The World of Chance

by William Dean Howells

There had been a moment with Ray too when the scandal of the fact was all he felt. “Yes,” he said, mechanically.

“You see,” Mr. Brandreth explained, “those fellows will rummage round in every direction, for every bit of collateral information, relevant and irrelevant, and they will make as much as they can of the fact that Miss Hughes was employed here.”

“I see,” said Ray.

Mr. Brandreth fell into a rueful muse, but he plucked himself out of it with self-reproachful decency. “It’s awful for them, poor things!”

“It’s the best thing that could have happened, under the circumstances,” said Ray, with a coldness that surprised himself, and a lingering resentment toward Denton that the physical struggle had left in his nerves. “It was a question whether he should kill himself, or kill some one else. He had a mania of sacrifice, of atonement. Somebody had to be offered up. He was a crank.” Ray pronounced the word with a strong disgust, as if there were nothing worse to be said of a man. He paused, and then he went on. “I shall have to tell you all about it, Brandreth;” and he went over the event again, and spared nothing.

Mr. Brandreth listened with starting eyes. As if the additional details greatly discouraged him, he said, “I don’t think those things can be kept from coming out. It will be a terrible scandal. Of course, I pity the family; and Miss Hughes. It’s strange that they could keep living on with such a danger hanging over them for weeks and months, and not try to do anything about it—not have him shut up.”

“The doctor says we’ve no idea what sort of things people keep living on with,” said Ray, gloomily. “The danger isn’t always there, and the hope is. The trouble keeps on, and in most cases nothing happens. The doctor says nothing would have happened in this case, probably, if the man had staid quietly in the country, in the routine he was used to. But when he had the stress of new circumstances put on him, with the anxieties and the chances, and all the miseries around him, his mind gave way; I don’t suppose it was ever a very strong one.”

“Oh, I don’t see how the strongest stands it, in this infernal hurly-burly,” said Mr. Brandreth, with an introspective air. He added, with no effect of relief from his reflection, “I don’t know what I’m going to say to my wife when all this comes out. I’ve got to prepare her, somehow—her and her mother. Look here! Why couldn’t you go up to Mr. Chapley’s with me, and see him? He wasn’t very well, yesterday, and said he wouldn’t be down till this afternoon. My wife’s going there to lunch, and we can get them all together before the evening papers are out. Then I think we could make them see it in the right light. What do you say?”

“I don’t see why I shouldn’t go with you. If I can be of any use,” said Ray, with an inward regret that he could think of no excuse for not going.

“I think you can be of the greatest use,” said Mr. Brandreth. He called a clerk, and left word with him that he should not be in again till after lunch. “You see,” he explained, as they walked out together, “if we can get the story to Mrs. Brandreth and her mother before it comes to them in print it won’t seem half as bad. Some fellow is going to get hold of the case and work it for all it is worth. He is going to unearth Mr. Hughes’s whole history, and exploit him as a reformer and a philosopher. He’s going to find out everybody who knows him, or has ever had anything to do with him, and interview people right and left.”