Thus David was drawn into the business.
[But this doesn't sound very credible, you will say. "If the
husband felt he could not face the agony of death by cancer, why
didn't he leave a note saying so, and every one would have
understood and been quite 'nice' about it?" I really can't say.
Perhaps he wished to leave trouble for her behind him; perhaps he
divined the reason why she thought a day nurse unnecessary, and
insisted on giving him his day medicines with her own fair hands.
Perhaps he hoped for an open verdict. Perhaps he wasn't quite right
in his mind. I have told you the story as I remember it and my
memory is not perfect. Personally I've always been a bit sorry for
Grimthorpe. It is quite possible that all those hints as to his
"queerness" were invented by his wife to excuse herself. I only know
that Science benefited greatly from his researches, and that he
bequeathed some priceless collections to both branches of the
British Museum. Some one once told me he had a heart somewhere and
had loved intensely a sister much younger than himself and had only
begun to be "queer" and secretive and bald after her premature
death. I think also that in the last year of his life he was greatly
embittered at not getting the expected peerage; after the trouble
and disagreeableness he had gone through to obtain heirs for this
distinction this poor little attempt at immortality which it is in
the power of a Prime Minister to bestow.
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