A Night of Terror
As poor, dazed, homeless Alida passed out into the street after the
revelation that she was not a wife and never had been, she heard a
voice say, "Well, Hanner wasn't long in bouncing the woman. I guess
we'd better go up now. Ferguson will need a lesson that he won't soon
forget."
The speaker of these words was Mrs. Ferguson's brother, William
Hackman, and his companion was a detective. The wife had laid her
still sleeping child down on the lounge and was coolly completing
Alida's preparations for dinner. Her husband had sunk back into a chair
and again buried his face in his hands. He looked up with startled,
bloodshot eyes as his brother-in-law and the stranger entered, and then
resumed his former attitude.
Mrs. Ferguson briefly related what had happened, and then said, "Take
chairs and draw up."
"I don't want any dinner," muttered the husband.
Mr. William Hackman now gave way to his irritation. Turning to his
brother, he relieved his mind as follows: "See here, Hank Ferguson, if
you hadn't the best wife in the land, this gentleman would now be
giving you a promenade to jail. I've left my work for weeks, and spent
a sight of money to see that my sister got her rights, and, by thunder!
she's going to have 'em. We've agreed to give you a chance to brace up
and be a man. If we find out there isn't any man in you, then you go
to prison and hard labor to the full extent of the law. We've fixed
things so you can't play any more tricks. This man is a private
detective. As long as you do the square thing by your wife and child,
you'll be let alone. If you try to sneak off, you'll be nabbed. Now,
if you aint a scamp down to your heel-taps, get up out of that chair
like a man, treat your wife as she deserves for letting you off so
easy, and don't make her change her mind by acting as if you, and not
her, was the wronged person."
At heart Ferguson was a weak, cowardly, selfish creature, whose chief
aim in life was to have things to suit himself. When they ceased to be
agreeable, he was ready for a change, without much regard for the means
to his ends. He had always foreseen the possibility of the event which
had now taken place, but, like all self-indulgent natures, had hoped
that he might escape detection.
Alida, moreover, had won a far stronger hold upon him than he had once
imagined possible. He was terribly mortified and cast down by the
result of his experiment, as he regarded it. But the thought of a
prison and hard labor speedily drew his mind away from this aspect of
the affair. He had been fairly caught, his lark was over, and he soon
resolved that the easiest and safest way out of the scrape was the best
way. He therefore raised his head and came forward with a penitent air
as he said: "It's natural I should be overwhelmed with shame at the
position in which I find myself. But I see the truth of your words,
and I'll try to make it all right as far as I can. I'll go back with
you and Hannah to my old home. I've got money in the bank, I'll sell
out everything here, and I'll pay you, William, as far as I can, what
you've spent. Hannah is mighty good to let me off so easy, and she
won't be sorry. This man is witness to what I say," and the detective
nodded.
"Why, Ferguson," said Mr. Hackman effusively, "now you're talking like
a man. Come and kiss him, Hannah, and make it all up."
"That's the way with you men," said the woman bitterly. "These things
count for little. Henry Ferguson must prove he's honest in what he
says by deeds, not words. I'll do as I've said if he acts square, and
that's enough to start with."
"All right," said Ferguson, glad enough to escape the caress. "I'll do
as I say."
He did do all he promised, and very promptly, too. He was not capable
of believing that a woman wronged as Alida had been would not prosecute
him, and he was eager to escape to another state, and, in a certain
measure, again to hide his identity under his own actual name.
Meanwhile, how fared the poor creature who had fled, driven forth by
her first wild impulse to escape from a false and terrible position?
With every step she took down the dimly lighted street, the abyss into
which she had fallen seemed to grow deeper and darker. She was
overwhelmed with the magnitude of her misfortune. She shunned the
illumined thoroughfares with a half-crazed sense that every finger
would be pointed at her. Her final words, spoken to Ferguson, were the
last clear promptings of her womanly nature. After that, everything
grew confused, except the impression of remediless disaster and shame.
She was incapable of forming any correct judgment concerning her
position. The thought of her pastor filled her with horror. He, she
thought, would take the same view which the woman had so brutally
expressed--that in her eagerness to be married, she had brought to the
parsonage an unknown man and had involved a clergyman in her own
scandalous record.--It would all be in the papers, and her pastor's
name mixed up in the affair. She would rather die than subject him to
such an ordeal. Long after, when he learned the facts in the case, he
looked at her very sadly as he asked: "Didn't you know me better than
that? Had I so failed in my preaching that you couldn't come straight
to me?"
She wondered afterward that she had not done this, but she was too
morbid, too close upon absolute insanity, to do what was wise and safe.
She simply yielded to the wild impulse to escape, to cower, to hide
from every human eye, hastening through the darkest, obscurest streets,
not caring where. In the confusion of her mind she would retrace her
steps, and soon was utterly lost, wandering she knew not whither. As
it grew late, casual passers-by looked after her curiously, rough men
spoke to her, and others jeered. She only hastened on, driven by her
desperate trouble like the wild, ragged clouds that were flying across
the stormy March sky.
At last a policeman said gruffly, "You've passed me twice. You can't
be roaming the streets at this time of night. Why don't you go home?"
Standing before him and wringing her hands, she moaned, "I have no
home."
"Where did you come from?"
"Oh, I can't tell you! Take me to any place where a woman will be safe."
"I can't take you to any place now but the station house."
"But can I be alone there? I won't be put with anybody?"
"No, no; of course not! You'll be better off there. Come along.
'Taint far."
She walked beside him without a word.
"You'd better tell me something of your story. Perhaps I can do more
for you in the morning."
"I can't. I'm a stranger. I haven't any friends in town."
"Well, well, the sergeant will see what can be done in the morning.
You've been up to some foolishness, I suppose, and you'd better tell
the whole story to the sergeant."
She soon entered the station house and was locked up in a narrow cell.
She heard the grating of the key in the lock with a sense of relief,
feeling that she had at least found a temporary place of refuge and
security. A hard board was the only couch it possessed, but the
thought of sleep did not enter her mind. Sitting down, she buried her
face in her hands and rocked back and forth in agony and distraction
until day dawned. At last, someone--she felt she could not raise her
eyes to his face--brought her some breakfast and coffee. She drank the
latter, but left the food untasted. Finally, she was led to the
sergeant's private room and told that she must give an account of
herself. "If you can't or won't tell a clear story," the officer
threatened, "you'll have to go before the justice in open court, and he
may commit you to prison. If you'll tell the truth now, it may be that
I can discharge you. You had no business to be wandering about the
streets like a vagrant or worse; but if you were a stranger or lost and
hadn't sense enough to go where you'd be cared for, I can let you go."
"Oh!" said Alida, again wringing her hands and looking at the officer
with eyes so full of misery and fear that he began to soften, "I don't
know where to go."
"Haven't you a friend or acquaintance in town?"
"Not one that I can go to!"
"Why don't you tell me your story? Then I'll know what to do, and
perhaps can help you. You don't look like a depraved woman."
"I'm not. God knows I'm not!"
"Well, my poor woman, I've got to act in view of what I know, not what
God knows."
"If I tell my story, will I have to give names?"
"No, not necessarily. It would be best, though."
"I can't do that, but I'll tell you the truth. I will swear it on the
Bible I married someone. A good minister married us. The man deceived
me. He was already married, and last night his wife came to my happy
home and proved before the man whom I thought my husband that I was no
wife at all. He couldn't, didn't deny it. Oh! Oh! Oh!" And she
again rocked back and forth in uncontrollable anguish. "That's all,"
she added brokenly. "I had no right to be near him or her any longer,
and I rushed out. I don't remember much more. My brain seemed on
fire. I just walked and walked till I was brought here."
"Well, well!" said the sergeant sympathetically, "you have been treated
badly, outrageously; but you are not to blame unless you married the
man hastily and foolishly."
"That's what everyone will think, but it don't seem to me that I did.
It's a long story, and I can't tell it."
"But you ought to tell it, my poor woman. You ought to sue the man for
damages and send him to State prison."
"No, no!" cried Alida passionately. "I don't want to see him again, and
I won't go to a court before people unless I am dragged there."
The sergeant looked up at the policeman who had arrested her and said,
"This story is not contrary to anything you saw?"
"No, sir; she was wandering about and seemed half out of her mind."
"Well, then, I can let you go."
"But I don't know where to go," she replied, looking at him with
hunted, hollow eyes. "I feel as if I were going to be sick. Please
don't turn me into the streets. I'd rather go back to the cell--"
"That won't answer. There's no place that I can send you to except the
poorhouse. Haven't you any money?"
"No, sir. I just rushed away and left everything when I learned the
truth."
"Tom Watterly's hotel is the only place for her," said the policeman
with a nod.
"Oh, I can't go to a hotel."
"He means the almshouse," explained the sergeant. "What is your name?"
"Alida--that's all now. Yes, I'm a pauper and I can't work just yet.
I'll be safe there, won't I?"
"Certainly, safe as in your mother's house."
"Oh, mother, mother; thank God, you are dead!"
"Well, I AM sorry for you," said the sergeant kindly. "'Taint often we
have so sad a case as yours. If you say so, I'll send for Tom
Watterly, and he and his wife will take charge of you. After a few
days, your mind will get quieter and clearer, and then you'll prosecute
the man who wronged you."
"I'll go to the poorhouse until I can do better," she replied wearily.
"Now, if you please, I'll return to my cell where I can be alone."
"Oh, we can give you a better room than that," said the sergeant. "Show
her into the waiting room, Tim. If you prosecute, we can help you with
our testimony. Goodbye, and may you have better days!"
Watterly was telegraphed to come down with a conveyance for the
almshouse was in a suburb. In due time he appeared, and was briefly
told Alida's story. He swore a little at the "mean cuss," the author
of all the trouble, and then took the stricken woman to what all his
acquaintances facetiously termed his "hotel."