Barry Pain

“ You cannot live alone all your days, and you must not spoil the whole of your life for a vain regret. Hubert himself would never have wished——"
"Hubert? I was not thinking of him. Often, for months, I never think of him at all."
"Bertha!" exclaimed Lady Cathay. This was too callous.
"I think I must tell you. I haven't told anybody else. You know the remorseless way that the postman for days and days goes on bringing letters for a man who is dead? That happened when Hubert died. I opened them. Two of them were from a woman. You—you understand? ”

“ The parlour-maid—a tall, pretty girl—had waited on the two women—hostess and guest. The hostess was Lady Cathay, the guest Mrs. Hubert Vane; both had been detained in London after the London Season was over; both were young (thirty-three in the morning and twenty-nine in the evening) , and both were beautiful.
"No men!" said Mrs. Vane solemnly, as she helped herself to four white Muscat grapes.
"None—not even to wait on us. I saw to that. It is our holiday—the feminine equivalent of the bachelor dinner." ”

“ In the mean time, Bertha Vane was not entirely forgotten in England. Lady Cathay thought often of her. Still more often a man thought about her, a man who had met her only once in his life, a month before her husband's death, when he had taken her in to dinner at Lady Cathay's house. ”

“ For, after all, one goes on living, and the worst shock wears itself out Hatred, love, disgust, all pass, and the chief thing that she had won from her wandering in many dry places was that her attention had been distracted, while the shock had slowly lost force—the shock that she had received on a chill morning early in September, when, sitting before the fire, she had opened and read two letters addressed to a dead man. ”

“ It is not as if there were any third person present, and I don't think I've spoken the truth for three months; it is such a luxury. I detest Uncle Charles. I don't show it to him, because I do not want to hurt any one's feelings, and one must be specially kind to the dying. ”

“ Bertha smiled happily as she spoke.
"Does it seem a despicable thing to you for me, a woman, to forgive that—to forgive it and go on living?"
"Not now."
"No, it can't be. He is dead, and one must forgive the dead. They can't hurt one any more—it sounds funny said like that. But it's sad to think that they can't love one any more. ... I don't want to think of sad things. I love Hubert."
•••••
Lady Cathay was singularly dull at luncheon that day for so accomplished a host. Mrs. Vane had been telegraphed for—had to hurry back to London. She had asked Lady Cathay to say good-bye for her. ”