LWAYS.
Were there other cases, then?"

"Constructively, yes; one of the Le Geyts, you must recollect, went down
with his ship (just like his uncle, the General, in India) when he might
have quitted her. It is believed he had given a mistaken order. You
remember, of course; he was navigating lieutenant. Another, Marcus, was
SAID to have shot himself by accident while cleaning his gun--after a
quarrel with his wife. But you have heard all about it. 'The wrong was
on my side,' he moaned, you know, when they picked him up, dying, in the
gun-room. And one of the Faskally girls, his cousin, of whom his wife
was jealous--that beautiful Linda--became a Catholic, and went into a
convent at once on Marcus's death; which, after all, in such cases, is
merely a religious and moral way of committing suicide--I mean, for a
woman who takes the veil just to cut herself off from the world, and who
has no vocation, as I hear she had not."

She filled me with amazement. "That is true," I exclaimed, "when one
comes to think of it. It shows the same temperament in fibre.... But I
should never have thought of it."

"No? Well, I believe it is true, for all that. In every case, one
sees they choose much the same way of meeting a reverse, a blunder, an
unpremeditated crime. The brave way is to go through with it, and face
the music, letting what will come; the cowardly way is to hide one's
head incontinently in a river, a noose, or a convent cell."

"Le Geyt is not a coward," I interposed, with warmth.

"No, not, a coward--a manly spirited, great-hearted gentleman--but
still, not quite of the bravest type. He lacks one element. The Le Geyts
have physical courage--enough and to spare--but their moral courage
fails them at a pinch. They rush into suicide or its equivalent at
critical moments, out of pure boyish impulsiveness."

A few minutes later, Mrs. Mallet came in. She was not broken down--on
the contrary, she was calm--stoically, tragically, pitiably calm;
with that ghastly calmness which is more terrible by far than the most
demonstrative grief. Her face, though deadly white, did not move a
muscle. Not a tear was in her eyes. Even her bloodless hands hardly
twitched at the folds of her hastily assumed black gown. She clenched
them after a minute when she had grasped mine silently; I could see that
the nails dug deep into the palms in her painful resolve to keep herself
from collapsing.

Hilda Wade, with infinite sisterly tenderness,