“Go,” I said sharply.
He picked up his hat and coat which were lying near by. Then, avoiding
Ruth’s eyes, he turned again to me.
“I will,” he said. He hesitated. Then:
“For her sake I hope you will become a man,” he added.
He met Ruth’s tearful eyes in good-by and before I could answer this
last insult, he had left the room.
I sent Ruth to her bedroom immediately; she was sobbing hysterically,
in no fit mental condition for me to talk with then. Some hours
later—after I had dined alone, I went in to see her.
I suffered greatly during those hours—how greatly no one but myself
will ever know. The whole thing came so unexpectedly; I had always
trusted Ruth so implicitly. The fact that a thing so unsavory, so
sordid, should come to me, of all people, almost unnerved me. A
marriage of one of the Durrants to be so besmirched! It was almost
unbelievable.
Such things had happened to others. That I could understand. But when
I had selected Ruth for my wife, I had been confident of her worth—her
breeding, her very manner seemed to make such a catastrophe as this
impossible. Yet it had come and I had to face it—make the best of
it—hide it from the world as my mother would have done. Our marriage
must go on, of course, but it would never be for me that it had been.