"If," he roared; "indeed, Mrs. Thorpe, there is no 'if' about it; he will be taken worse." Then with the heart of one who knows he has maimed, but craves to kill, he said: "Don't you know that your husband is going to die?"
Mrs. Thorpe paled to the lips. She looked the man steadily in the face, but no words came to her.
He saw that she did not shriek nor cry aloud; she did not faint nor fall; and with all the malevolence in his nature he made another thrust.
"There was a time," he said, "when I believed that you would leave your husband free in the world, but the tables have turned. Why, permit me to ask, do you not turn some of your witchcraft on him? What is fair for one ought to be fair for another. You saved yourself by some devilish machination, but you are little inclined, it seems, to save your husband by the same process."
The horror and resentment of Mrs. Thorpe's outraged soul were depicted upon her face and gleamed from her dilated eyes. She had trained her mind to dwell on the divine attributes in man; but alas, how human, how very human, she felt this passion to be that possessed her now! Her blood was like fire in her veins, a strange noise was in her ears and hot, scathing words leaped to her lips.
"Dr. Eldrige," she said, and the words came keen and sharp; all her anguish and passionate anger were there, but she caught her breath sharply and stopped. Then again: "Dr. Eldrige--" Her voice wavered, fell and broke. She turned and walked to the window. The doctor began drawing on his gloves, his hand was on the door. Then she walked back to him. Her face was white, her eyes fathomless. "You are my husband's physician," she said. "I have no quarrel with you." Her voice was even, guardedly calm.
The doctor regarded her curiously. He had read her horror and resentment and with the utmost exactness he read her passion and her anguish; now he as surely read her victory. His ill-will toward her did not soften. He stood with his cane and medicine case in his hand, ready to go, and without a word he turned and left her.
A lightning flash will sometimes cause objects and outlines to stand out with more distinctness than does the noonday sun. The keen flash of her bitter passion revealed to Mrs. Thorpe what the long summer days had not disclosed.
Why had she not been free and frank with her husband and confessed to him the change that had come into her life? Why had she shut her blessing in her own heart and uttered no word to those about her?
The consciousness that had come to her of the power of Truth over all evil and error never wavered nor failed. The actual demonstration of what she had experienced was manifested in her own life.