It was this that turned like a wheel in her brain and heart. For in spite of the roughness of her emotional experiences thus far, she had faith to believe that love should not be so, should not do so.
Those features which to this hour, and long after, like those features of her first love, seemed so worship-worth, those eyes that had seemed to beam on her with love, the lips that had smiled so graciously and kissed hers, the hands and arms that had petted and held her, should not be part of the compulsion that sent her here.
No, love should be better than that. He himself had told her so at first—that she was worth more than all else to him—and now see!
And then one night, fully a year and a half later, the climax. Being particularly irritated by some money losses and the need of enduring her at all, even though she might still prove of some value as a slave, he turned on her with a savage fury.
“What, only...! Get to hell outa here! What do you think I am—a sucker? And let go my arm. Don’t come that stuff on me. I’m sick of it. Don’t hang on my arm, I tell yah! I’m tired, damned tired! Get out! Go on—beat it, an’ don’t come back, see? I’m through—through—yuh hear me? I mean what I say. I’m through, once an’ fer all. Beat it, an’ fer good. Don’t come back. I’ve said that before, but this time it goes! Go on, now quick— Scat!—an’ don’t ever let me see yah around here any more, yah hear?—yah damned piece o’ mush, yah!”
He pushed her away, throwing open the door as he did so, and, finding her still pleading and clinging, threw her out with such force that she cut her left eye and the back of her left hand against the jamb of the door.
There was a cry of “Fred! Fred! Please! Please!”—and then the door was slammed and she was left leaning disconsolately and brokenly against the stair-rail outside.
And now, as before, the cruelty and inscrutability of life weighed on her, only now, less than before, had she hope wherewith to buoy herself. It was all so dark, so hopeless. Often in this hour she thought of the swift, icy waters of the river, glistening under a winter moon, and then again of the peace and quiet of the House of the Good Shepherd, its shielding remoteness from life, the only true home or sanctuary she had ever known. And so, brooding and repressing occasional sobs, she made her way toward it, down the long streets, thinking of the pathetically debasing love-life that was now over—the dream of love that never, never could be again, for her.
VIII
The stark red walls of the institution stood as before, only dim and gray and cold under a frosty winter moon. It was three of a chill, cold morning. She had come a long way, drooping, brooding, half-freezing and crying. More than once on the way the hopelessness of her life and her dreams had given her pause, causing her to turn again with renewed determination toward the river—only the vivid and reassuring picture she had retained of this same grim and homely place, its restricted peace and quiet, the sympathy of Sister St. Agnes and Mother St. Bertha, had carried her on.