Peter was angry, like a child disturbed just at the moment when he was
planning a surprise.
"Why couldn't you have come in five minutes later?" he cried out, with
queer petulance.
The Doctor tottered forward and peered into his son's face. "Why were
you going to do that? Tell me, tell me!"
"You'd have found it all there," said Peter, pointing to the pages which
he had left on the desk. "Not very nice reading, I can assure you. But
if you want me to tell you instead, I will. And then you can see how a
man dies, instead of finding him dead. Perhaps this is the best way,
after all."
He went to the door and locked it, still holding the revolver. The sight
of his father did not stir any pity or sympathy in his heart. On the
contrary, it added to the fever that had attacked his brain and acted as
an irritant. He went back and stood in front of the grey man. There was
an expression of contempt on his altered face. The pattering of heavy
rain against the windows seemed to please him. Nature, like himself,
seemed to have burst into open protest.
"Sit down," he said.
The Doctor obeyed. The blaze in his son's eyes contradicted his
unnatural calmness. He had to deal with temporary madness. He could see
that, and he was chilled with a sense of impending danger in which the
most poignant solicitude was mixed.
"Now," said Peter, weighing his words with odd deliberation, "you're
going to hear something that'll shake you out of your smug
self-complacency and your pitiful belief that everything is all right in
this house--You're a good man, a better man than the average father.
There's nothing in your life that isn't to your credit. Even since you
had children you've worked like a dog to give them a better education
than you had, and you've gone without things to provide us with money
and make things easy. We all know that and we're grateful. We all know
that we ought to be proud of you as a doctor--as a man who has made
discoveries and added to the scientific knowledge of your profession.
Well, we _are_ proud of you. But in the last words that you'll hear me
speak I'm going to tell you what you've failed to do and why, in spite
of all your kindness and unselfishness, not one of your children
respects you or loves you, and why I, your eldest son, have got to put
an end to myself because of your neglect."
Dr. Guthrie sprang to his feet. The calculated cruelty of this
indictment was more than he could endure. "What does this mean? If you
don't respect and love me, the others do. In what way have I neglected
you?" He stood up to Peter like a man, whipped into sudden anger.
Peter liked that. It meant that he could hit out and put facts into
naked words without feeling that he was ill-treating a weakling. "That's
what I'm going to tell you," he said. "But there's lots of time and I'm
not going to leave anything out. What makes you think the others respect
and love you? Do they ever tell you so? Do they ever tell you anything?
Do they ever go out of their way to come in here for a little talk? And
if they did come in would you get out of your shell far enough for them
to see that you're a human being? Would you meet them half-way in their
desire to get something besides your money from you? Have you ever once
in your life been sufficiently inspired with a sense of your
responsibility as to make you get up and leave your work and come among
us to play with our toys and get known? Have you ever once in all the
years that we've been growing up been courageous or wise enough to take
Graham or me for a walk and tell us _any one_ thing that we ought to
know? In what way have you ever neglected us? In the most vital way of
all. We could have done without your money and the education that you've
been so delighted to give us. We could have done without comfort and
servants and good food and easy times. They mean nothing in the sum
total of things that count. Most men never have them at the beginning.
They make them. What you've never given us is _yourself_. And we
_needed_ you. What you've never given us is common sense. You've been a
good father in every inessential way, but no father at all in all that
goes to make us men. You've lived in a fool's paradise. You've let us
find our own way. You've not given us one human talk--one simple
fact--one word of warning. You've utterly neglected us because you're a
coward and you've hoped and trusted that others might tell us what
you've been afraid to say. Afraid,--to your own flesh and blood,--think
of it!" The Doctor cried out again. He realized much of the truth of all
this. He had confessed himself to be painfully shy to his wife many
times and had spent God knew how many anxious hours wondering how he
could get to know his boys. But it was too much to stand and be whipped
by his son.
"There are thousands of fathers who hold my views and act as I have
acted," he said.
"And there are so many thousands of sons who have to pay for those views
that you and men like you spend your lives in trying to save them."
The Doctor drew in his breath. "Wh--what d'you mean?" he stammered.
"Ah! that gets you, doesn't it? Now you're beginning to see what I'm
driving at, don't you? Put your mind back to the night you found Graham
here with me. You saved him from forging your name, and that was good.
But what led him up to that? Did you ask yourself? Did you go to Graham
and gain his confidence? Did you wonder whether there was a woman behind
it all who would never have come into his life if you had dealt by him
like a man and a father,--the sort of woman who has made necessary these
things round your laboratory and caused you to bend over your
experiments for years and years?"
"Good God! What do you mean?"
Peter raised his voice. "Why should your sons be immune? What have _you_
ever done to render them so? Why am I now standing here with this
revolver in my hand? Look at me! A few hours ago I had health and
everything in the world that makes life worth living, except a father.
At this moment, because I've never had a father, I'm so terrified that I
should be a criminal if I married the girl I love that I'm going to kill
myself."
"Why? What have you done?"
"I've been two nights in the bed of the sort of woman whose work you are
trying to undo."
The Doctor staggered, and then rose up in his wrath. "_You_ have? You,
_my_ son,--with such a mother--with such home influence! You mean to
tell me that you've descended to such depths of immorality that you've
gone back on everything that your education has made of you? It's
unthinkable--unbelievable. You must be a mere animal to have done such a
thing."
What else he would have said in his emotion and horror no one can say.
A cry of pain and rage rang out. The injustice of his father's narrow,
inhuman point of view, his inability to show him, even by his impending
death, that he must wake up to his duty and stand by Graham and his
sisters, sent the blood into Peter's fevered brain.
"My God!" he cried. "You dare to talk like that to me? You dare to kick
me in the face after I've told you that I'm ignorant--without listening
to my explanation as to how I got into that woman's apartment. All
right, then, I'm not going to be the only one to pay. You shall take
your share of it. The sins of the children are brought about by the
neglect of the fathers, and we'll go and stand together before the Judge
to-night for a verdict on that count."
He raised the revolver, aimed it at his father's head, put his finger on
the trigger----
There was a blinding flash of lightning. A yellow quivering flame
seemed to cut the room in half between the two angry men----
An instant later the Doctor saw Peter standing with both hands over his
face. The unfired revolver lay on the table in all its ugliness. And
presently, when he had realized what had happened, he went nearer. "God
didn't intend that you should do that," he said. And then his voice
broke and he went forward to put his arms round Peter's shoulders. "Give
me another chance, my dearest boy!" he cried. "Give me another chance!"
But before he could reach his son the great big hurt boy crumpled and
fell in a heap at his feet.