"Do you think I don't see through that? I'm not a fool NOW! I do belong to you. It's you I got into a mess. Dad sits home, not worrying. And if he did know about it, he'd blame you; he'd say you spoiled me. It's lovely to have a child like me!"
"I don't care, Martha. Whatever has happened to you—to us—you've been my happiness all these years. I don't care what you say, that's a fact. This time will pass, and we'll be happy again. If you had a child, you'd understand."
"If! Don't say 'if' to me! Haven't I had a child?"
"No, you haven't. You certainly haven't!"
"I certainly have! Look here, mother, don't you really think I go crazy, that I've been crazy twice now? It's insane to be hysterical! Maybe I'll go stark crazy and get put in——"
"Martha! Martha!"
They sat there till long after midnight. Emily argued that what Martha had done was not a symptom of insanity. What, then, was it, Martha demanded, sorely. And Emily explained the brutal fact that nothing in life is so perplexing, so inexplicable to look back upon, as one's own conduct. She found the girl was full of the dread of publicity. "If he could get his wife to divorce him because of—me, he'd tell her in a minute!" she cried once.
"Oh, surely not!" expostulated Emily. She was on the point of saying that Mr. Fairbanks would never allow that. Then she remembered bitterly that Mr. Fairbanks had promised to prevent—other things, and had not been able to keep his promise.
After all these dregs and outpourings, Emily took her into her own bed, and realized, as she thought them over, that the girl was lying sleepless beside her. What, she wondered, wearily, was there left for her now? She had lost faith in her lover and all mankind. She had lost faith in herself; she had lost confidence and security from fear. But what she hated most violently was her own self, that sweet little bathed and powdered body which Emily had adored every day since her birth. The flowering of her body, its natural fruitfulness, was what she resented unto death. She was utterly undone. She had to be made anew. It was a bitter task to take up. "I'm too old for it," Emily thought.
Martha rose in a business-like manner the next morning, earlier than usual. Usually from their beds they saw the schooner they had called their own because it had castellated patches on its sail, move like a dream of a castle through the misty distance. This morning they saw it together from their place in the dining room.