“I really don’t see any use in it,” replied the invalid. “If you will look in the newspapers under the obituary head the eleventh or twelfth of next month, you will probably get all the information in regard to me that will be important.”
“Cruel and unjust!” said the husband. “Have you no forgiveness in your heart?”
“Forgiveness? Trampled on, my heart has given out love and duty in the hope of finding some spot in your own heart which avarice and self-seeking had not yet petrified. But I despair of doing aught to change your nature. I must leave you to God and circumstance. Neither you nor any other offender shall lack my forgiveness, however; for in that I only give what I supremely need. Farewell.”
“Good by, since you will not let me try to make amends for the past,” said Charlton; and he quitted the room.
Half sorry for her own harshness, and thinking she might have misjudged her husband’s present feelings, the invalid got Toussaint to help her into the next room, where she could look through the blinds. No sooner was Charlton in the street than he drew from his pocket the will, and walked slowly on as if feasting his eyes on its contents. With a gesture of exultation, he finally returned the paper to his pocket, and strode briskly up the street to Broadway.
“You see!” said the invalid, bitterly. “And I loved that man once! And there are worthy people who would say I ought to love him still. Love him? Tell my little Lulu to love a cat or a hawk. How can I love what I find on testing to be repugnant to my own nature? Tell me, Toussaint, does God require we should love what we know to be impure, unjust, cruel?”
“Ah, madame, the good God, I suppose, would have us love the wicked so far as to help them to get rid of their wickedness.”
“But there are some who will not be helped,” said the invalid. “Take the wickedness out of some persons, and we should deprive them of their very individuality, and practically annihilate them.”
“God knows,” replied Toussaint; “time is short, and eternity is long,—long enough, perhaps, to bleach the filthiest nature, with Christ’s help.”
“Right, Toussaint. What claim have I to judge of the capacities for redemption in a human soul? But there is a terrible mystery to me in these false conjunctions of man and woman. Why should the loving be united to the unloving and the brutal?”