Part 3 (1/2)

”Forgiveall over as it were, ”but your remarks, which may or ion, seeularly bad taste

They would have turned the sto of early Christians, who appear to have been the worst mannered people in the world, and at any decent heathen feast your neck would have been wrung as that of a bird of ill omen”

”Why?” asked Bastin blankly ”I only said what I thought to be the truth The truth is better than what you call good taste”

”Then I will say what I think also to be the truth,” replied Bickley, growing furious ”It is that you use your Christianity as a cloak for bad manners It teaches consideration and sympathy for others of which you seem to have none Moreover, since you talk of the death of people's wives, I will tell you so about your own, as a doctor, which I can do as I never attended her It is highly probable, in my opinion, that she will die before Mrs Arbuthnot, who is quite a healthy person with a good prospect of life”

”Perhaps,” said Bastin ”If so, it will be God's will and I shall not coh I do not see what you can know about it But why should you cast reflections on the early Christians ere people of strong principle living in rough tiainst an established devil-worshi+p? I know you are angry because they smashed up the statues of Venus and so forth, but had I been in their place I should have done the same”

”Of course you would, who doubts it? But as for the early Christians and their iconoclastic perfor up and left the room

I followed him

Let it not be supposed fro between Bastin and Bickley On the contrary they were much attached to each other, and this kind of quarrelexpression of their individual views to which they were accustoe days For instance Bastin was always talking about the early Christians and missionaries, while Bickley loathed both, the early Christians because of the destruction which they had wrought in Egypt, Italy, Greece and elsewhere, of all that was beautiful; and theand spoiling the native races and by inducing the them liable to disease Bastin would answer that their souls were more important than their bodies, to which Bickley replied that as there was no such thing as a soul except in the stupid iination of priests, he differed entirely on the point As it was quite impossible for either to convince the other, there the conversation would end, or drift into so in which they were iene of the neighbourhood

Here I may state that Bickley's keen professional eye was not nosed Mrs Bastin's state of health as dangerous As afronise by the colour of the lips, etc, which brought about her death under the following circumstances:

Her husband attended some ecclesiastical function at a town over twenty miles away and was to have returned by a train which would have brought him home about five o'clock As he did not arrive she waited at the station for him until the last train came in about seven o'clock--without the beloved Basil Then, on a winter's night she tore up to the Priory and begged -cart in which to drive to the said town to look for hi, saying that no doubt Basil was safe enough but had forgotten to telegraph, or thought that he would save the sixpence which the wire cost

Then it came out, to Natalie's and my intense amusement, that all this was the result of her jealous nature of which I have spoken She said she had never slept a night away froning persons” about she could not say what ht happen if she did so, especially as he was ”such a favourite and so handsoed way)

I suggested that she ht have a little confidence in him, to which she replied darkly that she had no confidence in anybody

The end of it was that I lent her the cart with a fast horse and a good driver, and off she went Reaching the town in question soh and low through wind and sleet, but found no Basil He, it appeared, had gone on to Exeter, to look at the cathedral where so the last train had there slept the night

About one in thenearly locked up as a ain to find no Basil Even then she did not go to bed but raged about the house in her wet clothes, until she fell down utterly exhausted When her husband did return on the following erously ill, and actually passed ahile uttering a violent tirade against his

That was the end of this truly odious British matron

In after days Bastin, by soination as a kind of saint ”So loving,” he would say, ”such a devoted wife! Why, my dear Humphrey, I can assure you that even in the hts were of me,” words that caused Bickley to snort with our, until I kicked him to silence beneath the table

Chapter IV Death and Departure

Now I must tell of my own terrible sorrohich turned my life to bitterness and my hopes to ashes

Never were a ether than I and Natalie

Mentally, physically, spiritually ere perfectly mated, and we loved each other dearly Truly ere as one Yet there was soue fears, especially after she found that she was to become a h and shake her head, her eyes filling with tears, and say that we must not count on the continuance of such happiness as ours, for it was too great

I tried to laugh away her doubts, though whenever I did so I see casually that she ht have corew terrified and asked her bluntly what she meant

”I don't quite know, dearest,” she replied, ”especially as I am wonderfully well But--but--”

”But what?” I asked

”But I think that our co to be broken for a little while”

”For a little while!” I exclaimed