The crisis drives Katherine into spiritual anguish. Her anger at God resurfaces, and she wrestles with the feeling that virtue and divine justice may be illusions. When Dr. John Knott, the physician, arrives to test mechanical legs on Richard, Katherine must concede that her son must face his condition without her constant protection. Knott, blunt and unsentimental, insists that Richard learn to bear his lot independently, lest he grow “peevish” and “morbid.” In the meantime, a private exchange between Katherine and Julius March, the priest and tutor, reveals that March has long loved a woman he cannot marry because of his clerical vows—a confession that unsettles Katherine, who had relied on his impassive devotion.
In the sickroom, Dickie tells Katherine that the mechanical legs have failed and that “my feet are in the way”—the first time he has named his deformity aloud. He asks whether she will ever despise him. Katherine reassures him with passionate tenderness, vowing that her love is inexhaustible. Dickie then requests two acts of independence: a male valet (preferably Winter), and permission to ride. Katherine recoils at the thought of horsemanship, haunted by her husband’s death in a riding accident, but ultimately yields, weeping as she promises to be brave alongside him.
A subsequent episode finds Dickie at Farley Row, where the saddler Josiah Appleyard constructs a special saddle with holster-like supports. Here Dickie encounters Jackie Deeds, a broken-down postboy lingering in the dead coaching town, and is revolted by a traveling fair where human deformity is exhibited for money. He drives home through a thunderstorm, his mood shifting from pity to fierce defiance. That evening he claims his father’s place at the dinner table, deposing Colonel Ormiston, and insists on attending prayers in his father’s stall. In bed he questions his mother about wealth and security, having suddenly perceived how exposed the powerless can be.
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