"Oh, what are you going to do with me now?" Well might little Martha Kenworthy ask that. There seemed no good reason why she shouldn't go on crying indefinitely, forever. But Emily, drawing her close against her in bed, tucking the covers about her, trying to get her warm, hoped doggedly to find comfort for her, to get her quiet. There were worse things than having a baby, she told her once, crooning over her.
And Martha said, "What?" And then added, "Oh, you mean being discarded!"
Discarded? Martha Kenworthy discarded?
"She is beyond me in knowledge," Emily thought. "I've never known bitterness."
She had to ask her, "Does that man know about this?"
"I—told him. He said——" She couldn't say it for weeping.
"Never mind. It doesn't matter."
But after a while Martha did say it:
"He said I'd got him into a dirty mess."
Emily reproached herself. She wouldn't ask, even, where he was now, where his wife was, whether he was divorced. She wouldn't have Martha marry that man now, if he was able to marry her a hundred times over.