Saved. Cured. Great words and true in Saxham’s case as in many others. But though they are saved and cured they cannot ever forget. Their eyes have a characteristic look of alert, suspicious watchfulness. For wheresoever they move about the world, in the drawing-rooms of what is called Society, in the business circles of the City, in the barracks or the mining-camp, on the ship’s heaving deck or the floor of the Pullman carriage; amidst the sands of the Desert or the golden-rod of the prairie, or the red sand and dry karroo scrub of the lone veld, they will hear, when they least expect it, the thin, shrill hiss of the Asp that once bit them to the bone. Or supposing that they have forgotten in reality—so cleverly has the world pretended to!—with what a pang of mortal anguish Memory awakens. When you recognise the devil that once entered and possessed you, looking out of the eyes of your child. When Saxham lifted up his ashen face and looked at the portrait in the third leaf of the triptych frame and met the clear, candid gaze of his son’s blue eyes, you know what he was seeking, and praying not to find. To have given Lynette a drunkard for her son would be the most terrible penalty that could be exacted by merciless Nature for those five sodden, wasted years. Ah! to have had a clean, unspotted life to share with Bawne’s fair mother. That his priceless pearl of womanhood should gleam upon a drunkard’s hand—his spotless Convent lily have opened to fullest bloom in a drunkard’s holding, had been from the outset of their married life, verjuice in Saxham’s cup by day, and a thorn in his pillow by night. But never before had it occurred to the man of science, the great surgeon, the learned biologist, that relentless Nature might be saving up for him, Saxham, a special rod in saltest brine. Bawne.... He sat in silence with set teeth, asking himself the bitter question: "How could I have forgotten—Bawne?" *CHAPTER XIX* *BAWNE* As so often happens, the thought of the beloved heralded his well-known thump upon the door-panel. When had the Dop Doctor ever cried, "Come in!" with such a leaden sinking of the heart?