"I understood you to say there was no hope!" interrupted Mrs.
Aylett.
"So Dr. Ritchie declares. But I cannot bear to believe it!"
She pressed her fingers upon her eyeballs as if she would exclude
some horrid vision.
"My dear sister! your nerves have been cruelly tried. To-morrow, you
will see this matter--and everything else--through a different
medium. As for the object of your amiable pity, he is, without
doubt, some low, dissipated creature, of whom the world will be well
rid."
"I am not certain of that. There are traces of something like
refinement and gentle breeding about him in all his squalor and
unconsciousness. I noticed his hands particularly. They are slender
and long, and his features in youth and health must have been
handsome. Dr. Ritchie thought the same. Who can tell that his wife
is not mourning his absence to-night, as the fondest woman under
this roof would regret her husband's disappearance? And she may
never learn when and how he died--never visit his grave!"
"I have lived in this wicked world longer than you have, my sweet
Mabel; so you must not quarrel with me if these fancy pictures do
not move me as they do your guileless heart," said Mrs. Aylett, the
sinister shadow of a mocking smile playing about her mouth. "Nor
must you be offended with me for suggesting as a pendant to your
crayon sketch of widowhood and desolation the probability that the
decease of a drunken thief or beggar cannot be a serious
bereavement, even to his nearest of kin. Women who are beaten and
trampled under foot by those who should be their comfort and
protection are generally relieved when they take to vagrancy as a
profession. It may be that this man's wife, if she were cognizant of
his condition, would not lift a finger, or take a step to prolong
his life for one hour. Such things have been."
"More shame to human nature that they have!" was the impetuous
rejoinder. "In every true woman's heart there must be tender
memories of buried loves, let their death have been natural or
violent."
"So says your gentler nature. There are women--and I believe they
are in the majority in this crooked lower sphere--in whose hearts
the monument to departed affection--when love is indeed no more--is
a hatred that can never die. But we have wandered an immense
distance from the unlucky chicken-thief or burglar overhead. Dr.
Ritchie's sudden and ostentatious attack of philanthropy will hardly
beguile him into watching over his charge--a guardian angel in
dress-coat and white silk neck-tie--until morning?"