“I begin to understand—you’re sorry for something you’ve done?”
“Oh, I’ve never denied that—I’ve never denied that I was wicked.”
“And you want the forgiveness of some one you care about?”
“My husband,” she whispered.
“You’ve done something to displease your husband?”
“To displease him? I ran away with another man!” There was a dismal exultation in her tone, as though she were paying Woburn off for having underrated her offense.
She had certainly surprised him; at worst he had expected a quarrel over a rival, with a possible complication of mother-in-law. He wondered how such helpless little feet could have taken so bold a step; then he remembered that there is no audacity like that of weakness.
He was wondering how to lead her to completer avowal when she added forlornly, “You see there’s nothing else to do.”
Woburn took a turn in the room. It was certainly a narrower strait than he had foreseen, and he hardly knew how to answer; but the first flow of confession had eased her, and she went on without farther persuasion.
“I don’t know how I could ever have done it; I must have been downright crazy. I didn’t care much for Joe when I married him—he wasn’t exactly handsome, and girls think such a lot of that. But he just laid down and worshipped me, and I was getting fond of him in a way; only the life was so dull. I’d been used to a big city—I come from Detroit—and Hinksville is such a poky little place; that’s where we lived; Joe is telegraph-operator on the railroad there. He’d have been in a much bigger place now, if he hadn’t—well, after all, he behaved perfectly splendidly about that.