“I’m damned if I know what you mean, by taking me to task in this way, and calling me over the coals in my own house,” and his expression was murderous.
“I am Letty’s friend.”
“Yes, and no doubt she has been whining to you, and telling you fine tales?” he demanded with blazing eyes, “and posing as a martyr.”
“She has never breathed a word of her troubles to me; but anyone can see that she is unhappy. I can’t think why in the world you married her?”
“I can’t think why I did, either! I was deadly sick of her at the end of a week. Upon my soul, I was! Marriage is like a trap—you can’t have a wife on approval—when you are in, there’s no way of getting out! By Jove, I envy the Americans their divorce laws—then she could go her way—and I mine. If some smart young fellow would take a fancy to Letty, and run off with her I should say ‘Wah-wah!’”
Mrs. Hesketh looked as she was—horrified.
“There are no smart young men about here,” he added; “so Letty is all right—virtue is the absence of temptation.”
Mrs. Hesketh rose slowly, turned her back upon her host, walked to the door very quietly, opened it and went out, leaving it wide. She found Letty in her own room, sitting with her face in her hands,—a frequent attitude.
“My child,” she began, “I have been talking to the dreadful man downstairs that ill-fortune has given you for a husband. He is—well, I won’t say any more, but this—that I wish I could take you away with me, and let you make a home with me—you and the baby!”
“How I wish you could!” said Letty, pushing back her hair as she spoke. “But there is no use in wishing. I often wish I was dead—and it’s no good.”