"Mine would be worse," said Dr. Lavendar, thoughtfully. "But look out for it, Harriet. It's getting ahead of you."
Miss Harriet nodded. "You're right."
"You see, when you are out of temper it shows you are suffering; and that's hard for us to bear—not the temper, of course, but the knowledge. So you've got to spare us, Harriet. Understand?"
"I understand."
"It will be hard work for you," he said, cheerfully; and somehow the words meant, not pity, but "Shoulder arms!"
For an instant they gazed, eye to eye—the woman devoured by pain, the old man with his calm demand; and then the soul of her rose with a shout. What! there was something left for her to do? She need not merely sit still and die? She need not wait idly for the end? It was a splendid summons to the mind—a challenge to the body that had dogged and humiliated the soul, that had wrung from her good-humored courage irritability and unjust anger, that had dragged her pride in the dust of shame, yes, even—even (alone, and in the dark), but even of tears.
"Make it as easy as possible for those that stand by."
Some might say that that austere command was the lash of the whip; but to Miss Harriet it was the rod and the staff. The Spartan old man had suddenly revealed to her that as long as the body does not compel the soul, there is no shame. As long as she could hold her tongue, she said to herself, she need not be ashamed. Let the body whimper as it may, if the soul is silent it is master. Miss Harriet saw before her, not humiliation and idleness and waiting, but fierce struggle.... And it was a struggle. It was no easy thing to be amiable when good Maria Welwood wept over her; or when Martha King told her, flatly and frankly, that she was doing very wrong not to make more effort to eat; or even when Mrs. Dale hoped that she had made her peace with Heaven.
"Heaven had better try to make its peace with me, considering," said Miss Harriet, grimly; but when she saw how she had shocked Mrs. Dale, she made haste to apologize. "I didn't mean it, of course. But I am nervous, and say things to let off steam." Such an admission meant much from Miss Harriet, and it certainly soothed Mrs. Dale.
But most of all, Harriet Hutchinson forbade her body to dictate to her soul when Miss Annie hung whimpering about her with frantic persistence of pity. Never in all their years together had Miss Harriet shown such tenderness to Annie as now, when the poor old child's mere presence was maddening to her. For Annie could think of nothing but the pain which could not be hidden, and her incessant entreaty was that it should be stopped. "Wouldn't you rather be dead, sister?"