He awoke with a groan and found his mother standing at the foot of his bed. She had recovered sufficiently to move about the house now in a striped calico wrapper that made her look twenty years older.
“It’s the day of the trial, Willie,” she said brokenly. “Papa and Dan went an hour ago. Are—are you going to testify? Dan said he wouldn’t call you.”
“The State will,” replied William apathetically, getting out of bed.
His mother looked at him anxiously.
“I’m afraid they’re going to call Fanchon,” she faltered.
He started. For some reason he had never thought of this, and he felt a pang of horrid dismay. It couldn’t be that Judge Jessup and Dan meant to do that. But the State? William experienced a new and rending sensation. He felt like a helpless beetle pinned to the board of a naturalist; he couldn’t escape public dissection.
“Perhaps you’d better not go, Willie,” suggested his mother fondly. “Emily and I are going to stay here at the telephone to-day. Papa promised to ’phone us everything, and we shall be terribly nervous and frightened. Stay with us, dear.”
William realized that he was still a boy to her, and that now, when his unacceptable wife had left him, he was nearer than ever. Nevertheless, he began to look for his clothes.
“I shall go straight there, of course,” he said sharply. “Please tell Miranda I want only a cup of hot coffee.”
“Oh, Willie, you must eat something!” she cried tearfully. “You’ll ruin your health—there are corn muffins, too.”