Galna it was who has dramatized it for me best. A dreadful suicide it was, no horror lacking. Galna, alone in the house—alone, save for her maid and that shocking wreck of one she had loved. And in her anguish, her despair, her bewilderment, the telephone bell rang. Lo, Mrs. Spick, kind, effusive Mrs. Spick, had rung her up to coo conventional condolence.
“And now, if there is anything I can do, Galna,” she concluded, “be sure and let me know!”
Ah, my friend, sometime you, too, must have suffered — suffered and known not where to turn; and, as sure as most hearts, alas, are ignorant, sometime you, too, must have heard that frightful phrase — that mockery of friendship. The very epitaph it is upon the grave of affection: “If there is anything I can do, be sure and let me know!”
But as Galna, dazed, lonely, aching, staggered back to her room, behold, upon her bed she saw an unfamiliar thing. Tear-blinded, she groped for it. A hundred-dollar bill!
“Why, where did this come from?” she asked, wondering.
“Oh, Miss Felice left it there,” said her maid, “she thought perhaps you might happen to be short of money.”
“Felice?”
“Yes, she’s downstairs now, helping wash the dishes and putting the parlor to rights, and sending telegrams.”
Ah, Felice needed no one to “let her know” what to do. She had imagination. She had the Educated Heart.
For the Educated Heart always knows. “He seeth with his heart.” The language of suffering, ordinarily, can no more be learned without experience than can the language of Mars; but upon some blessed few, in this world, thank God, has fallen the Gift of Tongues.