The Angel of Pain

by E. F. Benson

Madge read this through once without comprehension: the predominant feeling in her mind was that it was some kind stranger who was writing to her; she did not know the man. Yet even as she read there were things very familiar to her: Philip somehow was in it all. Then at the second reading the simplicity and clearness of it—that which Mrs. Home had called business-like—made itself felt, and it was Philip, after all, the potential Philip. But some immense change had happened, yet immense though it was, she saw now it was no stranger who had written it, but he himself, only—only he had learned something, as he said.

But how his begging for her forgiveness cut her to the heart! That he should do this, while it was she whose part it was, only she had not been woman enough. She had been sorry—God knows she had been sorry for him, and sorry for her own part in the catastrophe of July. But she had known it was inevitable, she could not have married him, she could not have done otherwise than marry Evelyn, and it was perhaps this sense that she was but a tool in the hands of the irresistible law which had excused her to herself, so that she had said almost that it was the Power that made them all three what they were that had done this. And thus her human pity and sorrow had been veiled. But now that veil was plucked aside; whatever great and inexorable laws ruled feeling and action, nothing could alter the fact that here was she, unhappy and sick at heart, and that another man, who loved her, unhappy, too, was man enough to forget his own unhappiness, to forget, too, that it was she who, willing or unwilling, had brought it on him, and let himself be guided only by the divine and human impulse of Pity, so that he desired nothing in the world more than to be allowed to help her.

Yet how bitter it was, somehow, that it should be he of all men in the world who should offer to help. And his offer was so humble, yet so assured, it was made so simply, and yet—here was Philip’s hand again—so authoritatively. “You will want someone with you to look after you....” That was Philip, too, and though it was all bitter, what unspeakable comfort it was to feel that somebody strong and tender was waiting to take care of them, only asking to be allowed to take care of them. In spite of Lady Dover and all her kindness, Madge felt so lonely: no one could understand that so well as Philip, who had felt lonely, too.

And Tom Merivale was dead! Ah, what was happening to the world? Was happiness being slowly withdrawn from it, leaving misery only there? It seemed indeed as if sorrow, like some dreadful initiation, had to be submitted to by everyone, even those who appeared to have been born in the royal purple of happiness. How much had come into her own immediate circle in so short a time! To Merivale it had come in so blinding and overwhelming a flood that it had killed him who had radiated happiness. To Evelyn, it had come, blinding, also, and that cruel stroke, more cruel because it was so illogical, like the blasting of the tree by lightning down in the Forest, had stricken her, too, and had not perhaps dealt its worst blow yet. It had come to Philip through her in a way perhaps not less illogical. For it was not in her to control love or not to love; her meeting with Evelyn, her loving him, was as much an accident as the descent of the lightning-flash or the scattering of the lead pellets. Yet Philip had not died, and though he might have said that his life was wrecked, that all that remained for him was hatred and despair, he had struggled to shore, he stood there now strong and unembittered, and held out his hands to her. He had learned something it seemed from these accidents. He had learned, perhaps, not to call them accidents. Was he right? Were these vague lines part of a pattern, of a design so huge that she could not yet see it was a design at all?

Madge had forgotten about her breakfast; it lay still untasted, while she mused with wide eyes. And as this struck her, she stood up and pushed her plate from her. Greatly as she had grown in human strength and tenderness, since that day so few weeks ago, when she had promised to marry Philip, she felt now suddenly like a little child, who wanted to be led. There were dark places, she knew, before her. She must try not to be frightened, she must realise that there was nothing to be frightened about. And thus, feebly, hesitatingly, she put out her hand.

TWENTY-SECOND