"Yes," replied Mr. Lethbridge, in the innocence of his heart; "of course they do."
"Not a bit of it, my dear sir," said Kiss—"not a bit of it. They sympathize with the lovers because they are oppressed; because a villain is trying to ruin their happiness, is trying to separate them, is trying to blacken and damn the young fellow. That, my dear sir, is the secret of the interest the love-story creates. Without it the audience would regard it as so much wash—mere milk and water. The more the lovers are oppressed, the more the audience sympathizes with them. Pile on the agony; that is what a dramatist has to do. And a curious outcome of all this is to be found in the fact that the villain is now really the most popular character in a play. Presently he will command a larger salary than the leading man."
All this was very well as a matter of observation and disputation, but it did not provide for the meeting of the acceptance, and Mr. Lethbridge looked forward to the due date with a feeling of terror. Kiss could not meet the bill; Mr. Linton could not; and he could not.
He kept the trouble to himself, and all the more did it weigh upon him with terrible effect. The home in which they had been so happy from the first day of their marriage was slipping from him; the exposure would be a disgrace; the chances were that he would lose his situation at the bank; and what would become of him after that? He dared not think of it. Unconsciously he paced the rooms of the dear home, gazing at the old mementos with exaggerated affection. They were part of his life; to every small item some story was attached which invested it with a sweet and human interest. It was an additional torture that he had kept his secret from his wife.
"My dear," said his wife to him while he was dressing in the morning, "you were very restless last night."
"Was I?" he remarked, with a guilty air.
"Yes. You were tossing about for hours, and murmuring something about a bill."
"Oh," he said, "the bank business. It is beginning to tell upon me, perhaps."
"Nonsense," said Aunt Leth; "you want a little medicine."
"Yes," he said, meekly; "that must be it."