The wretched victims of that vile system
might die unseen and unpitied in some hideous back slum, without
touching one chord of remorse or regret in Dr. Merrick's nature.
He was steeled against their suffering. Or again, if Alan had sold
his virility for gold to some rich heiress of his set, like Ethel
Waterton--had bartered his freedom to be her wedded paramour in a
loveless marriage, his father would not only have gladly
acquiesced, but would have congratulated his son on his luck and
his prudence. Yet, because Alan had chosen rather to form a
blameless union of pure affection with a woman who was in every way
his moral and mental superior, but in despite of the conventional
ban of society, Dr. Merrick had cast him off as an open reprobate.
And why? Simply because that union was unsanctioned by the
exponents of a law they despised, and unblessed by the priests of a
creed they rejected. Alan saw at once it is not the intrinsic
moral value of an act such people think about, but the light in
which it is regarded by a selfish society.
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