"
" She must never know it," responded the professor,
in dull misery.
" Then think of yourself! Think of the shame of
it! The shame of it ! "
The professor raised his eyes for an ironical glance
at his wife. " Oh I have thought of the shame
of it!"
" And you'll accomplish nothing," cried Mrs. Wain-
wright. " You'll accomplish nothing. He'll only
laugh at you."
" If he laughs at me, he will laugh at nothing but a
poor, weak, unworldly old man. It is my duty to go."
Mrs. Wainwright opened her mouth as if she was
about to shriek. After choking a moment she said:
" Your duty? Your duty to go and bend the knee to
that man? Yourduty?"
"'It is my duty to go,"' he repeated humbly. "If
I can find even one chance for my daughter's happi-
ness in a personal sacrifice. He can do no more than
he can do no more than make me a little sadder."
His wife evidently understood his humility as a
tribute to her arguments and a clear indication that
she had fatally undermined his original intention.
" Oh, he would have made you sadder," she quoth
grimly. "No fear! Why, it was the most insane
idea I ever heard of."
The professor arose wearily. " Well, I must be
going to this work. It is a thing to have ended
quickly." There was something almost biblical in his
manner.
" Harrison! " burst out his wife in amazed lamenta-
tion. You are not really going to do it? Not
really!"
" I am going to do it," he answered.
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