Rufus Holt admitted that he never had loved; that he had only his imagination to depend upon. How dared he, then, dictate to a woman whom he had acclaimed true as truth?
But that night a third voice entered the argument.
As Dolores lay abed, wooing in vain the healthful slumber so seldom denied her, she came to wonder whether the sensations which disturbed her were all mental. Could she be physically ill?
As, hour on hour, the wonder and the strangeness of the stirring within her grew, answer came in a wee, small voice—the voice of fear—the voice of hope—perhaps, indeed, the voice of that God said to speak through “the least of these.” With none else to tell her, Dolores understood. And in the darkness a great glory seemed to flood the room. Her heart, which had slowed almost to stopping lest she miss the message, near burst now with painful joy.
The voice, faint and from far away, had whispered unmistakably:
“Woman, I am coming—thy fulfillment.”
CHAPTER XXI
Dolores never sent her address to Rufus Holt’s secretary, although she came in course of time to need the remittances which were to be forwarded through him. She hated Holt and loved John too much for that. Should that whisper in the night be heard by the world, the fight of the strong would indeed be lost to the weak. There was no choice. She must hide herself that “little while,” guilty though she might appear.
She lived in various places. She found various employment.
There was the naturalized tailor who rented the basement of the house where she had found a room and who seemed to assume from “Mrs. Trevor’s” face that she could baste “straight.” But she did not “naturalize,” either to the shop or his idea of her, and he took to complaining of her work. His subtlety was inadequate to cover his relief when she transferred to a restaurant, one of the sort to which ladies were “cordially” invited. But there came a day when this proprietor, as well, begrudged the price of his mistake.