“Don’t think about it,” she said. “You ought not to have been alone. Some—some friend ought to have been with you.”
“I haven’t got any friends,” Susan answered. “I don’t know why you came up to me. I don’t guess you know what’s the matter with me.”
“Yes, I do,” said Margery. “You are in great trouble.”
“It’s the worst kind o’ trouble a woman can get into,” said Susan, the muscles of her face beginning to be drawn again. “I don’t see why—why Jack Williams can skip off to Chicago to a new, big job that’s a stroke o’ luck—an’ me left lie here to bear everything—an’ be picked at, an’ made fun of, an’ druv mad with the way I’m kicked in the gutter. I don’t see no right in it. There ain’t no right in it; I don’t believe there’s no God anyhow; I won’t never believe it again. No one can’t make me. If I’ve done what gives folks a right to cast me off, so’s Jack Williams.”
“You haven’t pretended to love a person and then run away and left them to—to suffer,” said little Margery, on the verge of sobs again.
“No, I haven’t!” said the girl, her tears beginning to stream anew. “I’m not your kind. I’m not educated. I’m only a common mill hand, but I did love Jack Williams all I knew how. He had such a nice way with him—kind of affectionate, an’—an’ he was real good-lookin’ too when he was fixed up. If I’d been married to him, no one would have said nothin’, an’—an’ ’tain’t nothin’ but a minister readin’ somethin’ anyhow—marryin’ ain’t.”
CHAPTER XVI
This was before Margery went to Boston to try to develop her gift for making pretty sketches. Her father and mother and her brother strained every nerve to earn and save the money to cover her expenses. She went away full of innocent, joyous hope in the month of May. She boarded in a plain, quiet house, and had two rooms. One was her workroom and studio. She worked under a good-natured artist, who thought her a rather gifted little creature and used to take her to look at any pictures that were on exhibition. Taking into consideration her youth and limited advantages, she made such progress as led him to say that she had a future before her.