The Way to Peace [8]
It may be wrong, but that is not the point. We must do what we conceive to be our duty. Only, we've got to be sure, Tay, in deciding upon duty, in deciding what is right,-- we've got to be sure that self-interest is eliminated. I don't believe anybody can decide absolutely on what is right without eliminating self."
She frowned at this impatiently; its perfect fairness meant nothing to her.
"You promised to be my wife," he went on with a curious sternness; "it is obviously 'right,' and so it is your first duty to keep your promise-- at least, so long as my conduct does not absolve you from it." Then he added, hastily, with careful justice: "Of course, I'm not talking about promises to love; they are nonsense. Nobody can promise to love. Promises to do our duty are all that count."
That was the only reproach he made--if it was a reproach-- for his betrayed love. It was just as well. Discussion on this subject between husbands and wives is always futile. Nothing was ever accomplished by it; and yet, in spite of the verdict of time and experience that nothing is gained, over and over the jealous man, and still more frequently the jealous woman, protests against a lost love with a bitterness that kills pity and turns remorse into antagonism. But Lewis Hall made no reproaches. Perhaps Athalia missed them; perhaps, under her spiritual passion, she was piqued that earthly passion was so readily silenced. But, if she was, she did not know it. She was entirely sincere and intensely happy in a new experience. It was a long winter of argument;--and then suddenly, in early April, the break came. . . .
"I WILL go; I have a right to save my soul!"
And he said, very simply, "Well, Athalia, then I'll go, too."
"You? But you don't believe--" And almost in the Bible words he answered her, "No; but where you go, I will go; where you live, I will live." And then, a moment later, "I promised to cleave to you, little Tay."
II
THE uprooting of their life took a surprisingly short time. In all those dark months of argument Lewis Hall had been quietly making plans for this final step, and such preparation betrayed his knowledge from the first of the hopelessness of his struggle-- indeed, the struggle had only been loyalty to a lost cause. His calm assent to his wife's ultimatum left her a little blank; but in the immediate excitement of removal, in the thrill of martyrdom that came with publicity, the blankness did not last. What the publicity was to her husband she could not understand. He received the protests of his family in stolid silence; when the venturesome great-aunt told him what she thought of him, he smiled; when his brother informed him that he was a fool, he said he shouldn't wonder. When the minister, egged on by distracted Hall relatives, remonstrated, he replied, respectfully, that he was doing what he believed to be his duty, "and if it seems to be a duty, I can't help myself; you see that, don't you?" he said, anxiously. But that was practically all he found to say; for the most part he was silent. Athalia, in her absorption, probably had not the slightest idea of the agonies of mortification which he suffered; her imagination told her, truly enough, what angry relatives and pleasantly horrified neighbors said about her, and the abuse exhilarated her very much; but her imagination stopped there. It did not give her the family's opinion of her husband; it did not whisper the gossip of the grocery-store and the post-office; it did not repeat the chuckles or echo the innuendoes:
"So Squire Hall's wife's got tired of him? Rather live with the Shakers than him!" "I like Hall, but I haven't any sympathy with him," the doctor said; "what in thunder did he let her go gallivanting off to visit the Shakers for? Might have known a female like Mrs. Hall'd get a bee in her bonnet. He ought to have kept her at home. _I_ would have. I wouldn't have had any such nonsense in my family! Well, for an obstinate man (and he IS obstinate, you know), the squire, when it comes to his wife, has no more backbone
She frowned at this impatiently; its perfect fairness meant nothing to her.
"You promised to be my wife," he went on with a curious sternness; "it is obviously 'right,' and so it is your first duty to keep your promise-- at least, so long as my conduct does not absolve you from it." Then he added, hastily, with careful justice: "Of course, I'm not talking about promises to love; they are nonsense. Nobody can promise to love. Promises to do our duty are all that count."
That was the only reproach he made--if it was a reproach-- for his betrayed love. It was just as well. Discussion on this subject between husbands and wives is always futile. Nothing was ever accomplished by it; and yet, in spite of the verdict of time and experience that nothing is gained, over and over the jealous man, and still more frequently the jealous woman, protests against a lost love with a bitterness that kills pity and turns remorse into antagonism. But Lewis Hall made no reproaches. Perhaps Athalia missed them; perhaps, under her spiritual passion, she was piqued that earthly passion was so readily silenced. But, if she was, she did not know it. She was entirely sincere and intensely happy in a new experience. It was a long winter of argument;--and then suddenly, in early April, the break came. . . .
"I WILL go; I have a right to save my soul!"
And he said, very simply, "Well, Athalia, then I'll go, too."
"You? But you don't believe--" And almost in the Bible words he answered her, "No; but where you go, I will go; where you live, I will live." And then, a moment later, "I promised to cleave to you, little Tay."
II
THE uprooting of their life took a surprisingly short time. In all those dark months of argument Lewis Hall had been quietly making plans for this final step, and such preparation betrayed his knowledge from the first of the hopelessness of his struggle-- indeed, the struggle had only been loyalty to a lost cause. His calm assent to his wife's ultimatum left her a little blank; but in the immediate excitement of removal, in the thrill of martyrdom that came with publicity, the blankness did not last. What the publicity was to her husband she could not understand. He received the protests of his family in stolid silence; when the venturesome great-aunt told him what she thought of him, he smiled; when his brother informed him that he was a fool, he said he shouldn't wonder. When the minister, egged on by distracted Hall relatives, remonstrated, he replied, respectfully, that he was doing what he believed to be his duty, "and if it seems to be a duty, I can't help myself; you see that, don't you?" he said, anxiously. But that was practically all he found to say; for the most part he was silent. Athalia, in her absorption, probably had not the slightest idea of the agonies of mortification which he suffered; her imagination told her, truly enough, what angry relatives and pleasantly horrified neighbors said about her, and the abuse exhilarated her very much; but her imagination stopped there. It did not give her the family's opinion of her husband; it did not whisper the gossip of the grocery-store and the post-office; it did not repeat the chuckles or echo the innuendoes:
"So Squire Hall's wife's got tired of him? Rather live with the Shakers than him!" "I like Hall, but I haven't any sympathy with him," the doctor said; "what in thunder did he let her go gallivanting off to visit the Shakers for? Might have known a female like Mrs. Hall'd get a bee in her bonnet. He ought to have kept her at home. _I_ would have. I wouldn't have had any such nonsense in my family! Well, for an obstinate man (and he IS obstinate, you know), the squire, when it comes to his wife, has no more backbone