“I should hardly have thought it worthy of your gifts, George,” she said, “to turn police-man. For my part, I should not relish hunting down any poor wretch.”
“The sacrifice of individual choice is a claim society has upon each of its members,” returned Bascombe. “Every murderer hanged, or better, imprisoned for life, is a gain to the community.”
Helen said no more, and presently turned homewards, on the plea that she must not be longer absent from her invalid.
It was nearly dark when they arrived again at the lodge. Rachel opened the gate for them. Without even a THANK YOU, they rode out. She stood for a moment gazing after them through the dusk, then turned with a sigh, and went into the kitchen, where her uncle sat by the fire with a book in his hand.
“How I should like to be as well made as Miss Lingard!” she said, seating herself by the lamp that stood on the deal-table. “It MUST be a fine thing to be strong and tall, and able to look this way and that without turning all your body along with your head, like the old man that gathers the leeches in Wordsworth’s poem. And what it must be to sit on a horse as she does! You should have seen her go flying like the very wind across the park! You would have thought she and her horse were cut out of the same piece. I’m dreadfully envious, uncle.”
“No, my child; I know you better than you do yourself. There is a great difference between _I_ WISH _I_ WAS and _I_ SHOULD LIKE TO BE--as much as between a grumble and a prayer. To be content is not to be satisfied. No one ought to be satisfied with the imperfect. It is God’s will that we should bear, and contentedly--because in hope, looking for the redemption of the body. And we know he has a ready servant who will one day set us free.”
“Yes, uncle; I understand. You know I enjoy life: how could I help it and you with me? But I don’t think I ever go through the churchyard without feeling a sort of triumph. ‘There’s for you!’ I say sometimes to the little crooked shadow that creeps along by my side across the graves. ‘You’ll soon be caught and put inside!’--But how am I to tell I mayn’t be crooked in the next world as well as this? That’s what troubles me at times. There might be some necessity for it, you know.”