Lydgate did
not stay to think that she was Quixotic: he gave himself up,
for the first time in his life, to the exquisite sense of leaning
entirely on a generous sympathy, without any check of proud reserve.
And he told her everything, from the time when, under the pressure
of his difficulties, he unwillingly made his first application
to Bulstrode; gradually, in the relief of speaking, getting into
a more thorough utterance of what had gone on in his mind--
entering fully into the fact that his treatment of the patient
was opposed to the dominant practice, into his doubts at the last,
his ideal of medical duty, and his uneasy consciousness that the
acceptance of the money had made some difference in his private
inclination and professional behavior, though not in his fulfilment
of any publicly recognized obligation.
"It has come to my knowledge since," he added, "that Hawley sent
some one to examine the housekeeper at Stone Court, and she said
that she gave the patient all the opium in the phial I left,
as well as a good deal of brandy. But that would not have been
opposed to ordinary prescriptions, even of first-rate men.
The suspicions against me had no hold there: they are grounded
on the knowledge that I took money, that Bulstrode had strong
motives for wishing the man to die, and that he gave me the money
as a bribe to concur in some malpractices or other against
the patient--that in any case I accepted a bribe to hold my tongue.
Pages:
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148
1149
1150
1151
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156
1157
1158
1159
1160