, more mercifully applied, prevailed in England, and thus the
evil hour was postponed. But it was only postponed, for like a
cumulative tax it was heaping up against the country, and at last the
hour had come for payment to an authority whose books must be balanced
without remittance or reduction. What is due to nature that nature
takes in her own way and season, neither less nor more, unless indeed
the skill and providence of man can find means to force her to write
off the debt.

Five days after my encounter with the red-headed vagrant, the following
paragraph appeared in one of the local papers: “Pocklingham. In the
casual ward of the Union house for this district a tramp, name unknown,
died last night. He had been admitted on the previous evening, but, for
some unexplained reason, it was not noticed until the next morning that
he suffered from illness, and, therefore, he was allowed to mix with
the other inmates in the general ward. Drs. Butt and Clarkson, who were
called in to attend, state that the cause of death was the worst form
of smallpox. The body will be buried in quicklime, but some alarm is
felt in the district owing to the deceased, who, it is said, arrived
here from Dunchester, where he had been frequenting various tramps’
lodgings, having mixed with a number of other vagrants, who left the
house before the character of his sickness was discovered, and who
cannot now be traced. The unfortunate man was about forty years of age,
of medium height, and red-haired.”

The same paper had an editorial note upon this piece of news, at the
end of which it remarked, as became a party and an anti-vaccination
organ: “The terror of this ‘filth disease,’ which in our fathers’ time
amounted almost to insanity, no longer afflicts us, who know both that
its effects were exaggerated and how to deal with it by isolation
without recourse to the so-called vaccine remedies, which are now
rejected by a large proportion of the population of these islands.
Still, as we have ascertained by inquiry that this unfortunate man did
undoubtedly spend several days and nights wandering about our city when
in an infectious condition, it will be as well that the authorities
should be on the alert. We do not want that hoary veteran—the smallpox
scare—to rear its head again in Dunchester, least of all just now,
when, in view of the imminent election, the accustomed use would be
made of it by our prejudiced and unscrupulous political opponents.”

“No,” I said to myself as I put the paper down, “certainly we do not
want a smallpox scare just now, and still less do we want the
smallpox.” Then I thought of that unfortunate red-headed wretch, crazy
with the torment of his disease, and of his hideous laughter, as he
hunted and caught the children who made a mock of him—the poor
children, scarcely one of whom was vaccinated.

A week later I opened my political campaign with a large public meeting
in the Agricultural Hall. Almost up to the nomination day no candidate
was forthcoming on the other side, and I thought that, for the fourth
time, I should be returned unopposed. Of a sudden, however, a name was
announced, and it proved to be none other than that of my rival of many
years ago—Sir Thomas Colford—now like myself growing grey-headed, but
still vigorous in mind and body, and as much respected as ever by the
wealthier and more educated classes of our community. His appearance in
the field put a new complexion on matters; it meant, indeed, that
instead of the easy and comfortable walk over which I had anticipated,
I must fight hard for my political existence.

In the course of my speech, which was very well received, for I was
still popular in the town even among the more moderate of my opponents,
I dwelt upon Sir Thomas Colford’s address to the electorate which had
just come into my hands. In this address I was astonished to see a
paragraph advocating, though in a somewhat guarded fashion, the
re-enactment of the old laws of compulsory vaccination. In a draft
which had reached me two days before through some underground channel,
this paragraph had not appeared, thus showing that it had been added by
an afterthought and quite suddenly. However, there it was, and I made
great play with it.

What, I asked the electors of Dunchester, could they think of a man who
in these modern and enlightened days sought to reimpose upon a free
people the barbarous infamies of the Vaccination Acts? Long ago we had
fought that fight, and long ago we had relegated them to _limbo_,
where, with such things as instruments of torment, papal bulls and
writs of attainder, they remained to excite the wonder and the horror
of our own and future generations.

Well would it have been for me if I had stopped here, but, led away by
the subject and by the loud cheers that my treatment of it, purposely
flamboyant, never failed to evoke, forgetful too for the moment of the
Red-headed Man, I passed on to deductions. Our opponents had
prophesied, I said, that within ten years of the passing of the famous
Conscience Clause smallpox would be rampant. Now what were the facts?
Although almost twice that time had gone by, here in Dunchester we had
suffered far less from smallpox than during the compulsory period, for
at no one time during all these eighteen or twenty years had three
cases been under simultaneous treatment within the confines of the
city.

“Well, there are five now,” called out a voice from the back of the
hall.

I drew myself up and made ready to wither this untruthful brawler with
my best election scorn, when, of a sudden, I remembered the Red-headed
Man, and passed on to the consideration of foreign affairs.

From that moment all life went out of my speech, and, as it seemed to
me, the enthusiasm of the meeting died away. As soon as it was over I
made inquiries, to find that the truth had been hidden from me—there
were five, if not seven cases of smallpox in different parts of the
city, and the worst feature of the facts was that three of the patients
were children attending different schools. One of these children, it
was ascertained, had been among those who were playing round the
fountain about a fortnight since, although he was not one whom the
red-haired tramp had touched, but the other two had not been near the
fountain. The presumption was, therefore, that they had contracted the
disease through some other source of infection, perhaps at the
lodging-house where the man had spent the night after bathing in the
water. Also it seemed that, drawn thither by the heat, in all two or
three hundred children had visited the fountain square on this
particular evening, and that many of them had drunk water out of the
basin.

Never do I remember feeling more frightened than when these facts came
to my knowledge, for, added to the possible terrors of the position,
was my constitutional fear of the disease which I have already
described. On my way homewards I met a friend who told me that one of
the children was dead, the malady, which was of an awful type, having
done its work very swiftly.

Like a first flake from a snow-cloud, like a first leaf falling in
autumn from among the myriads on some great tree, so did this little
life sink from our number into the silence of the grave. Ah! how many
were to follow? There is a record, I believe, but I cannot give it. In
Dunchester alone, with its population of about 50,000, I know that we
had over 5000 deaths, and Dunchester was a focus from which the
pestilence spread through the kingdom, destroying and destroying and
destroying with a fury that has not been equalled since the days of the
Black Death.

But all this was still to come, for the plague did not get a grip at
once. An iron system of isolation was put in force, and every possible
means was adopted by the town authorities, who, for the most part, were
anti-vaccinationists, to suppress the facts, a task in which they were
assisted by the officials of the Local Government Board, who had their
instructions on the point. As might have been expected, the party in
power did not wish the political position to be complicated by an
outcry for the passing of a new smallpox law, so few returns were
published, and as little information as possible was given to the
papers.

For a while there was a lull; the subject of smallpox was _taboo_, and
nobody heard much about it beyond vague and indefinite rumours. Indeed,
most of us were busy with the question of the hour—the eternal question
of beer, its purity and the method of its sale. For my part, I made few
inquiries; like the ostrich of fable I hid my head in the sands of
political excitement, hoping that the arrows of pestilence would pass
us by.

And yet, although I breathed no word of my fears to a living soul, in
my heart I was terribly afraid.

CHAPTER XII
THE SHADOW OF PESTILENCE

Very soon it became evident that the fight in Dunchester would be
severe, for the electorate, which for so many years had been my patient
servant, showed signs of rebelling against me and the principles I
preached. Whether the voters were moved by a desire for change, whether
they honestly disagreed with me, or whether a secret fear of the
smallpox was the cause of it, I do not know, but it is certain that a
large proportion of them began to look upon me and my views with
distrust.

At any other time this would not have caused me great distress; indeed
defeat itself would have had consolations, but now, when I appeared to
be on the verge of real political distinction, the mere thought of
failure struck me with dismay. To avoid it, I worked as I had not
worked for years. Meetings were held nightly, leaflets were distributed
by the ton, and every house in the city was industriously visited by my
canvassers, who were divided into bands and officers like a regiment.

The head of one of these bands was my daughter Jane, and never did a
candidate have a more able or enthusiastic lieutenant. She was gifted
with the true political instinct, which taught her what to say and what
to leave unsaid, when to press a point home and when to abandon it for
another; moreover, her personal charm and popularity fought for her
cause.

One evening, as she was coming home very tired after a long day’s work
in the slums of the city, Jane arrived at the model cottages outside my
park gates. Having half an hour to spare, she determined to visit a few
of their occupants. Her second call was on the Smith family.

“I am glad to see you now as always, miss,” said Mrs. Smith, “but we
are in trouble here.”

“What, is little Tottie ill again?” Jane asked.

“No, miss, it isn’t Tottie this time, it’s the baby. She’s got
convulsions, or something like it, and I’ve sent for Dr. Merchison.
Would you like to see her? She’s lying in the front room.”

Jane hesitated. She was tired and wanted to get home with her canvass
cards. But the woman looked tired too and in need of sympathy; possibly
also, for nature is nature, Jane hoped that if she lingered there a
little, without in any way violating her promise, she might chance to
catch a brief glimpse of the man she loved.

“Yes, I will come in for a minute,” she answered and followed Mrs.
Smith into the room.

On a cheap cane couch in the corner, at the foot of which the child,
Tottie, was playing with a doll, lay the baby, an infant of nearly
three. The convulsive fit had passed away and she was sitting up
supported by a pillow, the fair hair hanging about her flushed face,
and beating the blanket with her little fevered hands.

“Take me, mummy, take me, I thirsty,” she moaned.

“There, that’s how she goes on all day and it fairly breaks my heart to
see her,” said the mother, wiping away a tear with her apron. “If
you’ll be so kind as to mind her a minute, miss, I’ll go and make a
little lemonade. I’ve got a couple of oranges left, and she seems to
like them best of anything.”

Jane’s heart was stirred, and, leaning down, she took the child in her
arms. “Go and get the drink,” she said, “I will look after her till you
come,” and she began to walk up and down the room rocking the little
sufferer to and fro.

Presently she looked up to see Dr. Merchison standing in the doorway.

“Jane, you here!” he said.

“Yes, Ernest.”

He stepped towards her, and, before she could turn away or remonstrate,
bent down and kissed her on the lips.

“You shouldn’t do that, dear,” she said, “it’s out of the bargain.”

“Perhaps I shouldn’t,” he answered, “but I couldn’t help it. I said
that I would keep clear of you, and if I have met you by accident it is
not my fault. Come, let me have a look at that child.”

Taking the little girl upon his knee, he began to examine her, feeling
her pulse and looking at her tongue. For a while he seemed puzzled,
then Jane saw him take a little magnifying glass from his pocket and by
the help of it search the skin of the patient’s forehead, especially
just at the roots of the hair. After this he looked at the neck and
wrists, then set the child down on the couch, waving Jane back when she
advanced to take it, and asked the mother, who had just entered the
room with the lemonade, two or three short, quick questions.

Next he turned to Jane and said—

“I don’t want to frighten you, but you will be as well out of this.
It’s lucky for you,” he added with a little smile, “that when you were
born it wasn’t the fashion for doctors to be anti-vaccinationists, for,
unless I am much mistaken, that child has got smallpox.”

“Smallpox!” said Jane, then added aggressively, “Well, now we shall see
whose theory is right, for, as you saw, I was nursing her, and I have
never been vaccinated in my life. My father would not allow it, and I
have been told that it won him his first election.”

Ernest Merchison heard, and for a moment his face became like that of a
man in a fit.

“The wicked——” he began, and stopped himself by biting his lips till
the blood came. Recovering his calm with an effort, he turned to Jane
and said in a hoarse voice:—

“There is still a chance; it may be in time; yes, I am almost sure that
I can save you.” Then he plunged his hand into his breast pocket and
drew out a little case of instruments. “Be so good as to bare your left
arm,” he said; “fortunately, I have the stuff with me.”

“What for?” she asked.

“To be vaccinated.”

“Are you mad, Ernest?” she said. “You know who I am and how I have been
brought up; how, then, can you suppose that I would allow you to put
that poison into my veins?”

“Look here, Jane, there isn’t much time for argument, but just listen
to me for one minute. You know I am a pretty good doctor, don’t you?
for I have that reputation, haven’t I? and I am sure that you believe
in me. Well, now, just on this one point and for this one occasion I am
going to ask you to give up your own opinion and to suppose that in
this matter I am right and your father is wrong. I will go farther, and
say that if any harm comes to you from this vaccination beyond the
inconvenience of a swollen arm, you may consider all that has been
between us as nothing and never speak to me again.”

“That’s not the point,” she answered. “If you vaccinated me and my arm
fell off in consequence I shouldn’t care for you a bit the less,
because I should know that you were the victim of a foolish
superstition, and believed what you were doing to be right. No, Ernest,
it is of no use; I can assure you that I know a great deal more about
this subject than you do. I have read all the papers and statistics and
heard the cleverest men in England lecture upon it, and nothing,
nothing, _nothing_ will ever induce me to submit to that filthy, that
revolting operation.”

He heard and groaned, then he tried another argument.

“Listen,” he said: “you have been good enough to tell me—several
times—well, that you loved me, and, forgive me for alluding to it, but
I think that once you were so foolish as to say that you cared for me
so much that you would give your very existence if it could make me
happy. Now, I ask you for nothing half so great as that; I ask you to
submit to a trifling inconvenience, and, so far as you are personally
concerned, to waive a small prejudice for my sake, or, perhaps I had
better say, to give in to my folly. Can’t you do as much as that for
me, Jane?”

“Ernest,” she answered hoarsely, “if you asked anything else of me in
the world I would do it—yes, anything you can think of—but this I can’t
do and won’t do.”

“In God’s name, why not?” he cried.

“Because to do it would be to declare my father a quack and a liar, and
to show that I, his daughter, from whom if from anybody he has a right
to expect faith and support, have no belief in him and the doctrine
that he has taught for twenty years. That is the truth, and it is cruel
of you to make me say it.”

Ernest Merchison ground his teeth, understanding that in face of this
woman’s blind fidelity all argument and appeal were helpless. Then in
his love and despair he formed a desperate resolve. Yes, he was very
strong, and he thought that he could do it.

Catching her suddenly round the waist he thrust her into a cottage
armchair which stood by, and, despite her struggles, began to cut at
the sleeve of her dress with the lancet in his hand. But soon he
realised that the task was hopeless.

“Ernest Merchison,” she said, as she escaped from him with blazing eyes
and catching breath, “you have done what I will never forgive. Go your
own way in life and I will go mine.”

“——To _death_, Jane.”

Then she walked out of the house and through the garden gate. When she
had gone ten or fifteen yards she looked back to see her lover standing
by the gate, his face buried in his hands, and his strong frame shaking
with sobs. For a moment Jane relented; it was terrible to see this
reserved and self-reliant man thus weeping openly, and she knew that
the passion must be mighty which would bring him to this pass. In her
heart, indeed, she had never loved him better than at this moment; she
loved him even for his brutal attempt to vaccinate her by force,
because she understood what instigated the brutality. But then she
remembered the insult—she to be seized like a naughty child who will
not take its dose, and in the presence of another woman. And, so
remembering, she hardened her heart and passed out of his sight towards
the gateways of the grave.

At that time Jane said nothing of her adventure to me, though
afterwards I learned every detail of it from her and Mrs. Smith. She
did not even tell me that she had visited the Smiths’ cottage until one
morning, about eight days afterwards, when some blundering servant
informed us at breakfast that the baby Smith was dead of the smallpox
in the hospital, and that the other child was dangerously ill. I was
shocked beyond measure, for this brought the thing home, the people
lived almost at my gates. Now I remembered that I had seen the
red-headed tramp catch the child Tottie in his arms. Doubtless she
introduced the infection, though, strangely enough, her little sister
developed the disease before her.

“Jane,” I said when the servant had left, “did you hear about the Smith
baby?”

“Yes, father,” she answered languidly, “I knew that it had smallpox a
week ago.”

“Then why did you not tell me, and how did you know?”

“I didn’t tell you, dear, because the mere mention of smallpox always
upsets you so much, especially just now with all this election worry
going on; and I knew it because I was at the Smiths’ cottage and
nursing the baby when the doctor came in and said it was smallpox.”

“You were nursing the baby!” I almost screamed as I sprang from my
seat. “Great heavens, girl; why, you will infect the whole place.”

“That was what Ernest—Dr. Merchison—seemed to think. He wanted to
vaccinate me.”

“Oh, and did you let him?”

“How can you ask me such a question, father, remembering what you have
always taught me? I said——” and with omissions she told me the gist of
what had passed between them.

“I didn’t mean that,” I answered when she had done. “I thought that
perhaps under the influence of shock——Well, as usual, you showed your
wisdom, for how can one poison kill another poison?” and, unable to
bear it any longer, making some excuse, I rose and left the room.

Her wisdom! Great heavens, her wisdom! Why did not that fool,
Merchison, insist? He should have authority over her if any man had.
And now it was too late—now no vaccination on earth could save her,
unless by chance she had escaped infection, which was scarcely to be
hoped. Indeed, such a thing was hardly known as that an unvaccinated
person coming into immediate contact with a smallpox patient after the
eruption had appeared, should escape infection.

What did this mean? It meant that within a few days Jane, my only and
darling child, the very hope and centre of my life, would be in the
fangs of one of the most dreadful and dangerous diseases known to
humanity. More, having never been vaccinated, that disease was sure to
strike her with its full force, and the type of it which had appeared
in the city was such that certainly not more than one-half of the
unprotected persons attacked came alive out of the struggle.

This was bad enough, but there were other things behind. I had never
been vaccinated since infancy, over fifty years ago, and was therefore
practically unprotected with the enemy that all my lifetime I had
dreaded, as I dreaded no other thing or imagination, actually standing
at my door. I could not go away because of the election; I dared not
show fear, because they would cry: “Look at the hangman when he sees
the rope.” Here, since compulsory vaccination had been abandoned, we
fought smallpox by a system of isolation so rigorous that under its
cruel provisions every one of whatever age, rank or sex in whom the
disease declared itself was instantly removed to a hospital, while the
inhabitants of the house whence the patient came were kept practically
in prison, not being allowed to mix with their fellows. We had returned
to the preventive measures of centuries ago, much as they were
practised in the time of the Great Plague.

But how could I send my daughter to one of those dreadful pest-pits,
there at the moment of struggle to be a standing advertisement of the
utter failure and falsity of the system I had preached, backing my
statements with the wager of her life? Moreover, to do so would be to
doom myself to defeat at the poll, since under our byelaws, which were
almost ferocious in their severity, I could no longer appear in public
to prosecute my canvass, and, if my personal influence was withdrawn,
then most certainly my adversary would win.

Oh, truly I who had sown bounteously was reaping bounteously. Truly the
birds which I had sent out on their mission of evil had come home to
roost upon my roof-tree.

CHAPTER XIII
HARVEST

Another five days went by—to me they were days of most unspeakable
doubt and anguish. Each morning at breakfast I waited for the coming of
Jane with an anxiety which was all the more dreadful because I forced
myself to conceal it. There had been no further conversation between us
about the matter that haunted both our minds, and so fearful was I lest
she should divine my suspense that except in the most casual way I did
not even dare to look at her as she entered the room.

On the fifth morning she was late for breakfast, not a common thing,
for as a rule she rose early. I sent one of the parlour-maids to her
room to ask if she was coming down, and stood awaiting the answer with
much the same feeling as a criminal on his trial awaits the verdict of
the jury. Presently the girl returned with the message that Miss Therne
would be down in a few minutes, whereat I breathed again and swallowed
a little food, which till then I had been unable to touch.

Soon she came, and I saw that she was rather pale and languid, owing to
the heat, perhaps, but that otherwise she looked much as usual.

“You are late, dear,” I said unconcernedly.

“Yes, father,” she answered; “I woke up with a little headache and went
to sleep again. It has gone now; I suppose that it is the heat.”

As she spoke she kissed me, and I thought—but this may have been
fancy—that her breath felt cold upon my cheek.

“I daresay,” I said, and we sat down to table. By my plate lay a great
pile of correspondence, which I opened while making pretence to eat,
but all the time I was watching Jane over the top of those wearisome
letters, most of them from beggars or constituents who “wanted to
know.” One, however, was anonymous, from a person who signed herself
“Mother.” It ran:—

“Sir,—After hearing your speeches some years ago, and being told that
you were such a clever man, I became a Conscientious Objector, and
would not let them vaccinate any more of my children. The three who
were not vaccinated have all been taken to the hospital with the
smallpox, and they tell me (for I am not allowed to see them) that one
of them is dead; but the two who were vaccinated are quite well. Sir, I
thought that you would like to know this, so that if you have made any
mistake you may tell others. Sir, forgive me for troubling you, but it
is a terrible thing to have one’s child die of smallpox, and, as I
acted on your advice, I take the liberty of writing the above.”

Again I looked at Jane, and saw that although she was sipping her tea
and had some bacon upon her plate she had eaten nothing at all. Like
the catch of a song echoed through my brain that fearsome sentence: “It
is a terrible thing to have one’s child die of the smallpox.” Terrible,
indeed, for now I had little doubt but that Jane was infected, and if
she should chance to die, then what should I be? I should be her
murderer!

After breakfast I started upon my rounds of canvassing and
speech-making. Oh, what a dreadful day was that, and how I loathed the
work. How I cursed the hour in which I had taken up politics, and sold
my honour to win a seat in Parliament and a little cheap notoriety
among my fellow-men. If Stephen Strong had not tempted me Jane would
have been vaccinated in due course, and therefore, good friend though
he had been to me, and though his wealth was mine to-day, I cursed the
memory of Stephen Strong. Everywhere I went that afternoon I heard
ominous whispers. People did not talk openly; they shrugged their
shoulders and nodded and hinted, and all their hints had to do with the
smallpox.

“I say, Therne,” said an old friend, the chairman of my committee, with
a sudden outburst of candour, “what a dreadful thing it would be if
after all we A.V.’s were mistaken. You know there are a good many cases
of it about, for it’s no use disguising the truth. But I haven’t heard
of any yet among the Calf-worshippers” (that was our cant term for
those who believed in vaccination).

“Oh, let be!” I answered angrily, “it is too late to talk of mistakes,
we’ve got to see this thing through.”

“Yes, yes, Therne,” he said with a dreary laugh, “unless it should
happen to see us through.”

I left him, and went home just in time to dress. There were some people
to dinner, at which Jane appeared. Her lassitude had vanished, and, as
was her manner when in good spirits, she was very humorous and amusing.
Also I had never seen her look so beautiful, for her colour was high
and her dark eyes shone like the diamond stars in her hair. But again I
observed that she ate nothing, although she, who for the most part
drank little but water, took several glasses of champagne and two
tumblers of soda. Before I could get rid of my guests she had gone to
bed. At length they went, and going to my study I began to smoke and
think.

I was now sure that the bright flush upon her cheeks was due to what we
doctors call _pyrexia_, the initial fever of smallpox, and that the
pest which I had dreaded and fled from all my life was established in
my home. The night was hot and I had drunk my fill of wine, but I sat
and shook in the ague of my fear. Jane had the disease, but she was
young and strong and might survive it. I should take it from her, and
in that event assuredly must die, for the mind is master of the body
and the thing we dread is the thing that kills us.

Probably, indeed, I had taken it already, and this very moment the
seeds of sickness were at their wizard work within me. Well, even if it
was so?—I gasped when the thought struck me—as Merchison had recognised
in the case of Jane, by immediate vaccination the virus could be
destroyed, or if not destroyed at least so much modified and weakened
as to become almost harmless. Smallpox takes thirteen or fourteen days
to develop; cowpox runs its course in eight. So even supposing that I
had been infected for two days there was still time. Yes, but none to
lose!

Well, the thing was easy—I was a doctor and I had a supply of
glycerinated lymph; I had procured some fresh tubes of it only the
other day, to hold it up before my audiences while I dilated on its
foulness and explained the evils which resulted from its use. Supposing
now that I made a few scratches on my arm and rubbed some of this stuff
into them, who would be the wiser? The inflammation which would follow
would not be sufficient to incapacitate me, and nobody can see through
a man’s coat sleeve; even if the limb should become swollen or helpless
I could pretend that I had strained it. Whatever I had preached to
prove my point and forward my ambition, in truth I had never doubted
the efficacy of vaccination, although I was well aware of the dangers
that might result from the use of impure or contaminated lymph, foul
surroundings, and occasionally, perhaps, certain conditions of health
in the subject himself. Therefore I had no prejudice to overcome, and
certainly I was not a Conscientious Objector.

It came to this then. There were only two reasons why I should not
immediately vaccinate myself—first, that I might enjoy in secret a
virtuous sense of consistency, which, in the case of a person who had
proved himself so remarkably inconsistent in this very matter, would be
a mere indulgence of foolish pride; and secondly, because if I did I
might be found out. This indeed would be a catastrophe too terrible to
think of, but it was not in fact a risk that need be taken into
account.

But where was the use of weighing all these pros and cons? Such foolish
doubts and idle arguments melted into nothingness before the presence
of the spectre that stood upon my threshold, the hideous, spotted
Pestilence who had slain my father, who held my daughter by the throat,
and who threatened to grip me with his frightful fingers. What were
inconsistencies and risks to me compared to my living terror of the
Thing that had dominated my whole existence, reappearing at its every
crisis, and by some strange fate even when it was far from me, throwing
its spell over my mind and fortunes till, because of it, I turned my
skill and knowledge to the propagation of a lie, so mischievous in its
results that had the world known me as I was it would have done wisely
to deal by me as it deals with a dangerous lunatic?

I would do it and at once.

First, although it was unnecessary as all the servants had gone to
rest, I locked that door of my study which opened into the hall. The
other door I did not think of locking, for beyond it was nothing but
the private staircase which led to the wing of the house occupied by
Jane and myself. Then I took off my coat and rolled up my shirt sleeve,
fastening it with a safety-pin to the linen upon my shoulder. After
this I lit a spirit-lamp and sterilised my lancet by heating it in the
flame. Now, having provided myself with an ivory point and unsealed the
tiny tube of lymph, I sat down in a chair so that the light from the
electric lamp fell full upon my arm, and proceeded to scape the skin
with the lancet until blood appeared in four or five separate places.
Next I took the ivory point, and, after cleansing it, I charged it with
the lymph and applied it to the abrasions, being careful to give each
of them a liberal dose. The operation finished, I sat still awhile
letting my arm hang over the back of the chair, in order that the blood
might dry thoroughly before I drew down my shirt sleeve.

It was while I was sitting thus that I heard some movement behind me,
and turned round suddenly to find myself face to face with my daughter
Jane. She was clothed only in her nightdress and a bedroom wrapper, and
stood near to the open staircase door, resting her hand upon the end of
a lounge as though to support herself.

For one moment only I saw her and noted the look of horror in her eyes,
the next I had touched the switch of the electric light, and, save for
the faint blue glimmer of the spirit lamp, there was darkness.

“Father,” she said, and in the gloom her voice sounded far away and
hollow, “what are you doing to your arm?”

“I stumbled and fell against the corner of the mantelpiece and
scratched it,” I began wildly, but she stopped me.

“O father, have pity, for I cannot bear to hear you speak what is not
true, and—_I saw it all_.”

Then followed a silence made more dreadful by the darkness which the
one ghostly point of light seemed to accentuate.

Presently my daughter spoke again.

“Have you no word of comfort to me before I go? How is it that you who
have prevented thousands from doing this very thing yet do it yourself
secretly and at the dead of night? If you think it safer to vaccinate
yourself, why was I, your child, left unvaccinated, and taught that it
is a wicked superstition? Father, father, for God’s sake, answer me, or
I shall go mad.”

Then I spoke, as men will speak at the Judgment Day—if there is one—and
for the same reason, because I must. “Sit down, Jane, and listen, and,
if you do not mind, let it remain dark; I can tell you best in the
dark.”

Then, briefly, but with clearness and keeping nothing back, I told her
all, I—her father—laying every pitiable weakness of my nature open to
my child’s sight; yes, even to the terror of infection that drove me to
the act. All this while Jane answered no word, but when at length I
finished she said:—

“My poor father, O my poor father! Why did you not tell me all this
years ago, when you could have confessed your mistake? Well, it is
done, and you were not to blame in the beginning, for they forced you
to it. And now I have come to tell you that I am very ill—that is why I
am here—my back aches dreadfully, and I fear that I must have caught
this horrible smallpox. Oh! had I known the truth a fortnight ago, I
should have let Ernest vaccinate me. It broke my heart to refuse him
the first thing he ever asked of me. But I thought of what you would
feel and what a disgrace it would be to you. And now—you see.

“Turn up the light, for I must go back. I daresay that we shall never
meet again, for remember you are not to come into my room. I will not
allow you to come into my room, if I have to kill myself to prevent it.
No, you must not kiss me either; I daresay that I have begun to be
infectious. Good-bye, father, till we meet again somewhere else, for I
am sure that we do not altogether die. Oh! now that I know everything,
I should have been glad enough to leave this life—if only I had
never—met Ernest,” and turning, Jane, my daughter, crept away, gliding
up the broad oak stairs back to the room which she was never to quit
alive.

As for me, daylight found me still seated in the study, my brain
tormented with an agony of remorse and shame which few have lived to
feel, and my heart frozen with fear of what the morrow should bring
forth.

After but one day of doubt, Jane’s sickness proved to be smallpox of
the prevailing virulent type. But she was not removed to the hospital,
for I kept the thing secret and hired a nurse, who had recently been
revaccinated, for her from a London institution. The doctoring I
directed myself, although I did not actually see her, not now from any
fear of consequences, for I was so utterly miserable that I should have
been glad to die even of smallpox, but because she would not suffer it,
and because also, had I done so, I might have carried infection far and
wide, and should have been liable to prosecution under our isolation
laws.

I wished to give up the fight for the seat, but when I suggested it,
saying that I was ill, my committee turned upon me fiercely.

“Smallpox,” they declared, “was breaking out all over the city, and I
should stop there to ‘sweep out my own grate,’ even if they had to keep
me by force. If I did not, they would expose me in a fashion I should
not like.”

Then I gave in, feeling that after all it did not matter much, as in
any case it was impossible for me to leave Dunchester. Personally I had
no longer any fear of contagion, for within a week from that fatal
night four large vesicles had formed on my arm, and their presence
assured me that I was safe. At any other time this knowledge would have
rejoiced me more than I can tell, but now, as I have said, I did not
greatly care.

Another six days went by, bringing me to the eve of the election. At
lunch time I managed to get home, and was rejoiced to find that Jane,
who for the past forty-eight hours had been hovering between life and
death, had taken a decided turn for the better. Indeed, she told me so
herself in quite a strong voice as I stood in the doorway of her room,
adding that she hoped I should have a good meeting that night.

It would seem, however, that almost immediately after I left a change
for the worse set in, of such a character that Jane felt within herself
her last hour was at hand. Then it was that she ordered the nurse to
write a telegram at her dictation. It was to Dr. Merchison, and ran:
“Come and see me at once, do not delay as I am dying.—Jane.”

Within half an hour he was at her door. Then she bade the nurse to
throw a sheet over her, so that he might not see her features which
were horribly disfigured, and to admit him.

“Listen,” she said, speaking through the sheet, “I am dying of the
smallpox, and I have sent for you to beg your pardon. I know now that
you were right and I was wrong, although it broke my heart to learn
it.”

Then by slow degrees and in broken words she told him enough of what
she had learned to enable him to guess the rest, never dreaming, poor
child, of the use to which he would put his knowledge, being too ill
indeed to consider the possibilities of a future in which she could
have no part.

The rest of that scene has nothing to do with the world; it has nothing
to do with me; it is a private matter between two people who are dead,
Ernest Merchison and my daughter, Jane Therne. Although my own beliefs
are nebulous, and at times non-existent, this was not so in my
daughter’s case. Nor was it so in the case of Ernest Merchison, who was
a Scotchman, with strong religious views which, I understand, under
these dreadful circumstances proved comfortable to both of them. At the
least, they spoke with confidence of a future meeting, which, if their
faith is well founded, was not long delayed indeed; for, strong as he