Then there flashed through me a contempt, a thorough disgust for those two things as if they were but slimy toads in the mire that were beneath my notice, and too nasty for me to touch or look at. With this latter feeling overpowering me, I escaped from what, had I remained a moment more, would have become a revenge, and I would have committed a terrible deed, not a crime, in killing them both, if I could. I think I would have been justified in doing this, and yet, and yet, there would have been a fearful remembrance of it ever afterward. I wonder why I acted as I did, and still am heartily glad that I did not act otherwise.
Mr. Jasper was my kindest friend when the shadow of death was over my house. He walked beside me to the cemetery, and stood beside me in the silence at the grave, and returned with me in the carriage. He scarcely spoke a word in all that time, but I felt the sympathy of his heart. The shadow of death brooded within my house, the stillness was awful, almost beyond endurance, and I was terribly alone. I could well apply the lines of Shelley to myself:
“As the earth when leaves are dead,
As the night when sleep is sped,
As the heart when joy is fled,
I am left lone, alone.”
CHAPTER XV.
The next morning my friend called, and we had a long conversation on the veranda. He said, “I was not a little surprised that you did not have the chaplain and no kind of service at the grave. Not that I personally was dissatisfied, but rather that you dared to go against the usual custom.”
I could not tell him the exact reason, which mainly was my dislike of the chaplain on account of his intimate companionship with the Hon. who had wrecked my life, so I said that I had no acquaintance with the chaplain; that according to social custom, as he had come last to the station, it was his place to call on us. If he had any interest in our religious welfare it was his duty to see us. If he was the shepherd and we the sheep, it was his place to look us up, and not ours to run after him. As he had never cared for us, either in health or in sickness, and we could live and die without his services, it seemed to me that we could be buried without his aid.
“Believe me,” he answered, “I am not finding fault or criticising, but only referred to your not following the usual custom, and am rather pleased that you had courage to do what you thought best. For myself, I would prefer a solemn chant, or such a hymn as ‘Abide with me,’ or any hymn that would lead us to think of eternal life. I object to the service for the dead, as given in the prayer-book, being used for everybody, saint and sinner alike; not that I would be a judge of the dead, yet we cannot always restrain our thoughts and judgments.