to show me how meanly you regard all that is highest and purest in life.’
‘Shall I explain it? Women are very quick to get at realities, to see below the surface in conduct and profession. We become, you say, worldly as soon as we get into the world. Precisely because we have to be so wide awake to protect ourselves. We instinctively know the difference between the ring of false and true, and as we hear the false so much the oftener Your charge against us of want of real feeling is the result of your ignorance of women; you don’t see below the surface.’
‘Well now, apply all this to the present instance. What has your insight discerned in my proposed marriage to cause you to regard it as a piece of folly?’
‘Simply this. You ally yourself with some one from a class beneath your own. Such marriages very, very seldom prove anything but miserable, and
‘Well?’
‘I am quite sure you will make her miserable. You are marrying too young. Your character is not fixed. In a few years, before that, you will want to get rid of her.’
‘Well, that is at all events intelligible. And your grounds for the belief?’
‘You are inconstant, and you are ambitious. You might marry a woman from a class higher than your own, and when it is too late you will understand what you have lost.’
‘Worldly advantages, precisely.’
‘And how if your keen appreciation of worldly advantages results in your wife’s unhappiness?’
‘I deny the keen appreciation, in your sense.’
‘Of course you do. Come to me in ten years and tell me your opinion of women’s ways of thinking.’
This was the significant part of their conversation. Wilfrid came to land confirmed in his views; Mrs. Rossall, with the satisfaction of having prophesied uncomfortable things.
She had a letter on the following morning on which she recognised Beatrice Redwing’s bend. To her surprise, the stamp was of Dunfield. It proved that Beatrice was on a visit to the Baxendales. Her mother, prior to going to the Isle of Wight, had decided to accept an invitation to a house in the midland counties which Beatrice did not greatly care to visit; so the latter had used the opportunity to respond to a summons from her friends in the north, whom she had not seen for four years. Beatrice replied to a letter from Mrs. Rossall which had been forwarded to her.
After breakfast, Mrs. Rossall took her brother aside, and pointed out to him a paragraph in Beatrice’s letter. It ran thus:—
‘A very shocking thing has happened, which I suppose I may mention, as you will necessarily hear of it soon. Miss Hood’s father has committed suicide, poisoned himself; he was found dead on a common just outside the town. Nobody seems to know any reason, unless it was trouble of a pecuniary kind. Miss Hood is seriously ill. The Baxendales send daily to make inquiries, and I am afraid the latest news is anything but hopeful. She was to have dined with us here the day after her father’s death.’
There was no further comment; the writer went on to speak of certain peculiarities in the mode of conducting service at St. Luke’s church.
Mr. Athel read, and, in his manner, whistled low. His sister looked interrogation.
‘I suppose we shall have to tell him,’ said the former. ‘Probably he has no means of hearing.’
‘I suppose we must. He has been anxious at not receiving letters he expected.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I had a talk with him last night.’
‘Ah, so I thought. The deuce take it! Of course he’ll pack off on the moment. What on earth can have induced the man to poison himself?’
Such a proceeding was so at variance with Mr. Athel’s views of life that it made him seriously uncomfortable. It suggested criminality, or at least lunacy, both such very unpleasant things to be even remotely connected with. Poverty he could pardon, but suicide was really disreputable. From the philosophic resignation to which he had attained, he fell back into petulance, always easier to him than grave protest.
‘The deuce take it!’ he repeated.
Mrs. Rossall pointed to the words reporting Emily’s condition at the time of writing.
‘That was more than two days ago,’ she said meaningly.
‘H’m!’ went her brother.
‘Will you tell him?’
‘I suppose I must. Yes, it is hardly allowable even to postpone it. Where is he?’
Wilfrid was found in the hotel garden.
‘Your aunt has had a letter from Beatrice,’ Mr. Athel began, with the awkwardness of a comfortable Englishman called upon to break bad news. ‘She is staying in Dunfield.’
‘Indeed?’
‘There’s something in the letter you ought to know.’
Wilfrid looked anxiously.
‘It appears that Miss Hood’s father has—don’t let it be a shock to you—has just died, and died, in fact, by his own hands.’
