Secret Places of the Heart Part 34

"There was a sort of dishonesty in his kindness. He would not let you have the bitter truth. He would not say he did not love you....

"He was too kind to life ever to call it the foolish thing it is. He took it seriously because it takes itself seriously. He worked for it and killed himself with work for it...."

She turned to Dr. Martineau and her face was streaming with tears.

"And life, you know, isn't to be taken seriously. It is a joke--a bad joke--made by some cruel little G.o.d who has caught a neglected planet.... Like torturing a stray cat.... But he took it seriously and he gave up his life for it.

"There was much happiness he might have had. He was very capable of happiness. But he never seemed happy. This work of his came before it. He overworked and fretted our happiness away. He sacrificed his happiness and mine."

She held out her hands towards the doctor. "What am I to do now with the rest of my life? Who is there to laugh with me now and jest?

"I don't complain of him. I don't blame him. He did his best--to be kind.

"But all my days now I shall mourn for him and long for him...."

She turned back to the coffin. Suddenly she lost every vestige of self-control. She sank down on her knees beside the trestle. "Why have you left me!" she cried.

"Oh! Speak to me, my darling! Speak to me, I TELL YOU! Speak to me!"

It was a storm of pa.s.sion, monstrously childish and dreadful. She beat her hands upon the coffin. She wept loudly and fiercely as a child does....

Dr. Martineau drifted feebly to the window.

He wished he had locked the door. The servants might hear and wonder what it was all about. Always he had feared love for the cruel thing it was, but now it seemed to him for the first time that he realized its monstrous cruelty.

THE END