That note, so lightly written in seeming, had been torn from a desperate heart and written in tears and blood.
Since she had learned that her husband really loved Zada and that she was going to mother him a child, Charity had been unable to adjust her soul to the new problem.
The Reverend Doctor Mosely had promised her advice, but the poor man could not match his counsel with the situation. He did not believe in divorce, and yet he did not approve of illegal infants. How happy he could have been with either problem, with t'other away! In his dilemma he simply avoided Charity and turned his attention to the more regular chores of his parish.
Charity understood his silence, and it served to deepen her own perplexity. She was sure of only one thing—that she was caged and forgotten.
Cheever came home less and less, and he was evidently so harrowed with his own situation that Charity felt almost more sorry for him than angry at him. She imagined that he must be enduring no little from the whims and terrors of Zada. He was evidently afraid to speak to Charity. To ask for her mercy was contrary to all his nature. He never dreamed that the dictagraph had brought her with him when he learned of Zada's intensely interesting condition, and her exceedingly onerous demands. He did not dare ask Charity for a divorce in order that he might legitimize this byblow of his. He could imagine only that she would use the information for some ruinous vengeance. So he dallied with his fate in dismal irresolution.
Charity had his woes to bear as well as her own. She knew that she had lost him forever. The coquetries she had used to win him back were impossible even to attempt. He had no use for her forgiveness or her charms. He was a mere specter in her home, doomed for his sins to walk the night.
In despising herself she rendered herself lonelier. She had not even herself for companion. Her heart had always been eager with love and eager for it. The spirit that impelled her to endure hardships in order to expend her surplusage of love was unemployed now. She had feasted upon love, and now she starved.
Cheever had been a passionate courtier and, while he was interested, a fiery devotee. When he abandoned her she suffered with the devastation that deserted wives and recent widows endure but must not speak of. It meant terribly much to Charity Coe to be left alone. It was dangerous to herself, her creeds, her ideals.
She began to be more afraid of being alone than of any other fear. She grew resentful toward the conventions that held her. She was like a tigress in a wicker cage, growing hungrier, lither, more gracefully fierce.
People who do not use their beauty lose it, and Charity had lost much of hers in her vigils and labors in the hospitals, and it had waned in her humiliations of Cheever's preference for another woman. Her jealous shame at being disprized and notoriously neglected had given her wanness and bitterness, instead of warmth and sweetness.