"Well?"
"There's no need to go inside," Dan explained. "We can see enough, I fancy, through the window.... Come!"
Lou followed obediently whither he led. So the two came to the window, with the dirty glass and its tattered shade raised high, so that whosoever would might look freely on the squalor within. Dan stepped forward and peered into the room for a moment, then turned and beckoned to Lou.... And the wife advanced, as he bade her, and looked over his shoulder.
Lou's eyes, accustomed to the full glare of the noon-day sun, could at first distinguish nothing more than a vague litter of weaving shadows within the murk of the dingy room. Very soon, however, her vision adjusted itself to the dim interior, so that she began to see distinctly. Even in this moment of emotional stress, Lou was conscious of her repugnance at the spectacle of coarsely flaunted vice. She noted the line of sodden men loafing along the bar, the few others grouped about the tables with the bedizened and painted women, whose wanton faces, and more wanton manners, proclaimed their unsavory sort. Yet, her attention was thus arrested for only a fleeting fraction of a second. Then her gaze fell on that other table and she saw her husband.
There could be no doubt as to Jim's identity. As she recognized him, Lou's dark brown eyes dilated before the fearfulness of this thing. For she saw, as well, every detail of his visible plight. The scene was etched on her consciousness with the acid of horror, there to remain indelible throughout the years. She knew, in the first second of seeing, every feature of the creature within whose arms her husband was lying. She knew the cut and color of the soiled bodice, with its drapery of cheap lace over the bosom—on which his loved face reposed. She felt a nausea. There was nothing lovable now in his face. Instead, it was bestial, repulsive—the face of a man who had given himself over to gratification of the beast within him, and who was wallowing in the mire of his degradation.... So it seemed to Lou Maxwell, as she stood staring, bereft, upon that scene which to her meant the end of all things. The life had gone out of her face. A sickness as of death clutched at her heart. Suddenly her gauntleted hands caught Dan McGrew's shoulder. Only his quick support saved her from falling. She spoke dully, in a broken whisper:
"Take me away."
CHAPTER VII
Lou was able to climb to her saddle with Dan's assistance, though she moved very feebly, and her white, drawn face was that of one who had been stricken with a mortal hurt. But once safely mounted, with less strain on her muscles, a little strength flowed back into her, so that she sat steadily enough as the two started back at a walk over the way down which they had ridden so furiously. By the time the town was left well behind, the fresh air and the motion had restored her faculties in part, both physical and mental. But with the clearing of her brain came an agony of realization almost unendurable. She urged her horse to its full speed, fain to put all distance possible between her and the detestable scene on which she had just looked. Indeed, the instinct of flight in this crisis of her fate was dominant. Her one desire was to flee to the ends of the earth, to escape forever from all that had been.
Throughout the years of her life hitherto, Lou had experienced no real anguish. Her sorrows, great though some of them had seemed to her as child and woman, had been essentially trivial, over trivial things. She had never known the ills of poverty. The death of her father had occurred while yet she, the only child, was too young to grieve deeply or long. Her mother's death had occurred some years after her marriage, when she had been weaned from the old home-life. In truth, all her years had been pleasant ones. The sum of her happiness had been far beyond that of most. The love between her and her husband had been a beautiful one, in which she had found supreme content. It had been crowned by the birth of the child. It had held the promise of serenely joyous years to come.... And now, the catastrophe! Here was the end of all things. Doubt of her husband's loyalty had never tainted her devotion. She had believed utterly in his cleanness, his wholesome manhood. And now, in an instant, the whole fabric of her life was in shreds, beyond any possibility of reweaving; befouled beyond any possibility of purifying. All her happiness had been an illusion, the gracious charm of it only a mask that covered the ugly truth.