Peter hurried back to the Todd home, and there was white-faced
little Jennie lying on the bed, still sobbing. One would think she
might have used up her surplus stock of emotions; but no, there is
never any limit to the emotions a woman can pour out. As soon as
Peter had got fairly started on the humiliating confession that he
had a wife, little Jennie sprang up from the bed with a terrified
shriek, and confronted him with a face like the ghost of an escaped
lunatic. Peter tried to explain that it wasn’t his fault, he had
really expected to be free any day. But Jennie only clasped her
hands to her forehead and screamed: “You have deceived me! You have
betrayed me!” It was just like a scene in the movies, the bored
little devil inside Peter was whispering.
He tried to take her hand and reason with her, but she sprang away
from him, she rushed to the other side of the room and stood there,
staring at him as if she were some wild thing that he had in a
corner and was threatening to kill. She made so much noise that he
was afraid that she would bring the neighbors in; he had to point
out to her that if this matter became public he would be ruined
forever as a witness, and thus she might be the means of sending Jim
Goober to the gallows.
Thereupon Jennie fell silent, and it was possible for Peter to get
in a word. He told her of the intrigues against him; the other side
had sent somebody to him and offered him ten thousand dollars if he
would sell out the Goober defense. Now, since he had refused, they
were trying to blackmail him, using his wife. They had somehow come
to suspect that he was involved in a love affair, and this was to be
the means of ruining him.
Jennie still would not let Peter touch, her, but she consented to
sit down quietly in a chair, and figure out what they were going to
do. Whatever happened, she said, they must do no harm to the Goober
case. Peter had done her a monstrous wrong in keeping the truth from
her, but she would suffer the penalty, whatever it might be; she
would never involve him.
Peter started to explain; perhaps it wasn’t so serious as she
feared. He had been thinking things over; he knew where Pericles
Priam, his old employer, was living, and Pericles was rich now, and
Peter felt sure that he could borrow two hundred dollars, and there
were places where little Jennie could go--there were ways to get out
of this trouble--
But little Jennie stopped him. She was only a child in some ways,
but in others she was a mature woman. She had strange fixed ideas,
and when you ran into them it was like running into a stone wall.
She would not hear of the idea Peter suggested; it would be murder.
“Nonsense,” said Peter, echoing McGivney. “It’s nothing; everybody
does it.” But Jennie was apparently not listening. She sat staring
with her wild, terrified eyes, and pulling at her dress with her
fingers. Peter got to watching these fingers, and they got on his
nerves. They behaved like insane fingers; they manifested all the
emotions which the rest of little Jennie was choking back and
repressing.
“If you would only not take it so seriously!” Peter pleaded. “It’s a
miserable accident, but it’s happened, and now we’ve got to make the
best of it. Some day I’ll get free; some day I’ll marry you.”
“Stop, Peter!” the girl whispered, in her tense voice. “I don’t want
to talk to you any more, if that’s all you have to say. I don’t know
that I’d be willing to marry you--now that I know you could deceive
me--that you could go on deceiving me day after day for months.”
Peter thought she was going to break out into hysterics again, and
he was frightened. He tried to plead with her, but suddenly she
sprang up. “Go away!” she exclaimed. “Please go away and let me
alone. I’ll think it over and decide what to do myself. Whatever I
do, I won’t disgrace you, so leave me alone, go quickly!”