I got very tired and much hoter, and I sat down on the floor. After what
seemed like hours, Mrs. Patten came back, all breathless, and she said: "The girl's gone to, Clare."
"What girl?"
"Next door. If you want Excitement, they've got it. The mother is in
hysterics and there's a party searching the beech for her body, The
truth is, of course, if that towle means anything."
"That Reg has run away with her, of course," said Mrs. Beecher, in a
resined tone. "I wish he would grow up and learn somthing. He's becoming
a nusance. And when there are so many Interesting People to run away
with, to choose that chit!"
Yes, she said that, And in my retreat I could but sit and listen, and
of course perspire, which I did freely. Mrs. Patten went away, after
talking about the "scandle" for some time. And I sat and thought of the
beech being searched for my Body, a thought which filled my Eyes with
tears of pity for what might have been, I still hoped Mrs. Beecher would
go to bed, but she did not. Through the key hole I could see her with a
Book, reading, and not caring at all that Mr. Beecher's body, and mine
to, might be washing about in the cruel Sea, or have eloped to New York.
I lothed her.
At last I must have slept, for a bell rang, and there I was still in the
closet, and she was ansering it.
"Arrested?" she said, "Well, I should think he'd better be, If what you
say about clothing is true.... Well, then--what's he arrested for?...
Oh, kidnaping! Well, if I'm any judge, they ought to arrest the
Archibald girl for kidnaping HIM. No, don't bother me with it tonight.
I'll try to read myself to sleep."
So this was Marriage! Did she flee to her unjustly acused husband's side
and comfort him? Not she. She went to bed.
At daylight, being about smotherd, I opened the closet door and drew a
breath of fresh air. Also I looked at her, and she was asleep, with her
hair in patent wavers. Ye gods!
The wife of Reginald Beecher thus to distort her looks at night! I could
not bare it.
I averted my eyes, and on my tiptoes made for the Window.
My sufferings were over. In a short time I had slid down and was making
my way through the dewey morn toward my home. Before the sun was up,
or more than starting, I had climbed to my casement by means of a wire
trellis, and put on my ROBE DE NUIT. But before I settled to sleep
I went to the pantrey and there satisfied the pangs of nothing since
Breakfast the day before. All the lights seemed to be on, on the lower
floor, which I considered wastful of Tanney, the butler. But being
sleepy, gave it no further thought. And so to bed, as the great English
dairy-keeper, Pepys, had said in his dairy.