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Page 7
"Does he wear long hair and stick straws in it?" said Hamlin
gravely. "Does he 'hear voices' and have 'visions'?"
"He's a shrewd, sensible, hard-working man,--no more mad than you
are, nor as mad as I was the day I married him. He's lived up to
everything he's said." She stopped, hesitated in her quick,
nervous speech; her lip quivered slightly, but she recalled
herself, and looking imploringly, yet hopelessly, at Jack, gasped,
"And that's what's the matter!"
Jack fixed his eyes keenly upon her. "And you?" he said curtly.
"I?" she repeated wonderingly.
"Yes, what have YOU done?" he said, with sudden sharpness.
The wonder was so apparent in her eyes that his keen glance
softened. "Why," she said bewilderingly, "I have been his dog, his
slave,--as far as he would let me. I have done everything; I have
not been out of the house until he almost drove me out. I have
never wanted to go anywhere or see any one; but he has always
insisted upon it. I would have been willing to slave here, day and
night, and have been happy. But he said I must not seem to be
ashamed of my past, when he is not. I would have worn common
homespun clothes and calico frocks, and been glad of it, but he
insists upon my wearing my best things, even my theatre things; and
as he can't afford to buy more, I wear these things I had. I know
they look beastly here, and that I'm a laughing-stock, and when I
go out I wear almost anything to try and hide them; but," her lip
quivered dangerously again, "he wants me to do it, and it pleases
him."
Jack looked down. After a pause he lifted his lashes towards her
draggled skirt, and said in an easier, conversational tone, "Yes!
I thought I knew that dress. I gave it to you for that walking
scene in 'High Life,' didn't I?"
"No," she said quickly, "it was the blue one with silver trimming,--
don't you remember? I tried to turn it the first year I was
married, but it never looked the same."
"It was sweetly pretty," said Jack encouragingly, "and with that
blue hat lined with silver, it was just fetching! Somehow I don't
quite remember this one," and he looked at it critically.
"I had it at the races in '58, and that supper Judge Boompointer
gave us at 'Frisco where Colonel Fish upset the table trying to get
at Jim. Do you know," she said, with a little laugh, "it's got the
stains of the champagne on it yet; it never would come off. See!"
and she held the candle with great animation to the breadth of silk
before her.
"And there's more of it on the sleeve," said Jack; "isn't there?"
Mrs. Rylands looked reproachfully at Jack.
"That isn't champagne; don't you know what it is?"
"No!"
"It's blood," she said gravely; "when that Mexican cut poor Ned so
bad,--don't you remember? I held his head upon my arm while you
bandaged him." She heaved a little sigh, and then added, with a
faint laugh, "That's the worst thing about the clothes of a girl in
the profession, they get spoiled or stained before they wear out."
This large truth did not seem to impress Mr. Hamlin. "Why did you
leave Santa Clara?" he said abruptly, in his previous critical
tone.
"Because of the folks there. They were standoffish and ugly. You
see, Josh"--
"Who?"
"Josh Rylands!--HIM! He told everybody who I was, even those who
had never seen me in the bills,--how good I was to marry him, how
he had faith in me and wasn't ashamed,--until they didn't believe
we were married at all. So they looked another way when they met
us, and didn't call. And all the while I was glad they didn't, but
he wouldn't believe it, and allowed I was pining on account of it."
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