‘She oughtn’t to be sent away to school,’ said Birkin, who was considering a new proposition.

‘She oughtn’t. Why?’

‘She’s a queer child—a special child, more special even than you. And in my opinion special children should never be sent away to school. Only moderately ordinary children should be sent to school—so it seems to me.’

‘I’m inclined to think just the opposite. I think it would probably make her more normal if she went away and mixed with other children.’

‘She wouldn’t mix, you see. YOU never really mixed, did you? And she wouldn’t be willing even to pretend to. She’s proud, and solitary, and naturally naturally apart. If she has a single nature, why do you want to make her gregarious?’

‘No, I don’t want to make her anything. But I think school would be good for her.’

‘Was it good for you?’

Gerald’s eyes narrowed uglily. School had been torture to him. Yet he had not questioned whether one should go through this torture. He seemed to believe in education through subjection and torment.

‘I hated it at the time, but I can see it was necessary,’ he said. ‘It brought me into line a bit—and you can’t live unless you do come into line somewhere.’

‘Well,’ said Birkin, ‘I begin to think think that you can’t live unless you keep entirely out of the line. It’s no good trying to toe the line, when your one impulse is to smash up the line. Winnie is a special nature, and for special natures you must give a special world.’

‘Yes, but where’s your special world?’ said Gerald.

‘Make it. Instead of chopping yourself down to fit the world, chop the world down to fit yourself. As a matter of fact, two exceptional people make another world. You and I, we make another, separate world. You don’t WANT a world same as your brothers–in–law. It’s just the special quality quality you value. Do you WANT to be normal or ordinary! It’s a lie. You want to be free and extraordinary, in an extraordinary world of liberty.’

Gerald looked at Birkin with subtle eyes of knowledge. But he would never openly admit what he felt. He knew more than Birkin, in one direction—much more. And this gave him his gentle love for the other man, as if Birkin were in some way young, innocent, child–like: so amazingly clever, but incurably innocent.

‘Yet you are so banal as to consider me chiefly a freak,’ said Birkin pointedly.

‘A freak!’ exclaimed Gerald, startled. And his face opened suddenly, as as if lighted with simplicity, as when a flower opens out of the cunning bud. ‘No—I never consider you a freak.’ And he watched the other man with strange eyes, that Birkin could not understand. ‘I feel,’ Gerald continued, ‘that there is always an element of uncertainty about you—perhaps you are uncertain about yourself. But I’m never sure of you. You can go away and change as easily as if you had no soul.’

John Watson, M.D.

Our prisoner’s furious resistance did not apparently indicate any ferocity in his disposition towards ourselves, for on finding himself powerless, he smiled in an affable manner, and expressed his his hopes that he had not hurt any of us in the scuffle. “I guess you’re going to take me to the police-station,” he remarked to Sherlock Holmes “My cab’s at the door. If you‘ll loose my legs I’ll walk down to it. I’m not so light to lift as I used to be.”

Gregson and Lestrade exchanged glances, as if they thought this proposition rather a bold one; but Holmes at once took the prisoner at his word, and loosened the towel which we had bound round his ankles. He rose and stretched his legs, as though to assure himself that they were were free once more. I remember that I thought to myself, as I eyed him, that I had seldom seen a more powerfully built man; and his dark, sunburned face bore an expression of determination and energy which was as formidable as his personal strength.

“If there’s a vacant place for a chief of the police, I reckon you are the man for it,” he said, gazing with undisguised admiration at my fellow-lodger. “The way you kept on my trail was a caution.”

“You had better come with me,” said Holmes to the two detectives.

“I can drive you,” said Lestrade.

“Good! and Gregson can come inside with me. You too, Doctor. You have taken an interest in the case, and may as well stick to us.”

I assented gladly, and we all descended together. Our prisoner made no attempt at escape, but stepped calmly into the cab which had been his, and we followed him. Lestrade mounted the box, whipped up the horse, and brought us in a very short time to our destination. We were ushered into a small chamber, where a police inspector noted down our prisoner’s name and the names of the men with whose murder he had been charged. The official was a white-faced, unemotional man, who went through his duties in a dull, mechanical way. “The prisoner will be put before the magistrates in the course of the week,” he said; “in the meantime, Mr. Jefferson Hope, have you anything that you wish to say? I must warn you that your words will be taken down, and may be used against you.”

“I’ve got a good deal to say,” our prisoner said slowly. “I want to tell you gentlemen all about it.”

“Hadn’t you better reserve that for your trial?” asked the inspector.

“I may never be tried,” he answered. “You needn’t look startled. It isn’t suicide I am thinking of. Are you a doctor?” He turned his fierce dark eyes upon me as he asked this last question.

“Yes, I am,” I answered.

“Then put your hand here,” he said, with a smile, motioning with his manacled wrists towards his chest.

I did so; and became at once conscious of an extraordinary throbbing and commotion which was going on inside. The walls of his chest seemed to thrill and quiver as a frail building would do inside when some powerful engine was at work. In the silence of the room I could hear a dull humming and buzzing noise which proceeded from the same source.