"There is such a feeling of hatred arises in my heart when I recall that part of my history that it makes me fear my own wickedness! Do you think we can hate so much as to curse and blight our own natures?"
"Undoubtedly; but that would be a sort of frenzy, and would finally end in madness. You do not feel in that way. It is the over-mastering sense of wrong suffered, for which there can be no redress. Terrible as the feeling is, it must be free from the wickedness you impute to yourself. Your nature is sound and sweet at the core—I feel sure of that."
"Thank you. I have had many grave doubts about myself. But to go on. Contrary to his usual habit, Mr. Seabrook remained at the house that evening, and in the dining-room instead of his own room. I was so busy with my work and anxious about Benton, that I did not give more than a passing thought to him. He, also, seemed much pre-occupied.
"At last my work was done, and I took a light to go to my room, telling Mr. Seabrook to put out the lights below stairs, as I should not be down again. 'Stop a moment,' said he, 'I have something to tell you that you ought to know.' He very politely placed a chair for me, which I took. His manners were faultless in the matter of etiquette—and how very far a fine manner goes, in our estimate of people! I had not the shadow of a suspicion of what was coming. 'Mrs. Greyfield,' he said, with great gravity, 'I fear I have unintentionally compromised you very seriously. In advising you to take this house, and open it for boarders, I was governed entirely by what I conceived to be your best interests; but it seems that I erred in my judgment. You are very young—only twenty-three, I believe, and—I beg your pardon—too beautiful to pass unnoticed in a community like this. Your boarders, so far, are all gentlemen. Further, it has been noticed and commented upon that—really, I do not know how to express it—that I have seemed to take the place in your household that—pray, forgive me, Mrs. Greyfield—only a husband, in fact or in expectancy, could be expected or permitted to occupy. Do you see what I mean?'
"I sat stunned and speechless while he went on. 'I presume your good sense will direct you in this matter, and that you will grasp the right horn of the dilemma. If you would allow me to help you out of it, you would really promote my happiness. Dear Mrs. Greyfield, permit me to offer you the love and protection of a husband, and stop these gossips' mouths.'"
"You do not think he had premeditated this?" I asked.
"I did not take it in then, but afterwards I saw it plainly enough. He pressed me for an answer, all the time plausibly protesting that although he had hoped some time to win my love, he had not anticipated the necessity for urging his suit as a matter of expediency. In vain I argued that if his presence in the house was an injury to me, he could leave it. It was too late, he said. I indignantly declared that it was not my fault that my boarders were all men. I was working for my living, and would just as willingly have boarded any other creature if I could have got my money for it; a monkey or a sheep; it was all the same to me. He smiled superiorly on my fretfulness; and when I at last burst into a passion of tears, bade me good night with such an air of being extremely forbearing and judicious that I could not help regarding myself as a foolish and undisciplined child.
"That night I scarcely slept at all. Benton was feverish, and I half wild. All sorts of plans ran through my head; but turn the matter over any way I would, it amounted to the same thing. The money I must earn, must come from men. Whether I sewed or cooked, or whatever I did, they were the paymasters to whom I looked for my wages. How, then, was it possible to escape contact with them, or avoid being misunderstood. In one breath I resented, with all the ardor of my soul, the impertinence of the world's judgment, and in the next I declared to myself that I did not care; that conscious innocence should sustain me, and that I had a right to do the best I could for myself and child.
"But that was only sham courage. I was morally a coward, and could not possibly face the evil spirit of detraction. Therefore, the morning found me feverish in body and faint in spirit. I kept out of sight of my boarders, except Mr. Seabrook, who looked into the kitchen with a sympathizing face, and inquired very kindly after Bennie, as he pet-named Benton. When my dinner was over that day, I asked the little German woman to keep the child until I could go on an errand, and went over to Mrs. ——, my old house-mate, to get advice.
"Do you know how much advice is worth? If you like it, you haven't needed it; and if you do not like it, you will not take it. Mrs. —— told me that if she were in my place, as if she could be in my place! she would get rid of all her troubles by getting some man to take charge of her and her affairs. When I asked, with transparent duplicity, where I was to find a man for this service, she laughed in my face. People did talk so then, and what Mr. Seabrook said was the unexaggerated truth. It did not occur to me to examine into the authorship of the rumors; I was too shrinking and sensitive for that.