"I know, but I don't want to hear it ever again. Call me Mary; call me Mary——"
And there, face to face with a new danger, Violet came to a stop. Her captivity had taught her much of bestiality, but it had taught her besides only that some unknown, tremendous power hated her; that she was debased and must never, at whatever cost of further suffering to herself, permit her degradation to attach to her family; that she must escape, but that she must also wholly divorce herself from all that life had meant her to be. She had no thought of the future; she had only a realization of what had been and what was.
"Mary what?" asked Carrie.
"Mary Morton," lied Violet. Perhaps she had heard the name before; perhaps the easy alliteration brought it first to her mind. At all events, she reflected, one name was as good as another, so long as it was not her own.
"Would you have much to swear to?" Carrie was continuing. "Is it as bad as they say—there?"
Violet looked at the round, serious face before her.
"I don't know what they say," she replied; "but it's worse than anybody can say. There's a lot of it you can't say, because there's a lot of it there ain't no words ever been made up for. Just you pray God you won't ever have to find out how bad it is."
They looked at her and saw on her the marks of which she was not yet aware.
Katie bent over and swiftly kissed the fevered forehead under its tumbled russet hair.
"You poor woman," she said with unintended implication, "an' how many years did you have to stand it?"