The Road to Understanding

by Eleanor H. Porter

"Oh, but Mrs. Cobb, I—I—" With a choking sob and a hysterical shake of her head, Helen turned and fled down the hall to her own door. Once inside her apartment she stumbled over to the crib and caught the sleeping Dorothy Elizabeth into her arms.

"Oh, Baby, Baby, it's all over—all over," she moaned. "I can't ever be a daintily gowned wife welcoming him to a well-kept home now. Never—never! I can't welcome him at all. He isn't coming back. He doesn't want to come back. He's ashamed of us, Baby,—ashamed of us!"

Dorothy Elizabeth, roused from her nap and convulsively clutched in a pair of nervous hands, began to whimper restlessly.

"No, no, Baby, not of you," sobbed Helen, rocking the child back and forth in her arms. "It was me—just me he was ashamed of. What shall I do, what shall I do?"

"And I thought it was just as he said," she went on chokingly, after a moment's pause. "I thought it was a vacation he wanted us to take, 'cause we—we got on each other's nerves. But it wasn't, Baby,—it wasn't; and I see it now. He's ashamed of me. He's always been ashamed of me, 'way back when Dr. Gleason first came—he was ashamed of me then, Baby. He was. I know he was. And now he wants to get away—quite away, and never come back. And he calls it a vacation! And he says I'm to have one, too, and I must tell him all about it when he comes down next week. Maybe he thinks I will. Maybe he thinks I will!

"We won't be here, Baby,—we won't! We'll go somewhere—somewhere—anywhere!—before he gets here," she raved, burying her face in the baby's neck and sobbing hysterically.

Once again Helen passed a sleepless night. Never questioning now Mrs. Cobb's interpretation of her husband's conduct, there remained only a decision as to her own course of action. That she could not be there when her husband came to make ready for his journey, she was convinced. She told herself fiercely that she would take herself and the baby away—quite away out of his sight. He should not be shamed again by the sight of her. But she knew in her heart that she was fleeing because she dared not go through that last meeting with her husband, lest she should break down. And she did not want to break down. If Burke did not want her, was it likely she was going to cry and whine, and let him know that she did want him? Certainly not!

Helen's lips came together in a thin, straight line, in spite of her trembling chin. Between her hurt love and her wounded pride, Helen was in just that state of hysterics and heroics to do almost anything—except something sane and sober.

First, to get away. On that she was determined. But where to go—that was the question. As for going back to the old home town—as Burke had suggested—that she would not do—now. Did they think, then, that she was going back there among her old friends to be laughed at, and gibed at? What if she did have ten thousand dollars to spend on frills and finery to dazzle their eyes? How long would it be before the whole town found out, as had Mrs. Cobb, that that ten thousand dollars was the price Burke Denby had paid for his freedom from the wife he was ashamed of? Never! She would not go there. But where could she go?

It was then that a plan came to her—a plan so wild and dazzling that even her frenzied aspiration scouted it at first as impossible. But it came again and again; and before long her fancy was playing with it, and turning it about with a wistful "Of course, if I could!" which in time became a hesitating "And maybe, after all, I could do it," only to settle at last into a breathlessly triumphant "I will!"