The air blackened round her: she reeled to the sofa and then she found herself waking from a faint. She did not know how long she had lain there, she did not care. In a moment her madness came whirling back upon her. She rushed up to his room; it was empty; the closet-doors stood ajar and the drawers were open; he must have packed a bag hastily and fled. She went out and wandered crazily up and down till she found a hack. She gave the driver her husband’s business address, and told him to drive there as fast as he could; and three times she lowered the window to put her head out and ask him if he could not hurry. A thousand things thronged into her mind to support her in her evil will. She remembered how glad and proud that man had been to marry her, and how everybody said she was marrying beneath her when she took him. She remembered how good she had always been to him, how perfectly devoted, slaving early and late to advance him, and looking out for his interests in all things, and sparing herself in nothing. If it had not been for her, he might have been driving stage yet; and since their troubles had begun, the troubles which his own folly and imprudence had brought on them, her conduct had been that of a true and faithful wife. Was he the sort of man to be allowed to play her false with impunity? She set her teeth and drew her breath sharply through them when she thought how willingly she had let him befool her, and delude her about that memorandum of payments to Mrs. M., because she loved him so much, and pitied him for his cares and anxieties. She recalled his confusion, his guilty looks.
She plunged out of the carriage so hastily when she reached the office that she did not think of paying the driver; and he had to call after her when she had got halfway up the stairs. Then she went straight to Lapham’s room, with outrage in her heart. There was again no one there but that typewriter girl; she jumped to her feet in a fright, as Mrs. Lapham dashed the door to behind her and flung up her veil.
The two women confronted each other.
“Why, the good land!” cried Mrs. Lapham, “ain’t you Zerrilla Millon?”
“I—I’m married,” faltered the girl “My name’s Dewey, now.”
“You’re Jim Millon’s daughter, anyway. How long have you been here?”
“I haven’t been here regularly; I’ve been here off and on ever since last May.”
“Where’s your mother?”
“She’s here—in Boston.”
Mrs. Lapham kept her eyes on the girl, but she dropped, trembling, into her husband’s chair, and a sort of amaze and curiosity were in her voice instead of the fury she had meant to put there.
“The Colonel,” continued Zerrilla, “he’s been helping us, and he’s got me a typewriter, so that I can help myself a little. Mother’s doing pretty well now; and when Hen isn’t around we can get along.”
“That your husband?”
“I never wanted to marry him; but he promised to try to get something to do on shore; and mother was all for it, because he had a little property then, and I thought may be I’d better. But it’s turned out just as I said and if he don’t stay away long enough this time to let me get the divorce—he’s agreed to it, time and again—I don’t know what we’re going to do.” Zerrilla’s voice fell, and the trouble which she could keep out of her face usually, when she was comfortably warmed and fed and prettily dressed, clouded it in the presence of a sympathetic listener. “I saw it was you, when you came in the other day,” she went on; “but you didn’t seem to know me. I suppose the Colonel’s told you that there’s a gentleman going to marry me—Mr. Wemmel’s his name—as soon as I get the divorce; but sometimes I’m completely discouraged; it don’t seem as if I ever could get it.”
Mrs. Lapham would not let her know that she was ignorant of the fact attributed to her knowledge. She remained listening to Zerrilla, and piecing out the whole history of her presence there from the facts of the past, and the traits of her husband’s character. One of the things she had always had to fight him about was that idea of his that he was bound to take care of Jim Millon’s worthless wife and her child because Millon had got the bullet that was meant for him. It was a perfect superstition of his; she could not beat it out of him; but she had made him promise the last time he had done anything for that woman that it should be the last time. He had then got her a little house in one of the fishing ports, where she could take the sailors to board and wash for, and earn an honest living if she would keep straight. That was five or six years ago, and Mrs. Lapham had heard nothing of Mrs. Millon since; she had heard quite enough of her before; and had known her idle and baddish ever since she was the worst little girl at school in Lumberville, and all through her shameful girlhood, and the married days which she had made so miserable to the poor fellow who had given her his decent name and a chance to behave herself. Mrs. Lapham had no mercy on Moll Millon, and she had quarrelled often enough with her husband for befriending her. As for the child, if the mother would put Zerrilla out with some respectable family, that would be one thing; but as long as she kept Zerrilla with her, she was against letting her husband do anything for either of them. He
