Indecision

"When conscience sees clear, conscience need not budge: 
But there are times it cannot clearly see 
This way or that, and then it strives to stand, 
Holding an even balance in its hand."
--ALFRED AUSTIN.

Sleep was impossible. All through the long hours of the night Philippa lay wide awake, every nerve, every faculty of her mind tuned to the highest point of tension, going over and over the story she had heard.

Her keen sympathy and ready imagination filled in the details which had been omitted, and she pictured the endless succession of weary days which lengthened into years--the mother's anguish as hope grew fainter and was at last extinguished, and, the central figure of the tragedy, the man who for all the years, day in, day out, had waited. "Just waited." The very simplicity of the doctor's words had only added to their pathos.

She thought of her father, and of what his feelings in the matter must have been. She knew well that to a man of his rigid integrity of mind and purpose his sister's action must have been beyond all possible excuse. The mere fact that she had broken her plighted word would have been hard to condone, for to him the violation of a promise once given was impossible, and against all the principles which ruled his life. He would have felt a personal shame that one of his own family should have been guilty of it, and more especially his dearly loved sister; and that in addition she should have acted with what could only be described as utter heartlessness towards the man who had been his dearest friend must have been a sorrow beyond all words.