For the Cause

by Stanley John Weyman

"I am not quite sure that I agree with you," said Mrs. Harrington. "I can't, of course, form any guess as to who the person to whom you allude may be; but let us put an entirely imaginary case, and see how it looks from the lady's point of view. Because, you know, even unsuitable women have their point of view, and some of them might be disposed to think their happiness almost as important as Mrs. Annesley's. Let us take the case of a woman with whom life has gone very hardly--a woman who was married young to a husband who ill-treated her, deserted her, and left her at his death with a mere pittance to live upon. Well, this imaginary woman is not very wise, let us say, although she has no great harm in her. She is fond of amusement, she likes riding, she likes dancing, and we won't disguise that she likes flirting too. She has no near relations; so, instead of taking lodgings in a suburb of London, or hiring a cottage in the depths of the country, as no doubt she ought to do, she attaches herself to a cavalry regiment in which she has friends, and she rides her friends' horses and dances at their balls, and has great fun for a time. Perhaps it serves her right that this way of going on causes her to be cut by all the ladies, wherever she betakes herself; perhaps she doesn't care a straw for that at first, and perhaps she cares a great deal as she grows older. Perhaps she sees no way of escape from a kind of existence which she has learnt to hate, and perhaps that serves her right again. What do you think, Canon Stanwick?"

The Professor's honesty compelled him to reply, "I should not blame her for seizing any opportunity of escape from it that offered."

"Yet most people would blame her; she would have to make up her mind to that. We are supposing, you know, that Mr. Annesley is the way of escape that offers itself, and when this forlorn woman seizes him ecstatically she must expect his friends and relations to tear their hair and call her bad names. I dare say that would trouble her very little. After knocking about the world for so many years, she wouldn't be over and above sensitive, and she would know perfectly well that, when once she was married and had plenty of money, everybody, including her husband's relations, would be civil enough to her. But now, just as she is exulting in the prospect of peace and plenty, lo and behold! the miserable young man goes and falls in love with somebody else. What is she to do? You, in an off-hand sort of way, answer, 'Oh, let him go free, of course;' but I, on the side of the poor disappointed woman, venture to say that she should be guided by circumstances. Suppose she knew this good-natured Bob Annesley to be a man who couldn't break his heart about anything or anybody if he tried ever so hard? Suppose she knew that she was quite as well able to make him happy as Miss Cecil? Mightn't she in that case be justified in thinking a little bit about her own interests, and holding him to his promise?"

"I can't answer positively," said the Professor, sighing. "Justification must depend entirely upon the standard by which we judge. All I know is, that if such a woman as you describe resolved to sacrifice her worldly prospects she would err upon the safe side."

"Such a woman as I describe would probably differ from you there," observed Mrs. Harrington.

"No!" exclaimed the Professor suddenly, bringing his stick down upon the floor with an emphatic thump. "You may say that, but I don't believe it. I believe her to be a good-hearted and high-minded woman, in spite of all that she may have gone through. I believe that she has a conscience, and I believe that she will end by obeying it, no matter at what cost."

"You must know a great deal about her," said Mrs. Harrington, raising her eyebrows. "Are you not forgetting that she is a purely imaginary person?"

The Professor was about to reply, but what he was going to say will never be known, for at this inopportune juncture the door opened, and who should walk in but Bob Annesley himself! The three persons thus unexpectedly confronted with one another all lost their presence of mind a little, and the Professor could not afterwards have given any coherent account of what happened next, or of how long an interval elapsed before he found himself in the street again; but as he wended his way homewards, he astonished more than one passer-by by calling out in a loud, distinct voice, "She'll let him go! mark my words, sir, she'll let him go!" And when he had reached the privacy of his own study, he added confidentially, "And between ourselves, I'm not by any means sure that she isn't worth a dozen of the other."

V.

It is one thing to make a sudden and enthusiastic profession of faith in a prodigy, and it is quite another to reiterate that profession in cold blood the next morning. The Professor did not find himself able to accomplish the latter feat. Calmer reflection showed him that he had given Mrs. Harrington credit for the most extreme disinterestedness, not because of any single thing that she had said or done, but simply from an instinctive feeling that her nature was nobler than it appeared to be upon the surface. Now instinctive feelings do not ordinarily commend themselves as a sound foundation for faith or sober philosophers on the shady side of fifty; and the Professor, while maintaining the high opinion which he had formed of the harpy, wished that he had not been interrupted just when he was upon the point of asking her in plain terms whether she intended to marry Bob Annesley or not. It is possible that he might have called again and repaired the omission, had he not at this time found it necessary to consult certain authorities at the British Museum; and when once he was in town a variety of accidents detained him there. After that he had to go down to Oxford, so that, what with one thing and another, it was very nearly a month before he was in Lichbury again.