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"That's just it," he broke in eagerly. "Of course I knew you couldn't own you cared while she" —

The egotism of it, the vulgarity of it made me frantic. I was ashamed of myself, I was ashamed of him, and I felt as if nothing would make him see the truth. Never in my whole life have I spoken to any human being as I did to him. I felt like a raging termagant, but he would not see.

"Stop!" I cried out. "If you had never had a wife, I couldn't care for you. I thought I loved you, and perhaps I did; but all that is over, and over forever."

"You've said you'd love me always," he retorted.

Some outer layer of courtesy seemed to have cracked and fallen from him, and to have left an ugly and vulgar nature bare. The pathos of it came over me. The pity that a man should be capable of so exposing his baser self struck me in the midst of all my indignation. I could not help a feeling, moreover, that he had somehow a right to reproach me with having changed. Thinking of it now in cooler blood I cannot see that since he has left me to marry another woman he has any ground for reproaching me; but somehow at the moment I felt guilty.

"George," I answered, "I thought I was telling the truth; I didn't understand myself."

The change in his face showed me that this way of putting it had done more to convince him than any direct denial. His whole manner altered.

"You don't mean," he pleaded piteously, "you've stopped caring for me?"

I could only tell him that certainly I had stopped caring for him in the old way, and I begged him to go back to his wife. He said little more, and I was at last released from this horrible scene. All night I thought of it miserably or I dreamed of it more miserably still. That poor woman! What can I do for her? I hope I have not lost the power of influencing George, for I might use it to help her.

XI
NOVEMBER

November 3. How odd are the turns that fate plays us. Sometimes it seems as if an unseen power were amusing himself tangling the threads of human lives just as Peter has been snarling up my worsted for pure fun. Only a power mighty enough to be able to do this must be too great to be so heartless. I suppose, too, that the pity of things is often more in the way in which we look at them than it is in the turn which fate or fortune has given to affairs. The point of view changes values so.

All this is commonplace, of course; but it is certainly curious that George's wife should be in my house, almost turned out of her husband's. When I found her on the steps the other night, wet with the rain, afraid to ring, afraid of me, and terrified at what had come upon her, I had no time to think of the strange perversity of events which had brought this about. She had left George's house, she said, because she was afraid of him and because he had said she was to go as soon as she was able. He had called her a horrible name, she added, and he had told her he was done with her; that she must in the future take care of herself and not expect to live with him. I know, after seeing the cruel self George showed the other day, that he could be terrible, and he would have less restraint with his wife than with me. In the evening, as soon as it was really dark, in the midst of the storm, she came to me. She said she knew how I must hate her, that she had said horrid things about me, but she had nowhere else to go, and she implored I would take her in. She is asleep now in the south chamber. She is ill, and I cannot tell what the effects of her exposure will be. Dr. Wentworth looks grave, but he does not say what he thinks.

What I ought to do is the question. She has been here two days, and her husband must have found out by this time what I suppose everybody in town knows, – where she is. I cannot fold my hands and let things go. I must send for George, much as I shrink from seeing him. How can I run the risk of having another scene like the one on Friday? and yet I must do something. She can do nothing for herself. It should be a man to talk with George; but I cannot ask Tom. He and George do not like each other, and he could not persuade George to do right to Gertrude. Perhaps Deacon Richards might effect something.

November 5. After all my difficulty in persuading Deacon Richards to interfere, his efforts have come to nothing. George was rude to him, and told him to mind his own affairs. I suppose dear old Deacon Daniel had not much tact.

"I told him he ought to be ashamed of himself," the Deacon said indignantly, "and that he was a disgrace to the town; but it didn't seem to move him any."

"I hope he treated you well," I answered dolefully. "I am sorry I persuaded you to go."

"He was plain enough," Deacon Daniel responded grimly. "He didn't mince words any to speak of."

I must see him myself. I wish I dared consult Tom, but it could not do any good. I must work it out alone; but what can I say?

November 6. Fortunately, I did not have to send for George. He appeared this afternoon on a singular errand. He wanted to pay me board for his wife until she was well enough to go away. I assured him he need not be troubled about board, because I was glad to do what I could for his wife; and I could not help adding that I did not keep a lodging-house.

"I'm willing to be as kind to her while she's here as I can," he assured me awkwardly, "and of course I shall not let her go away empty-handed."

"She is not likely to," I retorted, feeling my cheeks get hot. "Dr. Wentworth says she cannot be moved until after the baby comes."

He flushed in his turn, and looked out of the window.

"I don't think, Ruth," was his reply, "we can discuss that. It isn't a pleasant subject."

There are women, I know, who can meet obstinacy with guile. I begin to understand how it may be a woman will stoop to flatter and seem to yield, simply through despair of carrying her end by any other means. The hardness of this man almost bred in me a purpose to try and soften him, to try to bewitch him, somehow to fool and ensnare him for his own good; to hide how I raged inwardly at his injustice and cruelty, and to pretend to be acquiescent until I had accomplished my end. I cannot lie, however, even in acts, and all that sort of thing is beyond my power as well as my will. I realized how hopeless it was for me to try to do anything with him, and I rose.

"Very likely you are right," I said. "It is evidently useless for us to discuss anything. Now I can only say good-by; but I forbid you to come into my house again until you bring Mr. Saychase with you to remarry you to Gertrude."

He had risen also, and we stood face to face.

"Do you suppose," he asked doggedly, "now I am free I'd consent to marry any woman but you? I'll make you marry me yet, Ruth Privet, for I know perfectly well you love me. Think how long we were engaged."

I remembered the question he asked me when he came back from Franklin after he had seen her: "How long have we been engaged?"

"I shall keep your wife," was all I said, "until she is well and chooses to go. George, I beg of you not to let her baby be born fatherless."

A hateful look came into his eyes.

"I thought you were fond of fatherless babies," he sneered.

"Go," I said, hardly controlling myself, "and don't come here again without Mr. Saychase."

"If I bring him it will be to marry you, Ruth."

Something in me rose up and spoke without my volition. I did not know what I was saying until the words were half said. I crossed the room and rang the bell for Rosa, and as I did it I said: —

"I see I must have a husband to protect me from your insults, and I will marry Tom Webbe."

Before he could answer, Rosa appeared.

"Rosa," I said, and all my calmness had come back, "will you show Mr. Weston to the door. I am not at home to him again until he comes with Mr. Saychase."

She restrained her surprise and amusement better than I expected, but before she had had time to do more than toss her head George had rushed away without ceremony. By this time, I suppose, every man, woman, and child in town knows that I have turned him out of my house.

November 7. "And after the fire a still, small voice!" I have been saying this over and over to myself; and remembering, not irreverently, that God was in the voice.

I have had a talk with Tom which has moved me more than all the trouble with George. The very fact that George so outraged all my feelings and made me so angry kept me from being touched as I might have been otherwise; but this explanation with Tom has left me shaken and tired out. It is emotion and not physical work that wears humanity to shreds.

Tom came to discuss the reading-room. He is delighted that it has started so well and is going on so swimmingly; and he is full of plans for increasing the interest. I was, I confess, so preoccupied with what I had made up my mind to say to him I could hardly follow what he was saying. I felt as if something were grasping me by the throat. He looked at me strangely, but he went on talking as if he did not notice my uneasiness.

"Tom," I broke out at last, when I could endure it no longer, "did you know that Mrs. Weston is here, very ill?"

"Yes," was all he answered.

"And, Tom," I hurried on, "George won't remarry her."

"Won't remarry her?" he echoed. "The cur!"

"He was here yesterday," I went on desperately, "and he said he is determined to marry me."

Tom started forward with hot face and clenched fist.

"The blackguard! I wish I'd been here to kick him out of the house! What did you say to him?"

"I told him he had insulted me, and forbade him to come here again without Mr. Saychase to remarry them," I said. Then before Tom's searching look I became so confused he could not help seeing there was more.

"Well?" he demanded.

He was almost peremptory, although he was courteous. Men have such a way in a crisis of instinctively taking the lead that a woman yields to it almost of necessity.

"Tom," I answered, more and more confused, "I must tell you, but I hope you'll understand. I had a frightful time with him. I was ashamed of him and ashamed of myself, and very angry; and when he said he'd make me marry him sometime, I told him" —

"Well?" demanded Tom, his voice much lower than before, but even more compelling.

"I told him," said I, the blood fairly throbbing in my cheeks, "that I should marry you. You've asked me, you know!"

He grew fairly white, but for a moment he did not move. His eyes had a look in them I had never seen, and which made me tremble. It seemed to me that he was fighting down what he wanted to say, and to get control of himself.

"Ruth," he asked me at last, with an odd hoarseness in his voice, "do you want George Weston to marry that woman?"

"Of course I do," I cried, so surprised and relieved that the question was not more personal the tears started to my eyes. "I want it more than anything else in the world."

Again he was still for a moment, his eyes looking into mine as if he meant to drag out my most secret thought. These silences were too much for me to bear, and I broke this one. I asked him if he were vexed at what I had said to George, and told him the words had seemed to say themselves without any will of mine.

"I could only be sorry at anything you said, Ruth," he returned, "never vexed. I only think it a pity for you to link your name with mine."

I tried to speak, but he went on.

"I've loved you ever since I was old enough to love anything. I've told you that often enough, and I don't think you doubt it. I had you as my ambition all the time I was growing up. I came home from college, and you were engaged, and all the good was taken out of life for me. I've never cared much since what happened. But if I've asked you to love me, Ruth, I never gave you the right to think I'd be base enough to be willing you should marry me without loving me."

Again I tried to speak, though I cannot tell what I wished to say. I only choked and could not get out a word.

"Don't talk about it. I can't stand it," he broke in, his voice husky. "You needn't marry me to make George Weston come up to the mark. I'll take care of that."

I suppose I looked up with a dread of what might happen if he saw George, and of course Tom could not understand that my concern was for him and not for George. He smiled a bitter sort of smile.

"You needn't be afraid," he said. "I'll treat him tenderly for your sake."

I was too confused to speak, and I could only sit there dazed and silent while he went away. It was not what he was saying that filled me with a tumult till my thoughts seemed beating in my head like wild birds in a net. Suddenly while he was speaking, while his dear, honest eyes full of pain were looking into mine, the still, small voice had spoken, and I knew that I cared for Tom as he cared for me.

November 8. I realize now that from the morning when Tom and I first stood with baby in my arms between us I have felt differently toward him. It was at the moment almost as if I were his wife, and though I never owned it to myself, even in my most secret thought, I have somehow belonged to him ever since. I see now that something very deep within has known and has from time to time tried to tell me; but I put my hands to the ears of my mind. Miss Fleming used to try to teach us things at school about the difference between the consciousness and the will, and other dark mysteries which to me were, and are, and always will be utterly incomprehensible, and I suppose some kind of a consciousness knew what the will wouldn't recognize. That sounds like nonsense now it is on paper, but it seemed extremely wise when I began to write it. No matter; the facts I know well enough. It is wonderful how a woman will hide a thing from herself, a thing she knows really, but keeps from being conscious she knows by refusing to let her thoughts put it into words.

To myself I seem shamefully fickle, – and yet it seems also as if I had never changed at all, but that it was always Tom I have been fond of, even when I fully believed it was George. Of course this is only a weak excuse; but at least I have been fond of Tom as a friend from my childhood. He has always commanded me, too, in a way. He has done what I wished and what I thought best; but I have always known he could be influenced only so far, and that if I wanted what he did not believe in he could be as stubborn as a rock. The hardness of his mother shows itself in him as the stanch foundation for the gentleness he gets from his father.

Miss Charlotte came in for a moment to-day, and by instinct she knew that something had made me happy. She was full of sympathy for a moment, and then, I think, some suspicion came into her dear old head which she would not have there.

"Ruth, my dear," she said in her rough way, "you look too cheerful for the head of a foundling asylum and a house of refuge. I hope you've made George Weston promise to marry his own wife, – though if I made the laws it wouldn't be necessary for a man to marry a woman more than once. I've no idea of weddings that have to come round once in so often like house-cleaning."

She was watching me so keenly as she spoke that I smiled in spite of myself.

"No," I told her, "I haven't been able to make him; but Tom Webbe has undertaken to bring him round, so I believe it will be all right."

Whether she understood or not I cannot tell, but from the loving way in which she leaned over and kissed me I suspect she had some inkling of it.

November 9. They are married. Just after dusk to-night I heard the doorbell, and Rosa came in with a queer look on her face to say that Mr. Saychase and Mr. Weston were in the hall. I went out to them at once, and tried to act as if everything had been arranged between us. George was pale and stern. He would not look at me, and I did not exchange a word directly with him while he was in the house, except to say good-evening and good-by. I kept them waiting just a moment or two while I prepared Gertrude, and then I called them upstairs. She behaved very well, acting as if she were a little frightened, but accepting everything without a word. I suspect she is too ill really to care for anything very much. The ceremony was over quickly, and then George went away without noticing his wife further except to say good-night.

Tom came in for a moment, later, to see that everything was well, and of course I asked him how he had brought George to consent. He smiled rather grimly.

"I did it simply enough," he said. "I tried easy words first, and appealed to him as a gentleman, – though of course I knew it was no use. If such a plea would have done any good, I shouldn't have been there. Then I said he wouldn't be tolerated in Tuskamuck if he didn't make it right for his wife. He said he guessed he could fix that, and if other people would mind their own business he could attend to his. Then I opened the door and called in Cy Turner. I had him waiting outside because I knew Weston would understand he meant business. I asked him to say what we'd agreed; and he told Weston that if he didn't marry the woman before midnight we'd have him ridden out of town on a rail. He weakened at that. He knew we'd do it."

I could not say anything to this. It was a man's way of treating the situation, and it accomplished its end; but it did affect me a good deal. I shivered at the very idea of a mob, and of what might have happened if George had not yielded. Tom saw how I felt, I suppose.

"You think I'm a brute, Ruth," he said, "but I knew he'd give in. He isn't very plucky. I always knew that."

He hurried away to go to the reading-room, where he had to see to something or other, and we said nothing about our personal relations. I wonder if I fancied that he watched me very closely to see how I took his account, or if he really thought I might resent his having browbeaten George. He need not have feared. I was troubled by the idea of the mob, but I was proud of Tom, and I could not help contrasting his clear, straightforward look with the way George avoided my eyes.

November 12. Now there are two babies in the house, and Cousin Mehitable might think her prediction that I would set up an orphan asylum was coming true in earnest. In spite of Mrs. Weston's exposure everything is going well, and we hope for the best. I sent George a note last night to tell him, and he came over for a minute. He behaved very well. He had none of the bravado which has made him so different and so dreadful, and he was more like his old self. He was let into his wife's chamber just long enough to kiss her, but that was all. I suppose to be the father of a son must sober any man.

November 20. Tom never comes any more to see me or baby. When I discovered I cared for him I felt that of course everything was at last straightened out; and here is Tom, who only knows that he cares for me, so the case is about as it was before except that now he will never speak. I must do something; but what can I do? When I thought only of getting out of the way of George's marriage it was bad enough to speak to Tom, and now it seems impossible. I can't, I can't, I can't speak to him again!

November 23. Cousin Mehitable and her telegram arrived this time together, for the boy who drove her from the station brought the message, and gave it to her to bring into the house. She was full of indignation and amazement at what she found, and insisted upon going back to Boston by the afternoon train.

"I never know what you will do, Ruth," she said, "so of course I ought not to be surprised; but of all the wild notions you could take into your head, I must say to have Mrs. Weston come here to have her baby is the most incredible."

"You advised me to have more babies, as long as I had one," I interposed.

"I've a great mind to shake you," was her response. "This is a pretty reception when I haven't seen you since I came home. To think I should be cousin to a foundling hospital, and that all the family I have left!"

I suggested that if I really did set up a foundling hospital, she would soon have as large a family as anybody could want, and she briskly retorted that she had more than she wanted now. She had come down to persuade me to go to Boston for the winter, to make up, she said, for my not going abroad with her, and she brought me a wonderful piece of embroidered crêpe for a party dress. She was as breezy and emphatic as ever, and she denounced me and my doings in good round terms.

"I suppose if you did come to Boston," she said, "you'd be mixed up in all the dreadful charities there, and I should never see you."

"But you know, Cousin Mehitable," I protested, "you belong to two or three charitable societies yourself."

"But those are parish societies," was her reply. "That is quite different. Of course I do my part in whatever the church is concerned in; but you just do things on your own hook, and without even believing anything. I think it's wicked myself."

I could only laugh at her, and it was easy to see that her indignation was not with any charitable work I did, but only with the fact I would not promise to leave everything and go home with her.

Before she went home I told her I had a confession to make. She commented, not very encouragingly, that she supposed it was something worse than anything had come yet, but that as she was prepared for anything I might as well get it out.

"If you've decided to be some sort of a Mormon wife to that horrid Mr. Weston," she added, "I shouldn't be in the least surprised. Perhaps you'll take him in with the rest of his family."

I said I did indeed think of being married, but not to him.

"Let me know the worst at once, Ruth," she broke out, rather fiercely. "At my age I can't stand suspense as I could once. What tramp or beggar or clodhopper have you picked out? I know you too well to suppose it's anybody respectable."

When I named Tom, she at first pretended not to know him, although she has seen him a dozen times in her visits here, and once condescended to say that for a countryman he was really almost handsome.

"I know it's the same name as that baby's father's," she ended, her voice getting icier and icier, "but of course no respectable woman would think of marrying him."

"Then I'm not a respectable woman," I retorted, feeling the blood rise into my face, "for I'm thinking of it."

We looked for a moment into each other's eyes, and I felt, however I appeared, as if I were defying anything she could say.

"So he has taken advantage of your mothering his baby, has he?" she brought out at last.

I responded that he did not even suspect I meant to marry him. She stared, and demanded how he was to find out. I answered that I could think of no way except for me to tell him. She threw up her hands in pretended horror.

"I dare say," she burst out, "he only got you to take the baby so that you'd feel bound to him. I should think when he'd disgraced himself you might have self-respect enough to let him alone. Oh, what would Cousin Horace say!"

Then she saw she was really hurting me, and her eyes softened somewhat.

"I shan't congratulate you, Ruth, if that's what you expect; but since you will be a fool in your own obstinate way, I hope it'll make you happy."

I took both her hands in mine.

"Cousin Mehitable," I pleaded, "don't be hard on me. I know he's done wrong, and it hurts me more than I can tell you. I am so sorry for him and I really, really love him. I'm all alone now except for baby, and I am sure if Father were alive he would see how I feel, and approve of what I mean to do."

The tears came into her eyes as I had never seen them. She drew her hands away, but first she pressed mine.

"Ruth," she said, "never mind my tongue. If you've only baby, I've nobody but you, and you won't come near me. Besides, you are going to have him. I can't pretend I like it, Ruth; but I do like you, and I do dearly hope you'll be happy. You deserve to be, my dear; and I'm a selfish, worldly old woman, with a train to catch. Now don't say another word about it, or I'll disinherit you in my will."

So we kissed each other, and she went away with my secret.

November 25. Kathie has come home for her Thanksgiving vacation, and I never saw a creature so transformed. She is so interested in her school, her studies, her companions, that she seems to have forgotten that anybody ever frightened her about her soul; and she is just a merry, happy girl, bright-eyed and rather high-strung, but not in the least morbid. She hugged me, and kissed Tomine, and the nonsense of her jealousy, as of her having committed the unpardonable sin, was forgotten entirely. It is an unspeakable comfort to me that the experiment of sending her away has turned out so well.

Miss Charlotte came in while Kathie was here, and watched her with shrewd, keen eyes as she rattled on about the things she is studying, the games she plays, and the friends she has made. When she had gone, Miss Charlotte looked at me with one of her friendly regards.

"She's made over, like the boy's jackknife that had a new blade and a new handle," was her comment. "I think, my dear, you've saved her soul alive."

I was delighted that she thought Kathie so much improved, though of course I realized I had not done it.

November 26. I have invited George to Thanksgiving dinner. I do hope Gertrude will be able to come downstairs; if she is not I shall have to get through as best I can without her. Miss Charlotte will come, and that will prevent the awkwardness of our being by ourselves.

George comes every day to see his wife, and I think his real feelings, his better side, have been called out by her illness. She is the mother of his son, and she is so extremely pretty and pathetic as she lies there, that I should not think any man could resist her. She is so softened by what she has gone through, and so grateful for kindness, she seems a different person from the over-dressed woman we have known without liking very much.

She told me yesterday a good deal about her former life. She has been an orphan from her early girlhood, largely dependent upon an aunt who wanted to be rid of her. It was partly by the contrivance of her aunt, and partly because she longed to escape from a position of dependence, that she married her first husband. She did not stop, I think, to consider what she was doing, and she found her case a pretty hard one. Her husband abused her, and before they had been married a year he ran away to escape a charge of embezzlement. Word was sent to her soon after that he was drowned. She took again her maiden name, and came East to escape all shadow of the disgrace of her married life. She earned her living as a typewriter, until she saw George at Franklin, where she was employed in the bank. She confessed that she came here to secure him, and she wept in begging my pardon for taking him away from me.

If she can keep to her resolutions and if George will only be still fond of her, things may yet go well with them. Aunt Naomi dryly observed yesterday that what has happened will be likely to prevent Mrs. Weston for a long time to come from trying to make a display, and so it may be the best thing that could have befallen her. So much depends upon George, though!

November 30. The dinner went off much better than I could have hoped. Dr. Wentworth allowed Gertrude to leave her room for the first time, and George brought her down to dinner in his arms. She was given only a quarter of an hour, but this served for the topic of talk, and George was so tender with his wife that Miss Charlotte was quite warmed to him.

The two babies of course had to be produced, but it was rather painful to see how thin and spindling the little Weston baby looked beside my bonny Thomasine. Tomine has grown really to know me. She will come scrambling like a little crab across the floor toward me if I appear in the nursery. Hannah and Rosa are both jealous of me, and I triumph over them in a fashion little less than inhuman.

I am glad Thanksgiving is over, for in spite of all any of us might do to seem perfectly at ease, some sense of constraint and uncomfortableness was always in the background. On the whole, however, we did very well; and Miss Charlotte sat with me far into the twilight, talking of Mother.