Love stories; Reformatories -- Fiction; Social classes -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
"You don't believe me!" she cried. "I'll make you believe me. Listen:
He came home last night after you left. You hadn't been gone ten
minutes when he came. He'd been drinking, but he was good-natured, and
I thought I would speak to him myself. It didn't seem as if I could
wait for you to speak to him, Jean. I thought I could manage it--he was
so good-natured--and so I asked him to make me an honest woman. I never
mentioned the baby--then! And I wasn't cross or mean with him. I asked
him as nice as I knew how. But he wouldn't listen--it was the drink in
him--and he struck me. Fred never struck me before in his life. He was
always such a gentleman. It was the drink in him made him strike me.
After that I went into the bedroom and cried, and I heard him go to the
sideboard and pour out more whisky. He did it twice. By and by he came
into the hall and took his hat, and I called to him and asked him not
to go out again. I said I was sorry for bothering him; but he went out
just the same. Then I followed. I knew, I don't know how, but I knew he
was going to Stella's, and it didn't seem, after all I'd been through,
I could stand for it. Sure enough, he turned down the avenue toward
that flat of hers I told you about, with me after him keeping on the
other side. I lagged behind a little when he reached Stella's street,
for it was lighter by her door than on the avenue, and when I got
around the corner he wasn't anywhere to be seen, and I knew for certain
he'd gone in at her number. I'd been trembling all over up to then, but
now I felt bold as a lion, I was so mad, and I marched straight up to
the house myself. I decided I wouldn't ring her bell--it's just one of
those common flat-houses without an elevator--but somebody else's, and
then, after the catch was pulled, go up and take them by surprise.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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