Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/732

 often as I wish," he declared. "I shall take consolation where I find it. She has her child—her mother. Does she begrudge me a friend? She may thank her stars I don't take to drink or to play."

For six months David saw nothing of his wife. Finally, one evening, when he was at Julia's house, he received this note:

David handed the note to Julia. "After all," he said, "she was right."

"Who was right, my poor friend?" asked Julia.

"The old squaw. We cried out too soon."

The next morning he went to the house of his mother-in-law. The servant, recognizing him, ushered him into the room in which the remains of his poor little girl lay, ready for burial. Near the darkened window stood his mother-in-law, in conversation with a gentleman—a certain Mr. Clark—whom David recognized as a favorite clergyman of his wife, and whom he had never liked. The lady, on his entrance, made him a very grand curtsy—if, indeed, that curtsy may be said to come within the regulations which govern salutations of this sort, in which the head is tossed up in proportion as the body is depressed—and swept out of the room. David bowed to the clergyman, and went and looked at the little remnant of mortality which had once been his daughter. After a decent interval, Mr. Clark ventured to approach him.

"You have met with a great trial, sir," said the clergyman.

David assented in silence.

"I suppose," continued Mr. Clark, "it is sent, like all trials, to remind us of our feeble and dependent condition—to purge us of pride and stubbornness—to make us search our hearts and see whether we have not by chance allowed the noisome weeds of folly to overwhelm and suffocate the modest flower of wisdom."

That Mr. Clark had deliberately prepared this speech, with a view to the occasion, I should hesitate to affirm. Gentlemen of his profession have these little parcels of sentiment ready to their hands. But he was, of course, acquainted with Emma's estrangement from her husband (although not with its original motives), and, like a man of genuine feeling, he imagined that under the softening action of a common sorrow, their two hardened hearts might be made to melt and again to flow into one. "The more we lose, my friend," he pursued, "the more we should cherish and value what is left."

"You speak to very good purpose, sir," said David; "but I, unfortunately, have nothing left."

At this moment the door opened, and Emma came in—pale, and clad in black. She stopped, apparently unprepared to see her husband. But, on David's turning toward her, she came forward.

David felt as if Heaven had sent an angel to give the lie to his last words. His face flushed—first with shame, and then with joy. He put out his arms. Emma halted an instant, struggling with her pride, and looked at the clergyman. He raised his hand, with a pious sacramental gesture, and she fell on her husband's neck.

The clergyman took hold of David's hand and pressed it; and, although, as I have said, the young man had never been particularly fond of Mr. Clark, he devoutly returned the pressure.