“I? Oh! that was nothing! Wherever one is with one’s own belongings, there is home. It doesn’t matter for anything else. But it was more sad than words can say for poor papa. He had to move into the village to a little house. He bore it like a hero, thinking that it was best not to hide himself as if he had done any wrong. Misfortune and loss are not wrong. I want you,” she said, gently, having raised her head for that one profession of faith, but dropping into the usual quiet tone again, “to know exactly all about us before—”
“And did you ever see that—man again?”
The adjectives that were implied in the pause James Rowland made before he brought out the word “man” were lost upon Evelyn, who probably could not have imagined anything so forcible, not to say profane.
“Yes,” she said quietly, “often. We could not help it, to go anywhere he had to go through our village. He removed very soon, which was the kindest thing he could have done.”
“The vile cad!” said James Rowland between his teeth.
“What did you say?” she asked with a startled look: but the engineer did not repeat those words.
“I am sure I for one am very much obliged to him,” he said, getting up and walking about the room. “I’m not the man to object. He did the best thing he could have done for me. And you nursed your poor father till he died; and then you came from one trouble to another.”
“Oh, do not speak of that! My poor Harry—my darling brother! to lose his home and his inheritance, and to be banished away from all he loved; and then just when life was beginning to smile a little, to die! I cannot speak of that!”
Mr. Rowland walked about the room more quickly than ever. She had covered her face with her hands, and the hot heavy tears were falling upon her dress like rain. After many hesitations he came up to her, and put his hand on her shoulder. “Is that so bad,” he said, “if we really believe that the other life is the better life? We say so, don’t we? and no doubt he’s got something better to do there than railroads, and likes it better, now he’s there.”
She looked up at him startled, though the sentiment was common enough. It is a fine thing to be matter of fact on such a subject, and gives faith a solid reality which is denied to a more poetical view.