“But he may be absent some time yet,” urged the lawyer; “he may be absent indefinitely. You must go home to your father and wait for him there.”
“I can't do that. He must find me here when he comes,” she answered firmly.
“But how will you stay?” pleaded Atherton; he had to deal with an unreasonable creature who could not be driven, and he must plead. “You have no money, and how can you live?”
“Oh,” replied Marcia, with the air of having thought of this too, “I will take boarders.”
Atherton smiled at the hopeless practicality, and shook his head; but he did not oppose her directly. “Mrs. Hubbard,” he said earnestly, “you have done well in coming to me, but let me convince you that this is a matter which can't be kept. It must be known. Before you can begin to help yourself, you must let others help you. Either you must go home to your father and let your husband find you there—”
“He must find me here, in our own house.”
“Then you must tell your friends here that you don't know where he is, nor when he will return, and let them advise together as to what can be done. You must tell the Hallecks—”
“I will never tell them!” cried Marcia. “Let me go! I can starve there and freeze, and if he finds me dead in the house, none of them shall have the right to blame him,—to say that he left me,—that he deserted his little child! Oh! oh! oh! oh! What shall I do?”
The hapless creature shook with the thick-coming sobs that overpowered her now, and Atherton refrained once more. She did not seem ashamed before him of the sorrows which he felt it a sacrilege to know, and in a blind instinctive way he perceived that in proportion as he was a stranger it was possible for her to bear her disgrace in his presence. He spoke at last from the hint he found in this fact: “Will you let me mention the matter to Miss Kingsbury?”
She looked at him with sad intensity in the eyes, as if trying to fathom any nether thought that he might have. It must have seemed to her at first that he was mocking her, but his words brought her the only relief from her self-upbraiding she had known. To suffer kindness from Miss Kingsbury would be in some sort an atonement to Bartley for the wrong her jealousy had done him; it would be self-sacrifice for his sake; it would be expiation. “Yes, tell her,” she answered with a promptness whose obscure motive was not illumined by the flash of passionate pride with which she added, “I shall not care for her.”