"I cried for you, too," answered Martha, as the saddest smile I had ever
seen came across the darkness of her face. "And when you was a young
lady I crept up to the south window of the Poplars and saw you in your
dress for the big coming-out party. You were like an angel from Heaven
and I loved you. I wanted to be like you. All us girls did. They have
always envied you and watched you, but I loved you. I did! I did,
but--what chanct has a girl like me got against a man who's like--like
you are? But I did love you; I did!"
"It doesn't seem right to--to either of us to have kept us apart," I
faltered, as Martha suddenly slipped to the floor at my feet and put her
head in her hands.
"Don't be kind to me--I can't stand that. You mustn't, you mustn't! You
wouldn't if you knew," she sobbed.
"I am going to be--that is, I am going to help you, Martha, and you
have got to show me how," I answered her as a kind of determination
that was stronger than any like emotion I had ever had came over me.
"Tell me what to do, Martha, for you and--and for the kiddie," I
commanded her with my usual imperiousness.
"Miss Charlotte," said Martha, as she suddenly rose to her knees, looked
up into my face and bared her shoulder with one motion of her hand,
"that black bruise is from the licks father gave me when I wouldn't tell
him why it was I came back after I went away and why it was I went. He
beat me three times to make me tell whose that boy is--when he wasn't a
month old. He knew that Mr. Goodloe helped me to go away three months
ago and--and begin again, and he don't really believe that the parson
enticed me back. The gang just put that in his head when he was
drinking. He does think that Mr. Goodloe knows about it all and I'm
afraid--afraid that some time when he's drunk he'll try to make him tell
and--and--there'll be murder, maybe double murder. I can't tell you
anything. I'm a fly caught in a web and I'm being drawn down to hell. I
thought there was a way out; the parson prayed with me and I saw it. I
saw myself right and honest again, but--but at a word I--I came back.
Even the good of the child couldn't hold me when the--the calling came.
Please go and leave me, and forget about me and--and don't come down
here again."
"No, Martha, I must help you," I answered, decidedly. I had never been
able to bear any kind of frustration and this made me doubly determined.