The Pagans Part 28

x.x.xI.

HE SPEAKS THE MERE CONTRARY.

Love's Labor's Lost; i.--1.

"Edith," Arthur Fenton said, looking up from his paper at breakfast that morning, "Dr. Ashton is dead."

"Dead!" she exclaimed.

Her husband's indifferent tone shocked her. She was not without an unphrased feeling that death was so sacred or at least so solemn a subject that it should be treated with reverence. Any jesting upon it made her cringe, and the light mention of it seemed to her almost immoral.

"So the paper says," replied he; and he read aloud the paragraph containing the announcement of Dr. Ashton's sudden death from heart disease. "It is too bad," he commented. "He was a mighty smart fellow and square as a brick. I wonder what made him do it now."

"Made him do what?" she asked. "How strangely you talk. Made him die?"

"Yes; that's what I meant. I knew he had a trouble which would probably make him do it sooner or later, but I'd no idea it would come so soon."

"Arthur, what do you mean," Edith repeated, the tears coming into her eyes. "I don't like to hear you speak of death so--so--flippantly."

"Flippantly, my dear?" returned he. "I'm sure I don't know why you should use that word. If a man takes his life, why shouldn't I speak of it,--to you, that is; of course I should not in public."

"Takes his life!" she cried. "Do you mean--"

"Of course I know nothing about it," her husband replied as coolly as ever, and watching sharply the effect of his words; "but I presume Will took poison, poor old fellow."

She sank back in her chair, white and trembling.

"It is what might have been expected," she said. "It almost seems as if Providence measured to him the portion of poor Frontier."

"Providence is noted for close observance of the _lex talionis_"

sneered Arthur, "but Dr. Ashton didn't believe in the existence of that functionary, so it really ought to have pa.s.sed him by. It would certainly have been more dignified."

"But, oh!" she cried out, apparently not hearing or not heeding his last words, "into what sort of a world have you brought me, Arthur? Are all your friends so desperate that they think only of taking their own lives? Have they no faith, no hope, no beyond? I feel as if it were all a dreadful nightmare! It cannot be you alone, for Mrs. Greyson and Dr.

Ashton--Oh, Arthur, where has religion, where has morality gone? Oh, I cannot understand it! I cannot bear it!"

She laid her bowed head on her arms upon the pretty breakfast table, and sobbed as if her heart would break. Her husband looked at her with intense irritation, and an inward curse that he had ever married her.

He sipped his coffee; he noted with admiration the rich, glowing hues of the dull blue bowl of nasturtiums which adorned the table.

"There, Edith," he said at length, "it is rather idle to cry over the sins of your neighbors. According to your creed each of us has enough of his own derelictions to answer for, without going abroad for things to repent. As for religion, I suppose girls who do Kensington work will use it for decorative purposes for some time to come, but thinking people long ago outgrew such folly. In regard to my friends, it is all a question of standards, as I've said no end of times. From my point of view they are very sensible people, and you a little bigot. Grant Herman believes some pious nonsense, though he has too good taste to obtrude it, and I dare say Bently and Rangely have their superst.i.tions.

There are probably ten thousand people in this good city of Boston--and for aught I know a hundred thousand--who believe, or, if you like, disbelieve, as I do."

"It cannot be true," was Edith's reply. "But if it is so, it is too sad to think of."

"Why, I suspect," Arthur continued lightly, "that the Pagans regard me as too orthodox lately, though you'd hardly agree with them."

She made no reply, and Arthur continued his breakfast in silence. The sun shone in at the windows, the soft coal fire sputtered in the grate, and to all appearance the room was full of cheerfulness. Edith leaned her head upon her hand and reflected sadly. She resolved that her husband should be weaned from the Pagans, if that were within her power. She seemed to herself to relinquish joy in life, and to devote herself wholly to duty.

The entrance of a servant with the morning letters interrupted further conversation, until Arthur tossed his wife a letter which Dr. Ashton had mailed at the same time he posted the missive which Helen received later in the day.

"There, you see," Fenton remarked. "Of course I show it to you in confidence."

The room swam before Edith as she read, but she forced herself to be outwardly calm, as she ran her eye over this note:

DEAR ARTHUR:--

I've a strong presentiment--and although I disbelieve in presentiments, mine generally come true--that in about half an hour my obituary will be in order. Certain easily foreseen contingencies have determined me to give it up. I shall never have a better chance to make my exit dramatically, and you've often a.s.sured me that that is the chief thing to consider in this connection. I've contemplated such a possibility long enough to have my affairs in order, and doubtless your wife will have a ma.s.s or two said for the repose of my soul. If you ever have a chance to do Helen a good turn, you may regard it as a personal favor to my ghost to do it. I've left you my Diaz as a sort of propitiatory sop.

Yours, of course, as ever, W. A.

"Oh, Arthur, Arthur!" Edith sobbed, breaking down again. "It is awful!

It is just as he always talked. It is as light as if he were going out to drive."

"Naturally," was the response. "If you fancy Will would cry baby at death, you knew him far from as well as I did. How strange it is to think of his being in the past tense, poor fellow. It was clever of him to leave me his Diaz; I always coveted it."

In the face of this, what was there for Edith to say. She was simply numbed to silence, and horror at her husband for the time deadened all sense of the shock of Dr. Ashton's death. It was not until later in the day that she was able to think of Helen.

"But, Arthur," she said then, "Mrs. Greyson?"

"Well; what of Mrs. Greyson?"

"I am going to see her."

"After your last night's indignation?"

"I may have been wrong," Mrs. Fenton said bravely, "I may have been hard. I realize every day how little I am able to judge for other people. Perhaps I am narrow, as you say. At least now her husband is dead I can show her my sympathy; and since I know more of him, it does not seem so strange that she left him."

"They left each other," he responded to these contradictory words. "But what can you say? The consolations of religion will hardly be available, and Helen never pretended to love Ashton?"

His tone wounded her, but she answered without a change of countenance:

"The death of the man who has been her husband can never be indifferent to any true woman. I shall not force her to listen to any religion she does not wish to hear."

x.x.xII.

A SYMPATHY OF WOE.

t.i.tus Andronicus; iii.--I.

"I am afraid you will think me intrusive," was Edith's hesitating greeting to Helen, "but I could not help coming. I thought you might feel lonely."