'
She marched away, leaving Frank very miserable, and, as he imagined,
unsettled, but he was not so. The fit lasted all day, but when he
was walking home that evening, he met a poor friend whose wife was
dying.
'I am so grieved,' said Frank 'to hear of your trouble--no hope?'
'None, I am afraid.'
'It is very dreadful.'
'Yes, it is hard to bear, but to what is inevitable we must submit.'
This new phrase struck Frank very much, and it seemed very
philosophic to him, a maxim, for guidance through life. It did not
strike him that it was generally either a platitude or an excuse for
weakness, and that a nobler duty is to find out what is inevitable
and what is not, to declare boldly that what the world oftentimes
affirms to be inevitable is really evitable, and heroically to set
about making it so. Even if revolt be perfectly useless, we are not
particularly drawn to a man who prostrates himself too soon and is
incapable of a little cursing.
As it was impossible to provide for Madge and the child now, Frank
considered whether he could not do something for them in the will
which he had to make before his marriage. He might help his daughter
if he could not help the mother.
But his wife would perhaps survive him, and the discovery would cause
her and her children much misery; it would damage his character with
them and inflict positive moral mischief.
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