"The policeman accordingly left him there, satisfied that he would be kindly cared for by a father. After he had gone, Stahle put his pen behind his ear, his hands in his pockets, and, surveying my boy a moment, said, 'Well, sir, go home to your mother.'
"Child as he was, he would have died rather than ask for the conveyance which he so much needed, or even for Stahle's helping hand on the way—for it was a long distance to our lodgings—and Stahle saw him limp out without offering either.
"The door opened, and with white lips my brave boy staggered into the room, and briefly narrated his misfortune, still persisting, though the pain was even then forcing tears from his eyes, that he was 'not hurt.' I took off his clothes, and found his side already quite black with the bruise he had received, and so sore that, though he still refrained from complaining, he winced at the lightest touch of my finger.
"I had not a cent in my possession. I had not had for a long time, for I never had asked Stahle for money. This Stahle knew, and that day and night, and half of the following day he purposely absented himself, leaving me to get along in these circumstances as best I could with the child. On his return he asked no questions and took no notice of the occurrence, although Arthur was still a prisoner to the sofa. Not a word passed my lips either on the subject, though this, to my maternal heart, had been the heaviest trial it had yet been called to bear.
"Time passed on, and Arthur had become convalescent. I was now so extremely nervous from mental suffering, that I found it impossible to sleep unless I first wearied myself with out-door exercise.
"Tying on my bonnet, I went out one afternoon for the purpose. The noise and whirl of the street was an untold relief to me.
"Motion—motion—when the brain reels, and despair tugs at the heart-strings!
"On my return I was not obliged to ring at the front door, as some persons were standing upon the steps talking; I passed them and my light footfall on the carpet, being noiseless, I entered the door of my room unheralded.
"Judge of my astonishment when I saw Stahle standing with his back to me, quite unaware of my presence, inspecting (by means of false keys) the contents of my private writing-desk! opening my husband's letters, sacred to me as the memory of his love; reading others from valued friends, received before my marriage with Stahle—not one of which, for any stain they cast on me, might not have been bared to the world's censorious eye.
"He then took up my husband's miniature—O, how unlike the craven face which bent over it! At last, I was choking with passion; this was the brimming drop in my cup; you might have known it by the low, calm tone with which I almost whispered as I laid my trembling hand on my treasures—'these are mine not yours—"