"Well, where have you been? Is there something new on with the
Anarchists? I have seen so little of you for the past six months that I
feel quite out of the world--your world at least."
It was a great relief to me to find my brother so conversable. We had
both been so occupied of late in our respective ways that we had had but
scant opportunity for talk or companionship. Raymond had now started
practising on his own account; he was popular with his poor patients in
the crowded slums round King's Cross, amongst whom his work chiefly lay,
and day and night he toiled in their midst. Certainly the sights he saw
there were not calculated to destroy his revolutionary longings, though
they were often such as might well have made him doubt of the ultimate
perfectibility of the human race.
"Oh, I am so glad to find you, Raymond, and I should enjoy a nice long
talk together; but you must be tired; you have, I suppose, only just come
in after working all night?"
He explained to me that he had been summoned after midnight to attend a
poor woman's confinement, and had stayed with her till past four, when,
feeling more inclined for a walk than for his bed, he had wandered off in
the direction of Highgate and had only just got home.
"By the way, Isabel," he said, "as I was coming down the Caledonian Road
I met your friend Armitage. He is a good fellow whom I have always liked,
so I stopped him and we had a chat.
Pages:
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252