“The brave, brave girl!” Inez cried, almost overcome by her emotion. “I must make her understand that the Jack Armstrong I loved was killed at the foot of the hill of Settignano. Dear, dear Helen! it is now my privilege to give her back her happiness as she gave me back mine!”
XXXI
It had been to Uncle Peabody that Helen had turned during all this period, but it was for comfort and strength rather than for advice. The problem was hers, and she alone must finally solve it. She had thought it settled until her conversation with Jack, which caused a momentary wavering. She repeated Armstrong’s words to Uncle Peabody, and his absolute conviction that her husband’s present attitude was a normal and final expression encouraged her to question whether there might not be some other solution than the one upon which she had determined. Still, it was only a questioning; as yet she was unprepared to share Uncle Peabody’s conviction.
“Don’t lean too far backward,” he had said to her, “in your efforts to stand by your principles. I have seen things which were called principles at first become tyrants and do damage out of all proportion to the good they would have done had the conditions not changed.”
“It is the conditions I am watching, uncle,” Helen had replied. “I have no ‘principles,’ as you call them, which will not joyfully yield themselves. I must not—I will not—stand in the way either of Jack’s happiness or of his development. If I can make myself see any way by which we can stay together without accomplishing one or the other of these mistakes, God knows how eagerly I will again pick up the thread of life.”
Uncle Peabody had folded her in his great arms again, as he had done so many times lately.
“People have sometimes told me that I am a philosopher,” he said, huskily. “They have seen me meet death in a dear friend, or even one closer to me, with calmness, sending the departed spirit a wireless ‘bon-voyage’ message and considering the incident as fortunate, as if he had received a promotion. But when I see one as dear to me as you are, gasping for breath in what has seemed to be a hopeless and prolonged struggle for that life which love alone can give you, I must confess that my stock of philosophy, such as it is, seems sadly inadequate.”
Now had come the necessity of repeating to him what the contessa had said, which gave Helen double pain, knowing, as she did, how much relief her last conversation had given him.