"I'll send for you soon. Come, good-by!" He tried to put his arm about
her. She stepped back.
"Jim, if you leave me to-night" ("Choo--choo!" whistled the engine), "you
leave me forever." There was a terrible resolution in her tone.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I'm going to stay here. If you go--I'll never be your
wife--again--never!" She glanced at the sleeping children, and her chin
trembled.
"I can't face those fellows--they'll kill me," he said, in a sullen tone.
"No, they won't. They'll respect you, if you stay and tell 'em exactly
how--it--all--is. You've disgraced me and my children, that's what you've
done! If you don't stay--"
The clear jangle of the engine-bell sounded through the night as with the
whiz of escaping steam and scrape and jar of gripping brakes and howl of
wheels the train came to a stop at the station. Sanford dropped his coat
and sat down again.
"I'll have to stay now." His tone was dry and lifeless. It had a reproach
in it that cut the wife deep--deep as the fountain of tears; and she went
across the room and knelt at the bedside, burying her face in the clothes
on the feet of her children, and sobbed silently.
The man sat with bent head, looking into the glowing coal, whistling
through his teeth, a look of sullen resignation and endurance on his face
that had never been there before. His very attitude was alien and
ominous.
Neither spoke for a long time. At last he rose and began taking off his
coat and vest.
"Well, I suppose there's nothing to do but go to bed."
She did not stir--she might have been asleep so far as any sound or
motion was concerned. He went off to the bed in the little parlor, and
she still knelt there, her heart full of anger, bitterness, sorrow.
The sunny uneventfulness of her past life made this great storm the more
terrifying. Her trust in her husband had been absolute. A farmer's
daughter, the bank clerk had seemed to her the equal of any gentleman in
the world--her world; and when she knew his delicacy, his unfailing
kindness, and his abounding good nature, she had accepted him as the
father of her children, and this was the first revelation to her of his
inherent moral weakness.
Her mind went over the whole ground again and again, in a sort of
blinding rush. She was convinced of his lack of honor more by his tone,
his inflections, than by his words. His lack of deep regret, his
readiness to leave her to bear the whole shock of the discovery--these
were in his flippant tones; and every time she thought of them the hot
blood surged over her. At such moments she hated him, and her white teeth
clenched.
To these moods succeeded others, when she remembered his smile, the
dimple in his chin, his tender care for the sick, his buoyancy, his songs
to the children--How could he sit there, with the children on his knees,
and plan to run away, leaving them disgraced?
She went to bed at last with the babies, and with their soft, warm little
bodies touching her side fell asleep, pondering, suffering as only a
mother and wife can suffer when distrust and doubt of her husband
supplant confidence and adoration.