The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic

Author:Harold Frederic
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-01T04:30:00+00:00

Chapter XVII

“WELL, I DID what you told me to do,” Theron Ware remarked to Sister Soulsby, when at last they found themselves alone in the sitting-room after the midday meal.

It had taken not a little strategic skirmishing to secure the room to themselves, for the hospitable Alice, much touched by the thought of her new friend’s departure that very evening, had gladly proposed to let all the work stand over until night, and devote herself entirely to Sister Soulsby. When, finally, Brother Soulsby conceived and deftly executed the coup of interesting her in the budding of roses, and then leading her off into the garden to see with her own eyes how it was done, Theron had a sense of being left alone with a co-conspirator. The notion impelled him to plunge at once into the heart of their mystery.

“I did what you told me to do,” he repeated, looking up from his low easy-chair to where she sat by the desk, “and I dare say you won’t be surprised when I add that I have no respect for myself for doing it.”

“And yet you would go and do it right over again, eh?” the woman said, in bright, pert tones, nodding her head, and smiling at him with roguish, comprehending eyes. “Yes — that’s the way we’re built. We spend our lives doing that sort of thing.”

“I don’t know that you would precisely grasp my meaning,” said the young minister, with a polite effort in his words to mask the untoward side of the suggestion. “It is a matter of conscience with me — and I am pained and shocked at myself. ”

Sister Soulsby drummed for an absent moment with her thin, nervous fingers on the desk-top. “I guess maybe you’d better go and lie down again,” she said gently. “You’re a sick man, still, and it’s no good your worrying your head just now with things of this sort. You’ll see them differently when you’re quite yourself again.”

“No, no,” pleaded Theron. “Do let us have our talk out! I’m all right. My mind is clear as a bell. Truly, I’ve really counted on this talk with you.”

“But there’s something else to talk about, isn’t there, besides — besides your conscience?” she asked. Her eyes bent upon him a kindly pressure as she spoke, which took all possible harshness from her meaning.

Theron answered the glance rather than her words. “I know that you are my friend,” he said simply.

Sister Soulsby straightened herself, and looked down upon him with a new intentness. “Well, then,” she began, “let’s thrash this thing out right now, and be done with it. You say it’s hurt your conscience to do just one little hundredth part of what there was to be done here. Ask yourself what you mean by that. Mind, I’m not quarrelling, and I’m not thinking about anything except just your own state of mind. You think you soiled your hands by doing what you did. That is to say, you wanted all the dirty work done by other people.

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