With that purpose in view, the doctor had written to Mrs.Gallilee.
Before he laid down his pen, he looked once more at Mr.Morphew's letter, and paused thoughtfully over one line: "I am writing to your brother Lemuel by this mail." The information of which he was in search might be in _that_ letter.
If Mrs.Gallilee's correspondence with her son failed to enlighten him, here was another chance of making the desired discovery.

Surely the wise course to take would be to write to Lemuel as well.
His one motive for hesitating was dislike of his younger brother--dislike so inveterate that he even recoiled from communicating with Lemuel through the post.
There had never been any sympathy between them; but indifference had only matured into downright enmity, on the doctor's part, a year since.
Accident (the result of his own absence of mind, while he was perplexed by an unsuccessful experiment) had placed Lemuel in possession of his hideous secret.

The one person in the world who knew how he was really occupied in the laboratory, was his brother.
Here was the true motive of the bitterly contemptuous tone in which Benjulia had spoken to Ovid of his nearest relation.

Lemuel's character was certainly deserving of severe judgment, in some of its aspects.

In his hours of employment (as clerk in the office of a London publisher) he steadily and punctually performed the duties entrusted to him.