"They were the only words which escaped my lips, but there must have been something in the tone and in my face, before which his spirit cowered. He made no attempt to resist me as I took possession of them, but turning doggedly on his heel, muttered: 'the law says you can have nothing that is not mine.' O, how many crushed and bleeding hearts all over our land can endorse the truth of this brutal answer.
"Stahle began now to spend his nights away from home; I had never yet made a complaint or remonstrance except in the case just stated. I did not now. If it was his purpose with his usual want of insight into my character, to give me a long cord with which to hang myself, it failed, for my boy and I slumbered innocently and peacefully.
"You may ask why, with these feelings toward me, he did not desert me; for two reasons. 1st. He had a religious character to sustain; during all this time he was more constant than ever, if that were possible, at every church and vestry-meeting, often taking part in the exercises, and always out-singing and out-praying every other church-member. 2d. It was his expectation by these continuous private indignities, which many a wife suffers in silence, to force me to leave him, and thus preserve his pietistic reputation untarnished. All these plans, which I perfectly understood, failed. He could find nothing upon which to sustain a charge against me, either in my daily conduct, or in my private correspondence, dated, long years before he knew me, but which the law allowed him to inspect.
"I contracted no debts because he would not supply my necessary wants. I took no advantage of his absence from home to forfeit my own self-respect. What was to be done? He must move cautiously, for the maintenance of a religious character was his stock in trade.
"Returning from a walk one day with my little Arthur, I found a note on my table from Stahle, saying 'that he had suddenly been called South on business, and should remain a few days.' I have never seen him since. Not that I did not hear from him, for the plan was legally concocted. Letters were written to me by him, saying 'that he was searching for a good business-situation, and would send for me when he found it.' Sending for me to join him, but making no mention of my boy. Sending for me to come hundreds of miles away under the escort of his brother, whom I had ascertained to have uttered the foulest slanders about me (and who was to be my protector and purser on the occasion). Every letter was legally worded; 'my dear Gertrude' was at the top of the letter, and 'your affectionate husband' at the bottom. They were always delivered to me by two witnesses, that I might not dodge having received them. And yet each one, though without a flaw in the eye of the law, was so managed as to render compliance with it impossible, had I desired to rejoin a man who had done, and was still covertly doing, all in his power to injure my good name. In the meanwhile, what he dared not do openly, he did by the underground railroad of slander; insinuations were made by those in his employ; eyebrows were raised, shoulders were shrugged, hints thrown out that my extravagance had rendered it necessary for him to leave me. (I, who had never asked for a cent since our marriage, whose nimble needle had replenished his own and his children's dilapidated wardrobes.)
"Men stared insolently at me in the street; women cast self-righteous scornful glances; 'friends' worse than foes, were emboldened by his villainy to subject themselves to a withering repulse from her who sought to earn her honest bread.
"Did I go out in search of employment—I was 'parading to show myself.' Did I stay within doors—'there was no doubt a good reason why I dared not go out.' Did I keep my own and my boy's small stock of clothing whole, tidy, and neat—'they would like to know who kept me in clothes now.'"
"Surely," said Rose, interrupting her, "surely, dear Gertrude, there must have been those who knew, and could bear witness, that you were good and innocent."
"True," answered Gertrude, "there were those who could do so, but admitting this fact, what plausible excuse could they make for not being my helpers and defenders on all needful occasions? No, dear Rose, the world is a selfish one, and degrading as it is to human nature to assert it, it is nevertheless true, that there are many, like those summer friends of mine, who would stand by with dumb lips and see the slanderer distill, drop by drop, his poison into the life-blood of his victim, rather than bring forward, at some probable cost to themselves, the antidote of truth in their possession. Even blood relations have been known to circulate what they knew to be a slander to cover their parsimony. And those people, who are the most greedy listeners to the slanderer's racy tale, are the people who "never meddle in such things," when called upon to refute it.
"Did these bitter taunts crush me? Was I to become, through despair, the vile thing Stahle and his agents wished?"