oftly.

"There was a sort of dishonesty in his kindness. He would not let you
have the bitter truth. He would not say he did not love you....

"He was too kind to life ever to call it the foolish thing it is. He
took it seriously because it takes itself seriously. He worked for it
and killed himself with work for it...."

She turned to Dr. Martineau and her face was streaming with tears.
"And life, you know, isn't to be taken seriously. It is a joke--a
bad joke--made by some cruel little god who has caught a neglected
planet.... Like torturing a stray cat.... But he took it seriously and
he gave up his life for it.

"There was much happiness he might have had. He was very capable of
happiness. But he never seemed happy. This work of his came before
it. He overworked and fretted our happiness away. He sacrificed his
happiness and mine."

She held out her hands towards the doctor. "What am I to do now with the
rest of my life? Who is there to laugh with me now and jest?

"I don't complain of him. I don't blame him. He did his best--to be
kind.

"But all my days now I shall mourn for him and long for him...."

She turned back to the coffin. Suddenly she lost every vestige of
self-control. She sank down on her knees beside the trestle. "Why have
you left me!" she cried.

"Oh! Speak to me, my darling! Speak to me, I TELL YOU! Speak to me!"

It was a storm of passion, monstrously childish and dreadful. She beat
her hands upon the coffin. She wept loudly and fiercely as a child
does....

Dr. Martineau drifted feebly to the window.

He wished he had locked the door. The servants might hear and wonder
what it was all about. Always he had feared love for the cruel thing it
was, but now it seemed to him for the first time that he realized its
monstrous cruelty.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's The Secret Places of the Heart, by H. G. Wells

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