She had intended to revel in her grief at chapel that morning, and Quarry had divined her intention. She meant to stand in the singing, as Jarlsen had stood, and sob when the preacher shivered and scowled and beat the reading-desk with his fists. She would not go now. She felt that no one would believe that she mourned for him if Quarry had been talking about her very much in the way she had heard. She burned to speak with him of the traitor’s part he had played.
It was as usual in Soot City as in other places for folks to bethink themselves of the church when trouble thwarts them; and so every one went to church expecting Emma. And Quarry’s tongue was not quite long enough to have reached the general ear in so short a time.
The congregation was very large, and the flattered minister observed Emma’s absence with satisfaction. He never thought that his hearers could have been ignorant of her intention to stay at home, and supposed that in the sudden calamity come upon the town they had found a warning anent churchless ways. He announced an extra service at three in the afternoon, and the only person who answered it was Jeremy Black’s foreman, who came to protest.
After service Quarry went straight to Emma’s room. He could not account for her absence; he had intended to sit with her in the front pew while she stood in the singing. He expected to colour his stories with her behaviour and satisfy every one that she had loved the money Jarlsen left her the best of all his attentions.
She was sitting with her charge, who lay with his face turned away from the sun—blind, maimed, deaf—yet as conscious of Quarry’s presence as when last week he had turned to him with lazy scorn and a short word.
“Emma,” said Quarry.
“Yes,” she said, after a pause. She had been wondering if he could have been telling about the money everywhere and “setting the men on her.”
Quarry looked at her and at Jarlsen with a twist in his mouth that he thought of as “his smile.” He realized that he could insult Emma thoroughly in the presence of a Soot citizen who could not stir to protect her.
“The women think you might as well marry,” he said. “You’ve got the fixin’s, and if you take me you’ve got the husband. The whole place expects a wedding off you. You’ve got the extra money to care for your friend here.”
“I’d rather give up the money than take you; besides,” she said spitefully, “there’s better men nor you in the town that knows I have money for my man. You ain’t no kind to love me after what I’ve had, and I don’t want you should make my love for this one shabby, talkin’ it over all the time. You can get out,” she said very quietly.