The school opened well, so well, that the proprietor of the house we rented, asked me if I would like him to build a larger house with suitable school room attached. And this question revealed to me my innermost and as yet unacknowledged feeling—that we should not remain much longer in Chicago. I told myself that the climate was too cruel, the summer heat and the winter cold were alike dangerous. Croup lurked in the nursery all the time; I never went to bed without its remedies at hand; and again the school had unavoidably out-stripped its limits. At present it was too large; its demands exhausted even my young, fresh faculties, and physical strength. If I increased it, I should require more room and more assistance. I told myself these were my reasons for desiring a change, but down in my soul I knew they were only the reasons I should assign to the world at large—the deep, underlying motive beyond all others, and above all others, was Robert’s evident and constant anxiety. He came home every night mentally exhausted. It was not his grief for Edith’s loss; no, he sought me in that trouble, and we comforted each other. It was no God-sent trouble of any kind, or he would have done the same thing and I thought, and feared, but knew nothing certain.
One day about the middle of November, he returned home in such evident distress, that I could no longer keep silence. “Are you ill, dear Robert?” I asked.
“No, Milly,” he replied. “I am as well as a man can be, who is worried to death nearly.”
He was lying on the sofa, and I went close to him, and with kisses and sweet words begged to share his worry.
“Is it business?” I asked.
“Yes, and no. I could manage the business end, if it was not for that man. You know who I mean?”
“Yes, I know. What is the matter now? Tell me, dear.”
“I must. You will have to know, for in that quarter it is now kill, or be killed. He has made life too intolerable—and I struck him today. He promised me full payment, and he is able to keep his promise.”
“Then you must go away. He provoked that blow, because his revenge is ready. You must go at once—tonight—do not wait for the morning.”