He saw her doctor. "Not much chance, I'm afraid. Of course, if she
were able to change climate--that kind of thing. But, under the
circumstances--"
And through a whole Sunday morning Will paced about his little
sitting-room, not caring to go forth, nor caring to read, caring for
nothing at all in a world so full of needless misery. "Of course, if
she were able to change climate--" Yes, the accident of possessing
money; a life to depend upon that! In another station--though, as
likely as not, with no moral superiority to justify the privilege--
the sick woman would be guarded, soothed, fortified by every
expedient of science, every resource of humanity. Chance to be poor,
and not only must you die when you need not, but must die with the
minimum of comfort, the extreme of bodily and mental distress. This
commonplace struck so forcibly upon Will's imagination, that it was
as a new discovery to him. He stood amazed, bewildered--as men of
any thinking power are wont to do when experience makes real to them
the truisms of life. A few coins, or pieces of printed paper to
signify all that! An explosion of angry laughter broke the mood.
Pacing, pacing, back and fro in the little room, for hour after
hour, till his head whirled, and his legs ached. Out of doors there
was fitfully glinting sunshine upon the wet roofs; a pale blue now
and then revealed amid the grey rack. Two years ago he would have
walked twenty miles on a day like this, with eyes for nothing but
the beauty and joy of earth.
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