"Kenworthy! You must be--careful! That's why Elinor's teeth ache!"
His earnestness startled them. "Elinor's teeth are all out, but they
all still ache! It's nerves. They call it hysteria! They can't do
anything for her. Not in Europe, even. It's because she fell in
love with that first scoundrel. He broke her heart, as they say.
She lived with him two years, and there was nothing left of her.
They mean he broke her nerve, her temper, her character--everything!
I tell you she was a magnificent girl, Kenworthy! She had more
common sense than any girl I ever saw! She was a partner to me, more
than a daughter. And there's nothing left of her but toothache! I
wouldn't have--anything--happen to Martha!"
He was so distressed that Emily heard herself saying: "Oh, _she'll_
be all right. Martha's all right. Don't worry."
"But they take it so hard. They fall so in earnest. Look here, Mrs.
Kenworthy, you don't want him around--in town, do you? You want him
to clear out?"
"Oh yes!"
"Very well, then. He won't come back. I won't let him set foot in
this town again. There are some limits to what I'll stand from him."
"Are you going to see him? Where is he now?" Bob asked.
"I think he's with Elinor. You never can know, exactly. But I'll
see him."
"Tell him for me that if he doesn't let Martha alone, I'll kill
him--married or divorced."
"I'll tell him something worse than that! You needn't worry." He
spoke grimly. A smile that was surprisingly evil came over his round
face. "I'd like to tell you what I did to the first man. It would
comfort you. But it's a secret."
Emily shivered. She didn't like Eve's "sweet old lamb." He was a
wolf, perhaps, at heart, and she was afraid of his cruelty. "He'll
make that man afraid, too, if he looks at him like that!" she thought.
He left abruptly, and Emily went upstairs to Martha. What she saw in
the painted room terrified her. She had to realize that the fire in
Martha's heart burned passionately enough to make everything its
fuel. For when she shut the door behind her, Martha raised herself
up angrily from the day bed crying furiously:
"Mother! I hope you're satisfied _now_! I don't know how you could
sit there with that vile man! Did you ever hear anything
so--vile--vile!" She sobbed. "He talks as if Richard was a dog to
amuse that dirty woman! You'd think he was a slave! Nobody takes
his part! Nobody cares for him! And YOU aren't sorry for him, even!
Oh, it makes me so mad!"