"I must think."
"The more you think, the better satisfied you will be of what I say. All
I want of you is to think; for I am certain if you do, your good sense
will convince you I am right."
He paused a moment. Hester did not speak. He resumed:
"Just think," he said, "what it would be to have you coming home to go
out again straight from one of these kennels of the small-pox! The idea
is horrible! Wherever you were suspected of being present, the house
would be shunned like the gates of death."
"In such circumstances I should not go out."
"The suspicion of it would be enough. And in your absence, as certainly
as in your presence, though not so fatally, you would be neglecting your
duty to society."
"Then," said Hester, "the portion of society that is healthy, wealthy,
and--merry, has stronger claims than the portion that is poor and sick
and in prison!"
Lord Gartley was for a moment bewildered--not from any feeling of the
force of what she said, but from inability to take it in. He had to turn
himself about two or three times mentally before he could bring himself
to believe she actually meant that those to whom she alluded were to be
regarded as a portion of the same society that ruled his life.
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