"I certainly do know what I am saying. I understand it all perfectly. I can see the plot clearly now. I remember how this woman sat behind us in the cars, doubtless of purpose, listening to us. She was writing all the afternoon. I suppose she took down our private conversation. She probably carries on such business constantly, and chooses her victims among those who look as if they would care about their reputations and have plenty of money to hush up such tales. That is called blackmail, Mother, and I've read quite a lot about it in the papers. But they are not going to frighten us. Rufus and I will search this thing out to the foundations and make it impossible for this woman ever to get in her deadly work on any other good Christian man. It would be even worth sacrificing ourselves if we could do that. It is because people are afraid that they succumb to such things as this. We are not afraid! This woman listened to our plans and discussions, and knew just where to get us, that is all. If I hadn't been such a fool, I would have understood at the time, and I shouldn't have yielded to the spell she cast over me. She must be a hypnotist. She somehow succeeded in making everything look different from what it really is. But she can't do it again. I've got my eyes open!"
These are a few of the indignant sarcasms that the two long-suffering women had to listen to as the evening passed on. Mrs. Sheldon, mortified to the extreme of agony over the way her daughter was raving out against the wonderful woman who had saved her from a life of humiliation; alarmed beyond measure for the sanity of the one who was dearer to her than life, roused from her own weakness and tried every possible means to bring the girl to reason, all to no purpose.
At last Mary Dunlap who had stood by helpless, trying to think of something she might say which would bring the girl to her senses, leaned over toward the mother and said in a low tone:
"Suppose I just go away for the night now. She is excited and the sight of me only irritates her. If she could get some sleep she might be more reasonable in the morning. No, don't get up. I can find my own way to the door. You can telephone if you need me. I shall stay close to my room till I hear from you. And I will pray! Don't despair, dear sister! God is strong! Now—I will just slip away!"
The keen ears of the excited girl caught the last sentence.
"Yes, slip away by all means! I should have thought it might have occurred to you to do so before!" she flung after the stranger.
And then, as the door closed after Mary Dunlap, Marguerite Sheldon began to pace the floor, the very personification of indignant fury.
After she had exhausted herself with wild words, she suddenly flung herself down before her mother with her head in her mother's lap and began to sob:
"Oh, Mother, Mother, that dreadful woman has made me almost crazy!" she sobbed. "Some of the time I don't seem to know what I am saying. But I know this, and I mean it. I know that Rufus is true to me, and not only to me, but to God. He is very religious, Mother, he really is! You ought to hear him talk. And Mother, I know I love him, love him, with my whole soul! And I shall, forever and ever! No matter how many fiends from the underworld combine to try and make me false to him!"
At the word "love" her sobbing suddenly ceased and she sprang to her feet and began pacing up and down the room again; her voice rising to almost a shriek.