Neither of them spoke during ten minutes; then Cox said, in a vexed
tone,
“What possessed you to be in such a hurry, I can’t make out.”
The answer was humble enough:
“I see it now, but somehow I never thought, you know, until it was
too late. But the next time–”
“Next time be hanged! It won’t come in a thousand years.”
Then the friends separated without a good-night, and dragged
themselves home with the gait of mortally stricken men. At their
homes their wives sprang up with an eager “Well?”–then saw the
answer with their eyes and sank down sorrowing, without waiting for
it to come in words. In both houses a discussion followed of a
heated sort–a new thing; there had been discussions before, but not
heated ones, not ungentle ones. The discussions to-night were a
sort of seeming plagiarisms of each other. Mrs. Richards said:
“If you had only waited, Edward–if you had only stopped to think;
but no, you must run straight to the printing-office and spread it
all over the world.”
“It SAID publish it.”
“That is nothing; it also said do it privately, if you liked.
There, now–is that true, or not?”
“Why, yes–yes, it is true; but when I thought what a stir it would
make, and what a compliment it was to Hadleyburg that a stranger
should trust it so–”
“Oh, certainly, I know all that; but if you had only stopped to
think, you would have seen that you COULDN’T find the right man,
because he is in his grave, and hasn’t left chick nor child nor
relation behind him; and as long as the money went to somebody that
awfully needed it, and nobody would be hurt by it, and–and–”
She broke down, crying. Her husband tried to think of some
comforting thing to say, and presently came out with this:
“But after all, Mary, it must be for the best–it must be; we know
that. And we must remember that it was so ordered–”
“Ordered! Oh, everything’s ORDERED, when a person has to find some
way out when he has been stupid. Just the same, it was ORDERED that
the money should come to us in this special way, and it was you that
must take it on yourself to go meddling with the designs of
Providence–and who gave you the right? It was wicked, that is what
it was–just blasphemous presumption, and no more becoming to a meek
and humble professor of–”
“But, Mary, you know how we have been trained all our lives long,
like the whole village, till it is absolutely second nature to us to
stop not a single moment to think when there’s an honest thing to be
done–”
“Oh, I know it, I know it–it’s been one everlasting training and
training and training in honesty–honesty shielded, from the very
cradle, against every possible temptation, and so it’s ARTIFICIAL
honesty, and weak as water when temptation comes, as we have seen
this night. God knows I never had shade nor shadow of a doubt of my
petrified and indestructible honesty until now–and now, under the
very first big and real temptation, I–Edward, it is my belief that
this town’s honesty is as rotten as mine is; as rotten as yours. It
is a mean town, a hard, stingy town, and hasn’t a virtue in the
world but this honesty it is so celebrated for and so conceited
about; and so help me, I do believe that if ever the day comes that
its honesty falls under great temptation, its grand reputation will
go to ruin like a house of cards. There, now, I’ve made confession,
and I feel better; I am a humbug, and I’ve been one all my life,
without knowing it. Let no man call me honest again–I will not
have it.”
“I– Well, Mary, I feel a good deal as you do: I certainly do. It
seems strange, too, so strange. I never could have believed it–
never.”
A long silence followed; both were sunk in thought. At last the
wife looked up and said:
“I know what you are thinking, Edward.”
Richards had the embarrassed look of a person who is caught.