Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/434

Rh “Useless?” He turned his critical glance on her. “Well, that’s beside the point—since it’s inevitable.”

She wavered a moment—but his words had loosened the bonds about her heart, and she could not check herself so suddenly. “Why inevitable?”

Mr. Tredegar looked at her in surprise, as though wondering at so unprofessional an utterance from one who, under ordinary circumstances, showed the absolute self-control and submission of the well-disciplined nurse.

“Human life is sacred,” he said sententiously.

“Ah, that must have been decreed by some one who had never suffered!” Justine exclaimed.

Mr. Tredegar smiled compassionately: he evidently knew how to make allowances for the fact that she was overwrought by the sight of her friend’s suffering. “Society decreed it—not one person,” he corrected.

“Society—science—religion!” she murmured, as if to herself.

“Precisely. It’s the universal consensus—the result of the world’s accumulated experience. Cruel in individual instances—necessary for the general welfare. Of course your training has taught you all this; but I can understand that at such a time.…”

“Yes ” she said risin wearily as Wyant came in.

Her worst misery, now, was to have to discuss Bessy’s condition with Wyant. To the young physician Bessy [ 418 ]