The World of Chance by William Dean Howells

"Well, old fellow, I've got some good news for you," said Mr. Brandreth, / when Ray showed himself at the door of the publisher's little den the / next morning. Ray thought that he carried the record of the event he had / witnessed in every lineament, but Mr. Brandreth could have seen nothing / unusual in his face. "The editor of _Every Evening_ has just been here, / and he wants to see you about taking hold of his literary department. " / Ray stared blankly. Mr. Brandreth went on with generous pleasure: "He's / had some trouble with the man who's been doing it, and it's come to a / complete break at last, and now he wants you to try. He's got some new / ideas about it. He wants to make something specially literary of the / Saturday issue; he has a notion of restoring the old-fashioned serial. / If you take charge, you could work in the _Modern Romeo_ on him; and / then, if it succeeds as a serial, we can republish it in book form! / Better see him at once! Isn't it funny how things turn out? He said he / was coming down town in a Broadway car, and happened to catch sight of / Coquelin's name on a poster at the theatre, and it made him think of / you. He'd always liked that thing you did for him, and when he got down / here, he jumped out and came in to ask about you. I talked you into him / good and strong, and he wants to see you."

Ray listened in nerveless passivity to news that would have transported / him with hope a few hours before. Mr. Brandreth might well have mistaken / his absent stare for the effect of such a rapture. He said, as a man / does when tempted a little beyond prudence by the pleasure he is giving:

"The fact is, I've been thinking about that work of yours, myself. I / want to try _some_ novel for the summer trade; and I want you to let me / see it again. I want to read it myself this time. They say a publisher / oughtn't to know anything about the inside of a book, but I think we / might make an exception of yours. " Ray's face remained unchanged, and / Mr. Brandreth now asked, with a sudden perception of its strangeness: / "Hello! What's the matter? Anything gone wrong with you?"

"No, no," Ray struggled out, "not with me. But" --

"Nothing new with the Hugheses, I hope? " said Mr. Brandreth, with / mounting alarm. "Miss Hughes was to have come back to work this morning, / but she hasn't yet. No more diphtheria, I hope? By Jove, my dear fellow, / I don't think you ought to come here if there is! I don't think it's / quite fair to me."

"It isn't diphtheria," Ray gasped. "But they're in great trouble. I / hardly know how to tell you. That wretched creature, Denton, has killed / himself. He's been off his base for some time, and I've been / dreading -- I've been there all night with them. He took prussic acid and / died instantly. Mr. Hughes and I had a struggle with him to / prevent -- prevent him; and the old man got a wrench, and then he had a / hemorrhage. He is very weak from it, but the doctor's brought him round / for the present. Miss Hughes wanted me to come and tell you."

"Has it got out yet? " Mr. Brandreth asked. "Are the reporters on to it?"

"The fact has to come out officially through the doctor, but it isn't / known yet."

"I wish it hadn't happened," said Mr. Brandreth. "It will be an awful / scandal."

There had been a moment with Ray too when the scandal of the fact was / all he felt. "Yes," he said, mechanically.

"You see," Mr. Brandreth explained, "those fellows will rummage round in / every direction, for every bit of collateral information, relevant and / irrelevant, and they will make as much as they can of the fact that Miss / Hughes was employed here."

"I see," said Ray.

Mr. Brandreth fell into a rueful muse, but he plucked himself out of it / with self-reproachful decency. "It's awful for them, poor things!"

"It's the best thing that could have happened, under the circumstances," / said Ray, with a coldness that surprised himself, and a lingering / resentment toward Denton that the physical struggle had left in his / nerves. "It was a question whether he should kill himself, or kill some / one else. He had a mania of sacrifice, of atonement. Somebody had to be / offered up. He was a crank. " Ray pronounced the word with a strong / disgust, as if there were nothing worse to be said of a man. He paused, / and then he went on. "I shall have to tell you all about it, Brandreth; " / and he went over the event again, and spared nothing.

Mr. Brandreth listened with starting eyes. As if the additional details / greatly discouraged him, he said, "I don't think those things can be / kept from coming out. It will be a terrible scandal. Of course, I pity / the family; and Miss Hughes. It's strange that they could keep living on / with such a danger hanging over them for weeks and months, and not try / to do anything about it -- not have him shut up."

"The doctor says we've no idea what sort of things people keep living on / with," said Ray, gloomily. "The danger isn't always there, and the hope / is. The trouble keeps on, and in most cases nothing happens. The doctor / says nothing would have happened in this case, probably, if the man had / staid quietly in the country, in the routine he was used to. But when he / had the stress of new circumstances put on him, with the anxieties and / the chances, and all the miseries around him, his mind gave way; I don't / suppose it was ever a very strong one."