"You've done something to displease your husband?"
"To displease him? I ran away with another man!" There was a dismal
exultation in her tone, as though she were paying Woburn off for having
underrated her offense.
She had certainly surprised him; at worst he had expected a quarrel over a
rival, with a possible complication of mother-in-law. He wondered how such
helpless little feet could have taken so bold a step; then he remembered
that there is no audacity like that of weakness.
He was wondering how to lead her to completer avowal when she added
forlornly, "You see there's nothing else to do."
Woburn took a turn in the room. It was certainly a narrower strait than he
had foreseen, and he hardly knew how to answer; but the first flow of
confession had eased her, and she went on without farther persuasion.
"I don't know how I could ever have done it; I must have been downright
crazy. I didn't care much for Joe when I married him--he wasn't exactly
handsome, and girls think such a lot of that. But he just laid down and
worshipped me, and I _was_ getting fond of him in a way; only the life was
so dull. I'd been used to a big city--I come from Detroit--and Hinksville
is such a poky little place; that's where we lived; Joe is telegraph-
operator on the railroad there. He'd have been in a much bigger place now,
if he hadn't--well, after all, he behaved perfectly splendidly about
_that_.
"I really was getting fond of him, and I believe I should have realized in
time how good and noble and unselfish he was, if his mother hadn't been
always sitting there and everlastingly telling me so.
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