"Your wife," I said, "must be put in position to protect herself in
future. There is no means of making sure in such a matter, except to
tell her the truth. You love her--and you are a man who has never
been accustomed to do without what he wants."
"Great God, woman!" he cried. "Don't you suppose one blind child is
enough?"
It was the first human word that he had spoken, and I was grateful
for it. "I have already covered that point," I said, in a low voice.
"The medical books are full of painful evidence that several blind
children are often not enough. There can be no escaping the
necessity--Sylvia must _know._ The only question is, who shall tell
her? You must realize that in urging you to be the person, I am
thinking of your good as well as hers. I will, of course, not
mention that I have had anything to do with persuading you, and so
it will seem to her that you have some realization of the wrong you
have done her, some desire to atone for it, and to be honourable and
fair in your future dealings with her. When she has once been made
to realize that you are no more guilty than other men of your
class--hat you have done no worse than all of them----
"You imagine she could be made to believe that?" he broke in,
impatiently.
"I will undertake to see that she believes it," I replied.
"You seem to have great confidence in your ability to manage my
wife!"
"If you continue to resent my existence," I answered, gravely, "you
will make it impossible for me to help you."
"Pardon me," he said--but he did not say it cordially.
I went on: "There is much that can be said in your behalf. I realize
it is quite possible that you were not wholly to blame when you
wrote to Bishop Chilton that you were fit to marry; I know that you
may have believed it--that you might even have found physicians to
tell you so. There is wide-spread ignorance on the subject of this
disease. Men have the idea that the chronic forms of it cannot be
communicated to women, and it is difficult to make them realize what
modern investigations have proven. You can explain that to Sylvia,
and I will back you up in it. You were in love with her, you wanted
her. Go to her now, and admit to her honestly that you have wronged
her. Beg her to forgive you, and to let you help make the best of
the cruel situation that has arisen."
So I went on, pouring out my soul. And when I had finished, he said,
"Mrs. Abbott, I have listened patiently to your most remarkable
proposition. My answer is that I must ask you to withdraw from this
intimate matter, which concerns only my wife and myself."
He was back where we started! Trying to sweep aside these grim and
terrible realities with the wave of a conventional hand! Was this
the way he met Sylvia's arguments? I felt moved to tell him what I
thought of him.
"You are a proud man, Mr. van Tuiver--an obstinate man, I fear. It
is hard for you to humble yourself to your wife--to admit a crime
and beg forgiveness. Tell me--is that why you hesitate? Is it
because you fear you will have to take second place in your family
from now on--that you will no longer be able to dominate Sylvia?
Are you afraid of putting into her hands a weapon of self-defence?"
He made no response.
"Very well," I said, at last. "Let me tell you, then--I will not
help any man to hold such a position in a woman's life. Women have
to bear half the burdens of marriage, they pay half, or more than
half, the penalties; and so it is necessary that they have a voice
in its affairs. Until they know the truth, they can never have a
voice."
Of course my little lecture on Feminism might as well have been
delivered to a sphinx. "How stupid you are!" I cried. "Don't you know
that some day Sylvia must find out the truth for herself?"
This was before the days when newspapers and magazines began to
discuss such matters frankly; but still there were hints to be
picked up. I had a newspaper-item in my bag--the board of health in
a certain city had issued a circular giving instructions for the
prevention of blindness in newly-born infants, and discussing the
causes thereof; and the United States post office authorities had
barred the circular from the mails. I said, "Suppose that item had
come under Sylvia's eyes; might it not have put her on the track. It
was in her newspaper the day before yesterday; and it was only by
accident that I got hold of it first. Do you suppose that can go on
forever?"
"Now that I am here," he replied, "I will be glad to relieve you of
such responsibilities."
Which naturally made me cross. I drew from my quiver an arrow that I
thought would penetrate his skin. "Mr. van Tuiver," I said, "a man
in your position must always be an object of gossip and scandal.
Suppose some enemy were to send your wife an anonymous letter? Or
suppose there were some woman who thought that you had wronged her?"
I stopped. He gave me one keen look--and then again the impenetrable
mask! "My wife will have to do as other women in her position
do--pay no attention to scandal-mongers of any sort."
I paused, and then went on: "I believe in marriage. I consider it a
sacred thing; I would do anything in my power to protect and
preserve a marriage. But I hold that it must be an equal
partnership. I would fight to make it that; and wherever I found
that it could not be that, I would say it was not marriage, but
slavery, and I would fight just as hard to break it. Can you not
understand that attitude upon a woman's part?"
He gave no sign that he could understand. But still I would not give
up my battle. "Mr. van Tuiver," I pleaded, "I am a much older person
than you. I have seen a great deal of life--I have seen suffering
even worse than yours. And I am trying most earnestly to help you.
Can you not bring yourself to talk to me frankly? Perhaps you have
never talked with a woman about such matters--I mean, with a good
woman. But I assure you that other men have found it possible, and
never regretted the confidence they placed in me."
I went on to tell him about my own sons, and what I had done for
them; I told him of a score of other boys in their class who had
come to me, making me a sort of mother-confessor. I do not think
that I was entirely deceived by my own eloquence--there was, I am
sure, a minute or two when he actually wavered. But then the habits
of a precocious life-time reasserted themselves, and he set his lips
and told himself that he was Douglas van Tuiver. Such things might
happen in raw Western colleges, but they were not according to the
Harvard manner, nor the tradition of life in Fifth Avenue clubs.
He could not be a boy! He had never had any boyhood, any
childhood--he had been a state personage ever since he had known
that he was anything. I found myself thinking suddenly of the
thin-lipped old family lawyer, who had had much to do with shaping
his character, and whom Syl
via described to me, sitting at her
dinner-table and bewailing the folly of people who "admitted
things." That was what made trouble for family lawyers--not what
people did, but what they admitted. How easy it was to ignore
impertinent questions! And how few people had the wit to do it!-it
seemed as if the shade of the thin-lipped old family lawyer were
standing by Douglas van Tuiver's side.
In a last desperate effort, I cried, "Even suppose that I grant your
request, even suppose I agree not to tell Sylvia the truth--still
the day will come when you will hear from her the point-blank
question: 'Is my child blind because of this disease?' And what will
you answer?"
He said, in his cold, measured tones, "I will answer that there are
a thousand ways in which the disease can be innocently acquired."
For a long time there was silence between us. At last he spoke
again, and his voice was as emotionless as if we had just met: "Do I
understand you, madam, that if I reject your advice and refuse to
tell my wife what you call the truth, it is your intention to tell
her yourself?"
"You understand me correctly," I replied.
"And may I ask when you intend to carry out this threat?"
"I will wait," I said, "I will give you every chance to think it
over--to consult with the doctors, in case you wish to. I will not
take the step without giving you fair notice."
"For that I am obliged to you," he said, with a touch of irony; and
that was our last word.
26. Our island was visible in the distance and I was impatient for
the time when I should be free from this man's presence. But as we
drew nearer, I noticed a boat coming out; it proved to be one of the
smaller launches heading directly for us. Neither van Tuiver nor I
spoke, but both of us watched it, and he must have been wondering,
as I was, what its purpose could be. When it was near enough, I made
out that its passengers were Dr. Perrin and Dr. Gibson.
We slowed up, and the other boat did the same, and they lay within a
few feet of each other. Dr. Perrin greeted van Tuiver, and after
introducing the other man, he said: "We came out to have a talk with
"Certainly," was the reply. The two launches were drawn side by
side, and the transfer made; the man who was running the smaller
launch stepped into ours--evidently having been instructed in
advance.
"You will excuse us please?" said the little doctor to me. The man
who had stepped into our launch spoke to the captain of it, and the
power was then put on, and we moved away a sufficient distance to be
out of hearing. I thought this a strange procedure, but I
conjectured that the doctors had become nervous as to what I might
have told van Tuiver. So I dismissed the matter from my mind, and
spent my time reviewing the exciting adventure I had just passed
through.
How much impression had I made? It was hard for me to judge such a
man. He would pretend to be less concerned than he actually was. But
surely he must see that he was in my power, and would have to give
way in the end!
There came a hail from the little vessel, and we moved alongside
again. "Would you kindly step in here with us, Mrs. Abbott?" said
Dr. Perrin, and when I had done so, he ordered the boatman to move
away once more. Van Tuiver said not a word, but I noted a strained
look upon his face, and I thought the others seemed agitated also.
As soon as the other vessel was out of hearing, Dr. Perrin turned to
me and said: "Mrs. Abbott, we came out to see Mr. van Tuiver, to
warn him of a distressing accident which has just happened. Mrs. van
Tuiver was asleep in her room, and Miss Lyman and another of the
nurses were in the next room. They indiscreetly made some remarks on
the subject which we have all been discussing--how much a wife
should be told about these matters, and suddenly they discovered
Mrs. van Tuiver standing in the doorway of the room."
My gaze had turned to Douglas van Tuiver. "So she _knows!_" I cried.
"We don't think that she knows, but she has a suspicion and is
trying to find out. She asked to see you."
"Ah, yes!" I said.
"She declared that she wished to see you as soon as you
returned--that she would not see anyone else, not even Mr. van
Tuiver. You will understand that this portends trouble for all of
us. We judged it necessary to have a consultation about the matter."
I bowed in assent.
"Now, Mrs. Abbot," began the little doctor, solemnly, "there is no
longer a question of abstract ideas, but of an immediate emergency.
We feel that we, as the physicians in charge of the case, have the
right to take control of the matter. We do not see----"
"Dr. Perrin," I said, "let us come to the point. You want me to spin
a new web of deception?"
"We are of the opinion, Mrs. Abbott, that in such matters the
physicians in charge----"
"Excuse me," I said, quickly, "we have been over all this before,
and we know that we disagree. Has Mr. van Tuiver told you of the
proposition I have just made?"
"You mean for him to go to his wife----"
"Yes."
"He has told us of this, and has offered to do it. We are of the
opinion that it would be a grave mistake."
"It has been three weeks since the birth of the baby," I said.
"Surely all danger of fever is past. I will grant you that if it
were a question of telling her deliberately, it might be better to
put it off for a while. I would have been willing to wait for
months, but for the fact that I dreaded something like the present
situation. Now that it has happened, surely it is best to use our
opportunity while all of us are here and can persuade her to take
the kindest attitude towards her husband."
"Madam!" broke in Dr. Gibson. (He was having difficulty in
controlling his excitement.) "You are asking us to overstep the
bounds of our professional duty. It is not for the physician to
decide upon the attitude a wife should take toward her husband."
"Dr. Gibson," I replied, "that is what you propose to do, only you
wish to conceal the fact. You would force Mrs. van Tuiver to accept
your opinion of what a wife's duty is."
Dr. Perrin took command once more. "Our patient has asked for you,
and she looks to you for guidance. You must put aside your own
convictions and think of her health. You are the only person who can
calm her, and surely it is your duty to do so!"
"I know that I might go in and lie again to my friend, but she knows
has--a lawyer's mind! How can I persuade her that the nurses--why, I
do not even know what she heard the nurses say!"
"We have that all written down for you," put in Dr. Perrin, quickly.
"You have their recollection of it, no doubt--but suppose they have
forgotten some of it? Sylvia has not forgotten, you may be
sure
--every word is burned with fire into her brain. She has put
with this everything she ever heard on the subject--the experience
of her friend, Harriet Atkinson-all that I've told her in the past
about such things----"
"Ah!" growled Dr. Gibson. "That's it! If you had not meddled in the
beginning----"
"Now, now!" said the other, soothingly. "You ask me to relieve you
of the embarrassment of this matter. I quite agree with Mrs. Abbott
that there is too much ignorance about these things, but she must
recognise, I am sure, that this is not the proper moment for
enlightening Mrs. van Tuiver."
"I do not recognise it at all," I said. "If her husband will go to
her and tell her humbly and truthfully----"
"You are talking madness!" cried the old man, breaking loose again.
"She would be hysterical--she would regard him as something
loathsome--some kind of criminal----"
"Of course she would be shocked," I said, "but she has the coolest
head of anyone I know--I do not think of any man I would trust so
fully to take a rational attitude in the end. We can explain to her
what extenuating circumstances there are, and she will have to
recognise them. She will see that we are considering her rights----"
"Her _rights!_" The old man fairly snorted the words.
"Now, now, Dr. Gibson!" interposed the other. "You asked me----"
"I know! I know! But as the older of the physicians in charge of
this case----"
Dr. Perrin managed to frown him down, and went on trying to placate
me. But through the argument I could hear the old man muttering in
his collar a kind of double bass _pizzicato_: "Suffragettes!
Fanatics! Hysteria! Woman's Rights!"
27. The breeze was feeble, and the sun was blazing hot, but
nevertheless I made myself listen patiently for a while. They had
said it all to me, over and over again; but it seemed that Dr.
Perrin could not be satisfied until it had been said in Douglas van
Tuiver's presence.
"Dr. Perrin," I exclaimed, "even supposing we make the attempt to
deceive her, we have not one plausible statement to make----"
"You are mistaken, Mrs. Abbott," said he. "We have the perfectly
well-known fact that this disease is often contracted in ways which
involve no moral blame. And in this case I believe I am in position
to state how the accident happened."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know whether you heard that just before Mrs. van Tuiver's
confinement, I was called away to one of the other keys to attend a
negro-woman. And since this calamity has befallen us, I have
realized that I was possibly not as careful in sterilizing my
instruments as I might have been. It is of course a dreadful thing
for any physician to have to believe----"
He stopped, and there was a long silence. I gazed from one to
another of the men. Two of them met my gaze; one did not. "He is
going to let you say that?" I whispered, at last.
"Honour and fairness compel me to say it, Mrs. Abbott. I
believe----"
But I interrupted him. "Listen to me, Dr. Perrin. You are a
chivalrous gentleman, and you think you are helping a man in
desperate need. But I say that anyone who would permit you to tell
such a tale is a contemptible coward!"
"Madam," cried Dr. Gibson, furiously, "there is a limit even to a
woman's rights!"
A silence followed. At last I resumed, in a low voice, "You
gentlemen have your code: you protect the husband--you protect him
at all hazards. I could understand this, if he were innocent of the
offence in question; I could understand it if there were any
possibility of his being innocent. But how can you protect him, when
you know that he is guilty?"
"There can be no question of such knowledge!" cried the old doctor.
"I have no idea," I said, "how much he has admitted to you; but let