Slightly disappointed at not hearing the appeal, “O my darling, don’t think of such a thing!” Bessie remained silent a moment, wondering if she were silly or he cold-hearted. Did she catch a glimmering of the fact that men do not crave small sensations as women do, and that the man before her was a specially rational being because he had been trained in the sublime logic of the laws of nature? Doubtful: the two sexes are profoundly unlike in mental action; they must study each other long before they can fully understand each other.
“I suppose I should be dreadfully punished for it,” she went on, her thoughts turning to the world beyond death, that world which trembling faith sees, and which is, therefore, visible to woman.
“I am not sure,” boldly admitted the Professor, who had been educated in Germany.
In order to learn something of the character of this young man, we must permit him to jabber his nondescript ideas for a little, even though we are thereby stumbled and wearied.
“Not sure?” queried Bessie. “How do you mean? Don’t you think suicide sinful? Don’t you think sin will be punished?”
She spoke with eagerness, dreading to find her lover not orthodox,—a woful stigma in Barham on lovers, and indeed on all men whatever.
“Admitting thus much, I don’t know how far you would be a free agent in the act,” lectured the philosopher. “I don’t know where free agency begins or ends. Indeed, I am so puzzled by this question as to doubt whether there is such a condition as free agency.”
“No such thing as free agency?” wondered Bessie. “Then what?”
“See here. Out of thirty-eight millions of Frenchmen a fixed number commit suicide every year. Every year just so many Frenchmen out of a million kill themselves. Does that look like free agency, or does it look like some unknown influence, some general rule of depression, some law of nature, which affects Frenchmen, and which they cannot resist? The individual seems to be free, at every moment of his life, to do as he chooses. But what leads him to choose? Born instincts, conditions of health, surroundings, circumstances. Do not the circumstances so govern his choice that he cannot choose differently? Moreover, is he really an individual? Or is he only a fraction of a great unity, the human race, and directed by its current? We speak of a drop of water as if it were an individuality; but it cannot swim against the stream to which it belongs; it is not free. Is not the individual man in the same condition? There are questions there which I cannot answer; and until I can answer them I cannot answer your question.”
We have not repeated without cause these bold and crude speculations. It is necessary to show that Foster was what was called in Barham a free-thinker, in order to account for efforts which were made to thwart his marriage with Bessie Barron, and for prejudices which aided to work a stern drama into his life.