Adventures in Contentment

A pause followed which no one seemed inclined to fill. "But he didn't go," I said. "No, he didn't go. He was a brilliant young fellow. He knew a lot, and he was popular, too. He'd have had a great success----" Another pause. "But he didn't go?" I asked promptingly. "No; he staid here. He was better educated than any man in this county. Why, I've seen him more'n once pick up a book of Latin and read it for pleasure." I could see that all this was purposely irrelevant, and I liked them for it. But walking home from the cemetery Horace gave me the story; the community knew it to the last detail. I suppose it is a story not uncommon among men, but this morning, told of the old Doctor we had just laid away, it struck me with a tragic poignancy difficult to describe. "Yes," said Horace, "he was to have been married, forty years ago, and the match was broken off because he was a drunkard." "A drunkard!" I exclaimed, with a shock I cannot convey. "Yes, sir," said Horace, "one o' the worst you ever see. He got it in the army. Handsome, wild, brilliant--that was the Doctor. I was a little boy but I remember it mighty well." He told me the whole distressing story. It was all a long time ago and the details do not matter now. It was to be expected that a man like the old Doctor should love, love once, and love as few men do. And that is what he did--and the girl left him because he was a drunkard!