This skepticism merely kept Dave's impatience at a white
heat. "Very well, then," he argued, angrily, "let's say that I'm
wrong and you're right. Let's agree that I am his son. What of it?
What makes you think I've inherited--the damned thing? It isn't a
disease. Me, insane? Rot!" He laughed harshly, took another
uncertain turn around the room, then sank into his chair and
buried his face in his hands.
Ellsworth was more keenly distressed than his hearer imagined;
when next he spoke his voice was unusually gentle. "It IS a
disease, Dave, or worse, and there's no way of proving that you
haven't inherited it. If there is the remotest possibility that
you have--if you have the least cause to suspect--why, you
couldn't marry and--bring children into the world, now could you?
Ask yourself if you've shown any signs--?"
"Oh, I know what you mean. You've always said I go crazy when I'm-
-angry. Well, that's true. But it's nothing more than a villainous
temper. I'm all right again afterward."
"I wasn't thinking so much of that. But are you sure it's
altogether temper?" the judge insisted. "You don't merely lose
control of yourself; you've told me more than once that you go
completely out of your mind; that you see red and want to kill
and--" "Don't you?"
"I never felt the slightest desire to destroy, no matter how angry
I chanced to be.
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