The Quality of Mercy

by William Dean Howells

"Suzette! Sue!" Adeline called down from the chamber above, "don't you let Mr. Hilary go before I get there. I want to speak to him," and while they stared helplessly at each other, they heard her saying to Mrs. Newton, "Yes, I shall, too! I'm perfectly rested, now; and I shall go down. I should think I knew how I felt. I don't care what the doctor said; and if you try to stop me—" She came clattering down the stairs in the boots which she had pulled loosely on, and as soon as she showed her excited face at the door, she began; "I've thought out a plan, Mr. Hilary, and I want you should go and see Mr. Putney about it. You ask him if it won't do. They can get father let out on bail, when he comes back, and I can be his bail, and then, when there's a trial, they can take me instead of him. It won't matter to the court which they have, as long as they have somebody. Now, you go and ask Mr. Putney. I know he'll say so, for he's thought just as I have about father's case, all along. Will you go?"

"Will you go up and lie down again, Adeline, if Mr. Hilary will go?" Suzette asked, like one dealing with a capricious child.

"What do you all want me to lie down for?" Adeline turned upon her. "I'm perfectly well. And do you suppose I can rest, with such a thing on my mind? If you want me to rest, you'd better let him go and find out what Mr. Putney says. I think we'd better all go to Canada and bring father back with us. He isn't fit to travel alone or with strangers; he needs some one that understands his ways; and I'm going to him, just as soon as Mr. Putney approves of my plan, and I know he will. But I don't want Mr. Hilary to lose any time, now. I want to be in Quebec about as soon as father is. Will you go?"

"Yes, Miss Northwick," said Matt, taking her tremulous hand. "I'll go to Mr. Putney; and I'll see my father again; and whatever can be done to save your father any further suffering, or yourself—"

"I don't care for myself," she said, plucking her hand away. "I'm young and strong, and I can bear it. But it's father I'm so anxious about."

She began to cry, and at a look from Suzette, Matt left them. As he walked along up toward the village in mechanical compliance with Adeline's crazy wish, he felt more and more the deepening tragedy of the case, and the inadequacy of all compromises and palliatives. There seemed indeed but one remedy for the trouble, and that was for Northwick to surrender himself, and for them all to meet the consequences together. He realized how desperately homesick the man must have been to take the risks he had run in stealing back for a look upon the places and the faces so dear to him; his heart was heavy with pity for him. One might call him coward and egotist all one would; at the end remained the fact of a love which, if it could not endure heroically, was still a deep and strong affection, doubtless the deepest and strongest thing in the man's weak and shallow nature. It might be his truest inspiration, and if it prompted him to venture everything, and to abide by whatever might befall him, for the sake of being near those he loved, and enjoying the convict's wretched privilege of looking on them now and then, who should gainsay him?

Matt took Wade in on his way to Putney's office, to lay this question before him, and he answered it for him in the same breath: "Certainly no one less deeply concerned than the man's own flesh and blood could forbid him."

"I'm not sure," said Wade, "that even his own flesh and blood would have a supreme right there. It may be that love, and not duty, is the highest thing in life. Oh, I know how we reason it away, and say that true love is unselfish and can find its fruition in the very sacrifice of our impulses; and we are fond of calling our impulses blind, but God alone knows whether they are blind. The reasoned sacrifice may satisfy the higher soul, but what about the simple and primitive natures which it won't satisfy?"

For answer, Matt told how Northwick had come back, at the risk of arrest, for an hour with his children, and was found in the empty house that had been their home, and brought to them: how he had besought them to let him stay, but they had driven him back to his exile. Matt explained how he was on his way to the lawyer, at Adeline's frantic demand, to go all over the case again, and see if something could not be done to bring Northwick safely home. He had himself no hope of finding any loophole in the law, through which the fugitive could come and go; if he returned, Matt felt sure that he would be arrested and convicted, but he was not sure that this might not be the best thing for all. "You know," he said, "I've always believed that if he could voluntarily submit himself to the penalty of his offence, the penalty would be the greatest blessing for him on earth; the only blessing for his ruined life."

"Yes," Wade answered, "we have always thought alike about that, and perhaps this torment of longing for his home and children, may be the divine means of leading him to accept the only mercy possible with God for such a sufferer. If there were no one but him concerned, we could not hesitate in urging him to return. But the innocent who must endure the shame of his penalty with him—"