nearer reality, to rouse her from the
conviction that her life was bound for ever to that of the man whom she
had chosen and for whom she had given so much. It would all go on, right
to the end of everything. The telegram had not shaken that faith in her,
nor altered that despair.

CHAPTER XVII.

DONE FOR?

A knotty point of casuistry was engaging the thoughts of the Dean of St.
Neot's. Morewood had been to see him, had told without disguise the whole
story of his blunder at the dinner-table at Ashwood, had referred to
Alexander Quisante's serious illness, and had finally, without apology
and without periphrasis, expressed the hope that Alexander Quisante would
die. The Dean's rebuke had produced a strenuous effort at justification.
Quisante was, the painter pointed out, no doubt a force, but a force
essentially immoral (Morewood took up morality when it suited his
purpose); he did work, but he made unhappiness; he affected people's
lives, but not so as to promote their well-being. Or if the Dean chose to
champion the man, Morewood was ready for him again. If Quisante were
good, were moral, were deserving of defence, then the merely natural
process lugubriously described as death, and fantastically treated with
black plumes and crape, would, so far as he himself was concerned, be no
more than a transition to a better state of existence, while certain
solid and indisputable benefits would accrue to those who were condemned
to wait a little longer for their summons. Whether the Dean elected to be
for Quisante or against him, Morewood claimed a verdict.

This challenging of a man's general notions by the putting of a thorny
special case was rather resented by the Dean; it reminded him of the
voluble atheist in Hyde Park, who bases his attack on the supernatural on
the obsolete enactments of the Book of Leviticus. None the less he was
rather puzzled as to what he had a right to wish about Alexander
Quisante, and so he had recourse to his usual remedy--a consultation with
his wife. He had the greatest faith in Mrs. Baxter's eye for morality;
perhaps generations of clerical ancestry had bred in her such an instinct
as we see in sporting-dogs; she could not go wrong. On this question she
was immediately satisfactory.

"We are forbidden," she said, removing a piece of tape from her mouth,
"to wish anybody's death; you know that as well as I do, Dan." She made