He Fell In Love With His Wife - Edward Payson Roe (the speed reading book .txt) 📗

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.”

 

Chapter XI. Baffled

 

In the general consciousness Nature is regarded as feminine, and even those

who love her most will have to adopt Mrs. Mumpson’s oft-expressed opinion of

the sex and admit that she is sometimes a “peculiar female.” During the month

of March, in which our story opens, there was scarcely any limit to her

varying moods. It would almost appear that she was taking a mysterious

interest in Holcroft’s affairs; but whether it was a kindly interest or not,

one might be at a loss to decide. When she caught him away from home, she

pelted him with