Presently he said: "To the dead, who cannot suffer, we can be kind and
shield them even from themselves. Is there no way to help the living? A
few hundred dollars, two short years ago, would have saved all this, and
there was no way for her to get it. She knew it _all_ then, and there
was no help!"
"Why did she not, in such a case as that, push back her pride and go
to some one? There must be thousands who would have gladly responded to
such a call as that," I argued.
He buried his face in his hands for a moment and shuddered. At last
he said: "She did--she went to three good men, men who had known, been
friendly with, admired her and her husband. Two of them are worth their
millions, the other one is rich. She only asked to borrow, and promised
to repay it herself if she had to live and work after he were dead to do
it!"
He paused.
"You do not mean to tell me that they refused--and they old friends and
rich?" I asked, amazed.
"I mean to say just this: they one and all made some excuse; they did
not let her have it."
"She told them what the doctors said, and of her fears?"
"She did," he answered, sadly.
"And yet you say they are good men!" I exclaimed, indignantly.
"Good, benevolent, charitable, every one of them," he answered.
"Were you one of them, Barker?" I asked, after a moment's pause.
"Thank God, no!" he replied. "But perhaps in some other case I have done
the same, if I only knew the whole story. Those men do not know this
last, you must remember."
"And the worst of it is, we dare not tell them," said I, as we parted.
"No, we dare not," he replied, and left me standing with the copy of the
burial certificate in my hand.
"Natural causes?" I said to myself, looking at it. "Died of natural
causes--the brutality and selfishness of man--and poverty with love.
_Natural_ causes! Yes." And I closed my office door and turned out the
light.