"I wonder you didn"t think of that before you accused him of fraud and peculation, and all those things."
"I _didn"t_ accuse him of fraud and peculation!" cried Clara, indignantly.
"You said you didn"t know what all you"d called him," said Olive, with her hand on the door.
Clara followed her down stairs. "Well, I shall never do it in the world,"
she said, with reviving hope in her voice.
"Oh, I don"t expect you to go to him this morning," said Olive dryly. "That would be a little _too_ barefaced."
Her friend kissed, her. "Olive Halleck, you"re the strangest girl that ever was. I do believe you"d joke at the point of death! But I"m _so_ glad you have been perfectly frank with me, and of course it"s worth worlds to know that you think I"ve behaved horridly, and ought to make _some_ reparation."
"I"m glad you value my opinion, Clara. And if you come to me for frankness, you can always have all you want; it"s a drug in the market with me." She meagrely returned Clara"s embrace, and left her in a reverie of tactless scheming for the restoration of peace with Mr. Atherton.
Marcia came in upon the lawyer before he had thought, after parting with Miss Kingsbury, to tell the clerk in the outer office to deny him; but she was too full of her own trouble to see the reluctance which it tasked all his strength to quell, and she sank into the nearest chair unbidden. At sight of her, Atherton became the prey of one of those fantastic repulsions in which men visit upon women the blame of others" thoughts about them: he censured her for Halleck"s wrong; but in another instant he recognized his cruelty, and atoned by relenting a little in his intolerance of her presence. She sat gazing at him with a face of blank misery, to which he could not refuse the charity of a prompting question: "Is there something I can do for you, Mrs. Hubbard?"
"Oh, I don"t know,--I don"t know!" She had a folded paper in her hands, which lay helpless in her lap. After a moment she resumed, in a hoa.r.s.e, low voice: "They have all begun to come for their money, and this one--this one says he will have the law of me--I don"t know what he means--if I don"t pay him."
Marcia could not know how hard Atherton found it to govern the professional suspicion which sprung up at the question of money. But he overruled his suspicion by an effort that was another relief to the struggle in which he was wrenching his mind from Miss Kingsbury"s outrageous behavior. "What have you got there?" he asked gravely, and not unkindly, and being used to prompt the reluctance of lady clients, he put out his hand for the paper she held. It was the bill of the threatening creditor, for indefinitely repeated dozens of tivoli beer.
"Why do they come to _you_ with this?"
"Mr. Hubbard is away."
"Oh, yes. I heard. When do you expect him home?"
"I don"t know."
"Where is he?"
She looked at him piteously without speaking.
Atherton stepped to his door, and gave the order forgotten before. Then he closed the door, and came back to Marcia. "Don"t you know where your husband is, Mrs. Hubbard?"
"Oh, he will come back! He _couldn"t_ leave me! He"s dead,--I know he"s dead; but he will come back! He only went away for the night, and something must have happened to him."
The whole tragedy of her life for the past fortnight was expressed in these wild and inconsistent words; she had not been able to reason beyond the pathetic absurdities which they involved; they had the effect of a.s.sertions confirmed in the belief by incessant repet.i.tion, and doubtless she had said them to herself a thousand times. Atherton read in them, not only the confession of her despair, but a prayer for mercy, which it would have been inhuman to deny, and for the present he left her to such refuge from herself as she had found in them. He said, quietly, "You had better give me that paper, Mrs. Hubbard," and took the bill from her. "If the others come with their accounts again, you must send them to me. When did you say Mr.
Hubbard left home?"
"The night after the election," said Marcia.
"And he didn"t say how long he should be gone?" pursued the lawyer, in the feint that she had known he was going.
"No," she answered.
"He took some things with him?"
"Yes."
"Perhaps you could judge how long he meant to be absent from the preparation he made?"
"I"ve never looked to see. I couldn"t!"
Atherton changed the line of his inquiry. "Does any one else know of this?"
"No," said Marcia, quickly, "I told Mrs. Halleck and all of them that he was in New York, and I said that I had heard from him. I came to you because you were a lawyer, and you would not tell what I told you."
"Yes," said Atherton.
"I want it kept a secret. Oh, do you think he"s dead?" she implored.
"No," returned Atherton, gravely, "I don"t think he"s dead."
"Sometimes it seems to me I could bear it better if I knew he was dead. If he isn"t dead, he"s out of his mind! He"s out of his mind, don"t you think, and he"s wandered off somewhere?"
She besought him so pitifully to agree with her, bending forward and trying to read the thoughts in his face, that he could not help saying, "Perhaps."
A gush of grateful tears blinded her, but she choked down her sobs.
"I said things to him that night that were enough to drive him crazy. I was always the one in fault, but he was always the one to make up first, and he never would have gone away from me if he had known what he was doing! But he will come back, I know he will," she said, rising. "And oh, you won"t say anything to anybody, will you? And he"ll get back before they find out.
I will send those men to you, and Bartley will see about it as soon as he comes home--"
"Don"t go, Mrs. Hubbard," said the lawyer. "I want to speak with you a little longer." She dropped again in her chair, and looked at him inquiringly. "Have you written to your father about this?"
"Oh, no," she answered quickly, with an effect of shrinking back into herself.
"I think you had better do so. You can"t tell when your husband will return, and you can"t go on in this way."
"I will never tell _father_," she replied, closing her lips inexorably.
The lawyer forbore to penetrate the family trouble he divined. "Are you all alone in the house?" he asked.
"The girl is there. And the baby."
"That won"t do, Mrs. Hubbard," said Atherton, with a compa.s.sionate shake of the head. "You can"t go on living there alone."
"Oh, yes, I can. I"m not afraid to be alone," she returned with the air of having thought of this.
"But he may be absent some time yet," urged the lawyer; "he may be absent indefinitely. You must go home to your father and wait for him there."
"I can"t do that. He must find me here when he comes," she answered firmly.
"But how will you stay?" pleaded Atherton; he had to deal with an unreasonable creature who could not be driven, and he must plead. "You have no money, and how can you live?"
"Oh," replied Marcia, with the air of having thought of this too, "I will take boarders."
Atherton smiled at the hopeless practicality, and shook his head; but he did not oppose her directly. "Mrs. Hubbard," he said earnestly, "you have done well in coming to me, but let me convince you that this is a matter which can"t be kept. It must be known. Before you can begin to help yourself, you must let others help you. Either you must go home to your father and let your husband find you there--"
"He must find me here, in our own house."