Dr. Paull's Theory: A Romance

								

After turning over the closed letter once more, he replaced it by his
plate and began his breakfast. He could not bring himself to open that
letter in the presence of his sisters. Why, he could not have told.
“You are not going to open your letter?” asked Daisy, wonderingly, as
she took her brother’s egg out of the egg-boiler.
He was saved the reply by the entrance of his father. After breakfast,
he escaped into the garden; and there, by the river, among the flowers
and in the sunshine, the first link of the terrible life-chain which was
to crush his heart was forged. He opened the letter. If he could have
guessed, have known, would he have cast it from him into the stream to
be carried away—out of his reach and ken, for ever? In after days he
asked himself this with untold bitterness of soul, but no answer came.
The contents of the envelope, which had been redirected and forwarded by
the secretary of the hospital, were simple enough.
Sir Roderick wrote, dating from the Pinewood, near F——, Surrey, as
follows:—


“My good young Friend,—It must be about time for you to claim a
holiday. Let it be spent here. You will like the place; that it will
be congenial I feel sure. Let me know day and hour, and the carriage
will meet you at F—— Station.



                                             “Yours,      RODERICK PYM.”
Hugh read it twice, thrice. At first, he had (so he thought) been full
of self-gratulation that he had so complete an excuse to decline the
invitation as this, that his furlough from hospital, spent in his own
home, was nearly at an end. But, as he paced the garden walk, he
wondered whether, in reality, he had won over Sir Roderick to his views
upon the subject of that letter to the weekly journal Speculative
Thought, or whether the baronet had written it in one of his sardonic
humours as a sort of grim jest. He would like to know. Perhaps Sir
Roderick had been laughing at him in his sleeve during those long talks
in the hospital. Gruesome thought, not to be borne! But he would like to
know.
“I should do no harm by running down for a day,” he thought. “I could
even leave before the dinner hour, and not have to encounter Lady Pym.”
The portrait in the locket, no less than the silence on the subject of
Sir Roderick’s young wife on the part of the housekeeper and Mr. Edmund
Pym, had prejudiced Hugh greatly against the lady to whom he had indited
that telegram. Sir Roderick’s contempt for women, too, induced the idea
that L. Pym, however charming she might be, was not a woman to deserve
either respect or love.
Seldom vacillating, to-day Hugh was as irresolute as any woman. One
minute he resolved to accept the invitation, the next he told himself it
would be better to let it stand over for the present. At last he got
angry with himself, went into the house, asked Maud if he might use her