Who could know all these things, except the few people of the
household? What wonder, therefore, that ignorant and shallow persons
laid the blame on her father of those peculiarities which were freely
talked about,--of those darker tendencies which were hinted of in
whispers? To all this talk, so far as it reached him, he was supremely
indifferent, not only with the indifference which all gentlemen feel
to the gossip of their inferiors, but with a charitable calmness which
did not wonder or blame. He knew that his position was not simply a
difficult, but an impossible one, and schooled himself to bear his
destiny as well as he might and report himself only at Headquarters.
He had grown gentle under this discipline. His hair was just beginning
to be touched with silver, and his expression was that of habitual
sadness and anxiety. He had no counsellor, as we have seen, to turn
to, who did not know either too much or too little. He had no heart to
rest upon and into which he might unburden himself of the secrets and
the sorrows that were aching in his own breast. Yet he had not allowed
himself to run to waste in the long time since he was left alone to
his trials and fears. He had resisted the seductions which always
beset solitary men with restless brains overwrought by depressing
agencies. He disguised no misery to himself with the lying delusion of
wine. He sought no sleep from narcotics, though he lay with throbbing,
wide-open eyeballs through all the weary hours of the night.
Pages:
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269