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LWAYS. Were there other cases, then?" "Constructively, yes; one of the Le Geyts, you must recollect, went down with his ship (just like his uncle, the General, in India) when he might have quitted her. It is believed he had given a mistaken order. You remember, of course; he was navigating lieutenant. Another, Marcus, was SAID to have shot himself by accident while cleaning his gun--after a quarrel with his wife. But you have heard all about it. 'The wrong was on my side,' he moaned, you know, when they picked him up, dying, in the gun-room. And one of the Faskally girls, his cousin, of whom his wife was jealous--that beautiful Linda--became a Catholic, and went into a convent at once on Marcus's death; which, after all, in such cases, is merely a religious and moral way of committing suicide--I mean, for a woman who takes the veil just to cut herself off from the world, and who has no vocation, as I hear she had not." She filled me with amazement. "That is true," I exclaimed, "when one comes to think of it. It shows the same temperament in fibre.... But I should never have thought of it." "No? Well, I believe it is true, for all that. In every case, one sees they choose much the same way of meeting a reverse, a blunder, an unpremeditated crime. The brave way is to go through with it, and face the music, letting what will come; the cowardly way is to hide one's head incontinently in a river, a noose, or a convent cell." "Le Geyt is not a coward," I interposed, with warmth. "No, not, a coward--a manly spirited, great-hearted gentleman--but still, not quite of the bravest type. He lacks one element. The Le Geyts have physical courage--enough and to spare--but their moral courage fails them at a pinch. They rush into suicide or its equivalent at critical moments, out of pure boyish impulsiveness." A few minutes later, Mrs. Mallet came in. She was not broken down--on the contrary, she was calm--stoically, tragically, pitiably calm; with that ghastly calmness which is more terrible by far than the most demonstrative grief. Her face, though deadly white, did not move a muscle. Not a tear was in her eyes. Even her bloodless hands hardly twitched at the folds of her hastily assumed black gown. She clenched them after a minute when she had grasped mine silently; I could see that the nails dug deep into the palms in her painful resolve to keep herself from collapsing. Hilda Wade, with infinite sisterly tenderness,
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