Perhaps she
would not be contented if she were there, but she would be there; and as
time goes on, to be where we were in all things which concern the
affections, that is the great matter."
"Ah, yes, ah, yes," was the bright-eyed reply of that Clerk, "there is no
doubt of that! My sister and I there, we are fifty years together, never
with the wrong thing at the wrong time, always the thing as it was,
always to be where we were."
The Judge shook his head. "There is an eternity of difference, Fille,
between the sister and brother and the husband and wife. The sacredness
of isolation is the thing which holds the brother and sister together.
The familiarity of--but never mind what it is that so often forces
husband and wife apart. It is there, and it breaks out in rebellion as it
did with the wife of Jean Jacques Barbille. As she was a strong woman in
her way, it spoiled her life, and his too when it broke out."
M. Fille's face lighted with memory and feeling. "Ah, a woman of powerful
emotions, monsieur, that is so! I think I never told you, but at the
last, in my office, when she went, she struck George Masson in the face.
It was a blow that--but there it was; I have never liked to think of it.
When I do, I shudder. She was a woman who might have been in other
circumstances--but there!"
The Judge suddenly stopped in his walk and faced round on his friend.
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