rung with a hundred sharp
wounds a spirit so susceptible to public comments--came with dulled force
upon the doctor's mind to-day. When the people about saw the grave and
seemly composure with which he went about this dismal business, without
those starts and flushes of grievous irritation and shame which the
very mention of his brother had once brought upon him, they believed,
and honoured him in the belief, that death had awakened the ancient
fraternal kindness in Edward Rider's heart. But it was not fraternal
kindness that smoothed off the rude edges of that burden; it was the
consciousness of doing Nettie's work for her, taking her place, sparing
that creature, over whom his heart yearned, the hardest and painfulest
business she had yet been involved in. We cannot take credit for the
doctor which he did not deserve. He forgave Fred when he saw his
motionless figure, never more to do evil or offend in this world, laid
in pitiful solitude in that room, which still was Nettie's room, and
which even in death he grudged to his brother. But Edward's distinct
apprehension of right and wrong, and Fred's deserts in this world,
were not altered by that diviner compunction which had moved Nettie. He
forgave, but did not forget, nor defend with remorseful tenderness his
brother's memory. Not for Fred's sake, but Nettie's, he held his place
in the troubled cottage, and assumed the position of head of the family.
Hard certainties of experience prevented the doctor's unimaginative
mind from respecting here the ideal anguish of sudden widowhood and
bereavement. This was a conclusion noways unnatural or surprising for
such a life as Fred's--and Edward knew, with that contemptuous hardness
into which incessant personal contact with the world drives most men,
that neither the wife nor the children were capable of deep or permanent
feeling. "They will only hang upon _her_ all the heavier," he said
to himself, bitterly; and for her, with repentant love, Edward Rider
exerted himself. In all the house no heart, but Nettie's alone,
acknowledged an ache of pity for Fred and his ruined life. "Mrs Rider,
to be sure, will feel at first--it's only natural," said Mrs Smith;
"but there wasn't nothing else to be looked for; and if it were not
hardhearted to say it, and him lying in his coffin, they'll be a deal
better off without him nor with him. But Smith and me, we have ourselves
to look to, and it's a terrible blow, is this, to a house as was al