"I will go to him," I said; and before I went I said just a few words of sympathy,—something about how God loved them both, and would care for them still, and how she must try to rest her troubles on Him. Then I passed on to the room behind.
He looked up at me, poor fellow, in his helplessness: a kind of sad protesting look, yet braver than hers, not so crushed.
"My poor little woman is terrible upset, ma'am," he said. "The doctor's let it out at last. Not but what I've been pretty sure."
I sat down by him, and said—
"I could wish you had not asked yet."
"Think so, ma'am? I don't know as it's any good not knowing." Then he said, in almost his wife's words, "If a thing's got to be—"
"If God wills it for you, then you will be willing too," I said.
"Ay, that's a better way of putting it," he said. "But I won't deny it's hard to bear. It is hard!" and his face showed what he felt. "Me, that's always been so strong, and maybe I've thought too much of my strength; me to come down to this, and be a burden on them I'd ought to work for! It is hard."
"But you do not really know that it will be so always," I said. "The doctor did not say that."
"He said he couldn't promise I'd ever be up and about again."