Three days passed at the mills with no special incident. To Salome they
seemed the dullest she had ever known. For the first time, she
discovered that the Shawsheen Mills and the condition of its operatives
was not enough to satisfy the inmost longings of her heart, or to still
its disquietude. Without the presence of John Villard, and the constant
inspiration of his presence, life lost its zest and sparkle.
When the three days were over, Salome went to her pillow at night with a
sense of relief. Until now, she had not realized what her position at
the head of the mills might mean without Villard. She saw that without
him she could have done little, and would have made many mistakes—a fact
which it was good for her to realize. And then she remembered, with
sudden terror, that he might leave her at any moment, as Burnham had
done.
“He will be home in the morning,” she said to her disquieted heart, “and
I will offer him a share in the business. I will make him a partner, and
then I shall never lose him.” And even in the darkness of night and the
privacy of her own room, she resolutely put away from herself any other
contingency.
The morning dawned beautiful, fresh and balmy, as only a spring morning
late in May can dawn in New England. Salome dressed herself with unusual
care. A strange, happy feeling under-ran all her thoughts. She would not
think of him; she would not look forward to his coming; but, for her,
all the gladness of the May morning, all the blossoming of spring
flowers, all the caroling of joyous birds, meant only that Villard had
arrived in Shepardtown on the night express, and that she would see him
in an hour or two. She did not hurry her preparations for
breakfast,—this was such a strange, delightful mood. She looked at her
own reflection in the mirror, thinking unconsciously of making herself
fair for him. She sang snatches of merry song from the last comic opera,
laughing to herself as she recalled how her nurse used to forbid her
singing before the morning meal, and how she used to repeat, in a
lugubrious tone, the old sign:
“If you sing before breakfast,
You’ll cry before night.”
And, still singing, she stopped at her aunt’s room, only to find that
everybody had gone downstairs before her.
Mrs. Soule and Marion were chatting pleasantly over their hot-house
grapes when she entered the breakfast-room. The morning papers lay
untouched beside Salome’s plate. She took her place and leisurely pared
an orange. Afterwards she remembered the time she wasted in cutting the
peel into fantastic shapes.
“Has nobody looked at the papers?” she asked, after a while. “I declare,
how self-absorbed we are growing. Who knows but the world has, half of
it, come to an end, over night?”
She picked up one of the papers—the one which contained the most
startling head-lines, the most sickening sensations. Opening it, her
eyes became riveted to the front page. Her face paled. She grew whiter,
but no one noticed. When Marion looked up, the paper was falling from
Salome’s hand, and she had fallen back in her chair—faint, speechless
with terror.
With a cry, Marion sprang to her side; but Salome, by a tremendous
effort, recovered herself.
“Read it,” she gasped, “and tell me what to do.”
Marion picked up the paper, and read: