Page:The Firm of Gridlestone (1890).djvu/310

298 imagine you met with some apparition. You are crying. Are you so unhappy, then?"

"Very, very miserable," Kate answered, sinking her face upon her hands.

"Ah," said Girdlestone softly, "it is only in some higher life that we shall find entire peace and contentment." His voice had altered, so that a little warm spring of hope began to rise in the girl's heart, that perhaps the sight of her many miseries was beginning to melt this iron man.

"Beyond the grave is rest," he continued, in the same gentle tones. "It has seemed to me sometimes that if it were not for the duties which I have to perform in this world, and the many who are dependent upon me, I should be tempted to shorten my existence in order to attain the peace which is to come. Some precisians have pronounced it to be sinful to cut the thread of life. For my part I have never thought it so, and yet my view of morals has been a strict one. I hold that of all things in this world one's life is the thing which belongs most entirely to one's self, and may therefore most freely be terminated when it seems good to us." He picked up the phial from the mantelpiece and gazed thoughtfully at it. "How strange," he said, "to think that within the compass of this tiny bottle lies a cure for every earthly evil! One draught and the body slips off like a garment, while the soul walks forth in all its beauty and freedom. Trouble is over. One draught, and Ah, let go, I say! What have you done?"

Kate had snatched the bottle from him, and with a quick feminine gesture had hurled it against the wall, where it splintered to pieces, sending a strong turpentiney odour through the apartment. Her strength was so impaired that she staggered back after this feat, and sat down on the side of the bed, while her guardian, grim and threatening, stood over her with his long, bony fingers opening and shutting, as though he found it difficult to keep them from her throat.

"I will not help you in it," she said, in a low but firm voice. "You would kill my soul as well."