"I can't think it was the same woman who did that—who was blind and cheap enough to do that. Something has shown me that I am other than the foolish creature you took so easily with a marriage ring, because you could not have her in an easier way! But the old, silly country girl has gone and left me this——Why did it have to be?" she exclaimed more incoherently. "Why did you not let me read what you are? I had only a few wretched weeks to learn you—and I was ignorant and foolish and young. You had me helpless at Barrington! Was it such a clever thing to cheat a girl from a Wisconsin village?"
Preston answered apologetically,—
"Well, I married you."
"Married me! You make a good deal of that! Perhaps it would have been better if you had not married me. My child and I could have died together then. But I was married, and so I struggled. The child died, died, do you hear, because you had left me without money to get it what it needed. I sat and saw it die. You were—"
She closed her lips as if to repress further words. As she reached the door, she said in her usual neutral tones:
"So long as you are decent, keep from drinking, and don't get me into trouble at the school, you may stay and take what I can give you."
"'May stay!'" Preston roared, getting to his feet and making a step to intercept her before she closed the door. His legs trembled, and he fell. She knelt over him to see if he had injured himself, and then satisfied that he was not hurt, she left the room, barring the door from the outside. She was none too soon in taking this precaution, for as she swung the heavy oak bar into its socket,—a convenient device of the old German, who had the reputation of being a miser,—she could hear Preston dragging himself toward the door, cursing as he stumbled over the furniture. She crept wearily downstairs into the bare room. Some one was moving in the tiny kitchen beyond.
"Is that you, Anna?" Mrs. Preston called.
"Ye-es," a slow voice responded. Presently a young woman came forward. She was large and very fair, with the pale complexion and intense blue eyes of the Swede.
"I came in and found no one here, so I was cleaning up for you. I have time. John has gone to a meeting—there are many meetings now and not much work. You will eat something?"