"Ruth," Sophie began hesitatingly one morning when I had gone in to see the babies, which were my delight, "what calls Dan down to the Morrisons' so much? He is there every few nights. And he took Polly out driving after nine o'clock. Some one ought to put a stop to it. Polly is being very retired and discreet, and all that, but this is going on."
"How do you know?" I asked, cold as ice at heart.
"I can't tell you without a breach of confidence, that is, not the name. But it is true. Shall Homer take it up?"
"Oh, no, no," I cried. "Don't let him quarrel about me. I can't tell. Wait and let me think."
"It will be an open scandal by and by, though they carry it on in the dark. Somehow I always rather distrusted Dan. Oh, you ought not have married him."
But it was all done. No one can take a step backward in his or her life. I remembered what father had said about Polly.
I rose weak and trembling. I said again I must think it over. She kissed me tenderly, but I was like one bereft of feeling.
CHAPTER XVII
POLLY.
I thought when I was out in the street I would go and see Mother Hayne. I would like to know how this matter of the house seemed to a woman who had been a wife many years. Yet her husband had not taken pains to make any special provision for her. Why should a wife then provide for her husband? I felt ill and perplexed.
Her face was radiant. She clasped me in her arms and kissed me again and again.