‘It surprises you,’ said the old man slowly, perhaps a little sadly. ‘Yet there was a time——’ He moved and poked the fire into a sullen blaze. ‘I married,’ he said presently. ‘And she—well, I loved her, I think. It seems hard to remember now, it is so long ago, but I believe I had a heart then, and it was hers. She died.’ He poked the fire again, and most of it fell into the grate—it was all cinders by this time, and the younger man shivered. ‘It was well. Looking back upon it now,’ said the Professor coldly, ‘I am glad she died. She would have interfered with my studies. Her death left me free; but for that freedom, I should never have found out this.’ He tapped some papers lying loosely on the table—three or four pages, no more, with only a line or two upon them—vague suggestions of the great discovery that was to shake the world, so vague as to be useless to anyone but himself. ‘You had no children, then?’ asked Wyndham, who had never even heard that he was married until now. ‘One.’ The Professor paused, and the silence grew almost insupportable. ‘He, too, is dead. And that, too, is well. He was of no use. He only burdened the world.’ ‘But——’ ‘Not a question——’ The old man silenced him. ‘I cast him off.’ There was something terrible in the indifference with which he said this. ‘He was a fool—a criminal one. I heard later that he had married—no doubt as great a fool as himself. I hope so. Set a thief to catch a thief, you know.’ He laughed bitterly—the cruel, mirthless laugh of the embittered old. ‘For the rest, I know nothing,’ he said. ‘You made no inquiries?’ ‘None. Why should I?’ ‘He was your son.’ ‘Well, does that make a black thing white? No—no! My son—my child is here!’ He touched the loose papers with a loving hand. Wyndham did not pursue the subject further, and as if to show that it was ended, he stooped and threw some coals upon the fire that now seemed to be at its last gasp. A tiny smoke flew up between the fresh lumps, and after that came a little uncertain blaze. The fire had caught the coals. The Professor had gone back to his heart’s desire. ‘To see the blossom of my labour bear fruit—that is my sole, my last demand from life. I have so short a time to live that I would hasten the fulfilment of my hopes.’ ‘You mean——’ ‘That I want to see the drug used on a human being. I have approached the matter with some of the authorities at Kilmainham, with a view to getting a condemned criminal to experiment upon; but up to this I have been refused, and in such a presumptuous manner as leads me to fear I shall never receive a better answer. Surely a man respited for seven days, as has been the case occasionally, might as well risk those seven days in the cause of science.’ Wyndham shrugged his shoulders. ‘I have never met that man,’ said he. But the Professor did not hear him.