"Why didn't you think of that before you got married? What was
your rush, anyway? I can't figure it to save my soul," he said.
"George, the school can't go," she cried. "If what you say is
true, and I suspect it is, I must have money to see me through."
"Then set your wits to work and fix things up with your father,"
he said casually.
Kate arose tall and straight, standing unwaveringly as she looked
at him in blazing contempt.
"So?" she said. "This is the kind of man you are? I'm not so
helpless as you think me. I have a refuge. I know where to find
it. You'll teach my school until I'm able to take it myself, if
the Trustee and patrons will allow you, or I'll sever my relations
with you as quickly as I formed them. You have no practice; I
have grave doubts if you can get any; this is our only chance for
the money we must have this winter. Go ask the Trustee to come
here until I can make arrangements with him."
Then she wavered and rolled on the bed again. George stood
looking at her between narrowed eyelids.
"Tactics I use with Mother don't go with you, old girl," he said
to himself. "Thing of fire and tow, stubborn as an ox; won't be
pushed a hair's breadth; old Bates over again -- alike as two
peas. But I'll break you, damn you, I'll break you; only, I WANT
that school. Lots easier than kneading somebody's old stiff
muscles, while the money is sure. Oh, I go after the Trustee, all
right!"
He revived Kate, and telling her to keep quiet, and not excite
herself, he explained that it was a terrible sacrifice to him to
put off opening his office any longer; she must forgive him for
losing self-control when he thought of it; but for her dear sake
he would teach until she was better -- possibly she would be all
right in a few days, and then she could take her work again.
Because she so devoutly hoped it, Kate made that arrangement with
the Trustee. Monday, she lay half starved, yet gagging and ill,
while George went to teach her school. As she contemplated that,
she grew sicker than she had been before. When she suddenly
marshalled all the facts she knew of him, she stoutly refused to
think of what Nancy Ellen had said; when she reviewed his
character and disposition, and thought of him taking charge of the
minds of her pupils, Kate suddenly felt she must not allow that to
happen, she must not! Then came another thought, even more
personal and terrible, a thought so disconcerting she mercifully
lost consciousness again.
She sent for the village doctor, and found no consolation from her
talk with him. She was out of the school; that was settled. No
harpy ever went to its meat with one half the zest Mrs. Holt found
in the situation. With Kate so ill she could not stand on her
feet half the time, so ill she could not reply, with no spirit
left to appeal to George, what more could be asked? Mrs. Holt
could add to every grievance she formerly had, that of a sick
woman in the house for her to wait on. She could even make vile
insinuations to Kate, prostrate and helpless, that she would not
have dared otherwise. She could prepare food that with a touch of
salt or sugar where it was not supposed to be, would have sickened
a well person. One day George came in from school and saw a bowl
of broth sitting on a chair beside Kate's bed.