Page:The Soft Side (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1900).djvu/169

Rh, in every case, with the ability to respond. The spring had but to be touched—millions of letters flew out. Ten volumes, at such a rate, Mrs. Hope mused, would not exhaust the supply. She mused a great deal—did nothing but muse; and, strange as this may at first appear, it was inevitable that one of the final results of her musing should be a principle of doubt. It could only seem possible, in view of such unanimity, that she should, after all, have been mistaken. It was, then, to the general sense, the great departed's, a reputation sound and safe. It wasn't he who had been at fault—it was her silly self, still burdened with the fallibility of Being. He had been a giant, then, and the letters would triumphantly show it. She had looked only at the envelopes of those she had surrendered, but she was prepared for anything. There was the fact, not to be blinked, of Warren's own marked testimony. The attitude of others was but his attitude; and she sighed as she perceived him in this case, for the only time in his life, on the side of the chattering crowd.

She was perfectly aware that her obsession had run away with her, but as Lady Northmore's publication really loomed into view—it was now definitely announced for March, and they were in January—her pulses quickened so that she found herself, in the long nights, mostly lying awake. It was in one of these vigils that, suddenly, in the cold darkness, she felt the brush of almost the only thought that, for many a month, had not made her wince; the effect of which was that she bounded out of bed with a new felicity. Her impatience flashed, on the spot, up to its maximum—she could scarce wait for day to give herself to action. Her idea was neither more nor less than immediately to collect and put forth the letters of her hero. She would publish her husband's own—glory be to God!—and she even wasted none of her time in wondering why she had waited. She had waited—all too long; yet it was perhaps no more than natural that, for eyes sealed with tears and a heart heavy with injustice, there should not have