CHAPTER XVII.
DUTY’S BURDEN.
BY degrees Judge Burnham began to understand the woman whom he had chosen for his wife. Hitherto he had been in the habit of being governed by his own will, of bending forces to his strong purposes. Those occasional characters with whom he came in contact, who refused to be molded by him, he had good-naturedly let alone, crossing their path as little as possible, and teaching himself to believe that they were not worth managing, which was the sole reason why he did not manage them. But Ruth Erskine was a new experience—she would do what she believed to be the right thing; and she would not yield her convictions to be governed by his judgment. He could not manage her, and he had no wish to desert her. Clearly one of them must yield. The entire affair served to keep him in a perturbed state of mind.
Ruth grew more settled. Weeks went by, and her decisions were made, her plans formed, and she walked steadily toward their accomplishment. Not realizing it herself, she was yet engaged in making a compromise with her conscience. She believed herself, perhaps, to have done wrong in promising to become the wife of a man who ignored the principle which governed her life. She would not give back that promise, but she would make the life one of self-abnegation, instead of—what for one brief week it had seemed to her—a resting place, full of light. She would be his wife, but she would also be the mother of his daughters; she would live with them, for them; give up her plans, her tastes, her pursuits, for their sake. In short, she would assume the martyr’s garb in good earnest now, and wear it for a lifetime. The more repulsive this course seemed to her—and it grew very repulsive indeed—the more steadily she clung to it; and it was not obstinacy, you are to understand. It will do for such as Judge Burnham to call such resolves by that name; but you should know that Ruth Erskine was all the time governed by a solemn sense of duty. It was cross, hard, cold, unlightened by any gleams of peace; but for all that it started in a sense of duty.
By degrees the “long story,” much of it, came to light—rather was dragged to light—by a persistent method of cross-questioning which drove Judge Burnham to the very verge of desperation.
“Judge Burnham,” she would begin, “how have your daughters been cared for all these years?”
“Why,” he said, wriggling and trying to get away from his own sense of degradation, “they had good care; at least I supposed it was. During their childhood their mother’s sister lived there, and took the sole charge of them. She was a kind-hearted woman enough, and did her duty by them.”