“I will send over word,” he said, dejectedly.
“Thank you; you sympathize, I am sure.”
“Of course.” And being a nice youth he showed his consideration by retreating and buttoning his coat up over his burden of incompetence.
The physical prostration of a strong man who has sinned against his body is as nothing to the bitter humiliation of his soul. Ethical defeat is the most poignant of all disasters. Like an athlete who has strained heart and lungs only to be beaten, he feels that anguish of exhaustion, that miserable sense of impotence, the conviction that his strength has been of no avail. Spiritual defeat has its more subtle agonies. In some such overwhelming of the soul the man may turn his face like Hezekiah to the wall, and refuse to be comforted because of his own shame.
To Catherine her husband’s awakening anguish had been pitiable in the extreme. He had lain like one wounded to the death, refusing to be comforted or to be assured of hope. Slowly, as she had sat by him and held his hand, he had told her everything, blurting out the confession with a sullen yet desperate self-hate. The very pathos of her trust in him, the divine quickness in her to forgive, had been as girdles of thorn about his body. What had he done to justify her love? Disgraced and humiliated her in this haven of rest her hands had made for him!
To appreciate to the full the irony of life, a man has but to be unfortunate for—perhaps—three days. It was about four in the afternoon when Catherine, sitting beside her husband’s bed, heard the unwelcome panting of the car. The man Gage had driven fast from Boland’s Farm. He had a letter from Dr. Inglis, an urgent message, so he had been told.
Catherine met him at the gate, and took the letter to her husband.
“A message, dear, from Dr. Inglis.”
He reached for it with a hand that trembled, his eyes faltering from her face. She sat down by the bed, watching him silently as he tore open the envelope and read the letter.
“Dear Murchison,—Please come over at once, if possible. Hicks has diagnosed acute internal strangulated hernia. He has been called off to a midwifery case. The relatives are getting out of hand. I think an immediate operation will be necessary. I have been to Lombard Street, and got the instruments together.