Mr Jack Hamlins Mediation | Page 6

it, and would have gone back but that
the doors were shut forever against you! How you longed to leave, but
the wicked men and women around you always"--
"I didn't!" she burst out, with sudden passion; "you know I didn't. I told

him everything: who I was, what I had done, what I expected to do
again. I pointed out the men--who were sitting there, whispering and
grinning at us, as if they were in the front row of the theatre--and said I
knew them all, and they knew me. I never spared myself a thing. I said
what people said of me, and didn't even care to say it wasn't true!"
"Oh, come!" protested Jack, in perfunctory politeness.
"He said he liked me for telling the truth, and not being ashamed to do
it! He said the sin was in the false shame and the hypocrisy; for that's
the sort of man he is, you see, and that's like him always! He asked if I
would marry him--out of hand--and do my best to be his lawful wife.
He said he wanted me to think it over and sleep on it, and to-morrow he
would come and see me for an answer. I slipped off the boat at 'Frisco,
and went alone to a hotel where I wasn't known. In the morning I didn't
know whether he'd keep his word or I'd keep mine. But he came! He
said he'd marry me that very day, and take me to his farm in Santa
Clara. I agreed. I thought it would take me out of everybody's
knowledge, and they'd think me dead! We were married that day,
before a regular clergyman. I was married under my own name,"--she
stopped and looked at Jack, with a hysterical laugh,--"but he made me
write underneath it, 'known as Nell Montgomery;' for he said HE wasn't
ashamed of it, nor should I be."
"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