“Help me! help me, O God, to do what is right!” she prayed in dumb agony. And the question came up inexorably before her, vast, overpowering, not to be solved. Right!—what was right?
She opened the door.
An insignificant-looking little woman of the lower middle-class stood on the threshold, nervously agitated, her eyes wild with alarm.
“My husband?” she asked, breathlessly. “Mr. Durham?”
“He’s here,” replied Mrs. Satterthwaite, coldly. “This way.”
She led her to the drawing-room and Harry Tremaine’s two wives entered together, the one beautiful, refined, exquisitely dressed—the other commonplace, dowdy, the cheaply attired product of a cheap city suburb, good-hearted vulgarity in every line of her. Mrs. Satterthwaite looked from the man who had been her husband to the woman who was now his wife—and her heart turned suddenly to stone.
“Here is Mr. Durham,” she said. With something of a shock, Satterthwaite admired her consummate ease of manner.
The little woman had rushed forward to her husband.
“Oh, Ed, Ed!” she cried, ignoring Satterthwaite, who stood up politely. “What is the matter?—You’re not hurt?—Not badly?”
“I’m all right, dear,” he said, embracing her. “I’ll tell you all about it presently. These kind people took me in and looked after me.”