“Betty! You here!” said Sanford, looking in astonishment at the crouching figure before him.
“I had to come, sir. The druggist at the corner showed me the house. I was a-waitin’ outside in the street below, hopin’ to see you come in. Then I heard the music and knew you were home.” The voice shook with every word. The young dimpled face was drawn and pale, the pretty curly hair in disorder about her forehead. She had the air of one who had been hunted and had just found shelter.
“Does Lacey know you are here?” asked Sanford, a dim suspicion rising in his mind.
Betty shivered slightly, as if the name had hurt her. “No, sir. I left him two nights ago. I got away while he was asleep. All I want now is a place for to-night, and then perhaps to-morrow I can get work.”
“And you have no money?” asked Sanford.
Betty shook her head. “I had a little of my own, but it’s all gone, and I’m so tired, and—the city frightens me so—when the night comes.” The head dropped lower, the sobs choking her. After a little she went on, drying her eyes with her handkerchief, rolled tight in one hand; and resting her cheek on the bent fingers, “I didn’t know nobody but you, Mr. Sanford. I can pay it back.” The voice was scarcely audible.
Sanford stood looking down upon her bowed head. The tired eyelids were half closed, the tears glistening in the light of the overhanging lamp, the shadows of her black curls flecking her face. The cloak hung loosely about her, the curve of her pretty shoulders outlined in its folds. Then she lifted her head, and, looking Sanford in the eyes for the first time, said in a broken, halting voice, “Did you—did you—see—Caleb—Mr. Sanford?”
Sanford nodded slowly in answer. He was trying to make up his mind what he should do with a woman who had broken the heart of a man like Caleb. Through the closed door he heard the strains of Bock’s 'cello, the notes vibrating plaintively. They belonged to some other world.
“Betty,” he said, leaning over her, “how could you do it?”
The girl covered her face with her hands and shrank within her cloak. Sanford went on, his sense of Caleb’s wrongs overpowering him: “What could Lacey do for you? If you could once see Caleb’s face you would never forgive yourself. No woman has a right to leave a man who was as good to her as your husband was to you. And now what has it all come to? You’ve ruined yourself, and broken his heart.”