New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
"I shan't be blindly running away. I've been considering a
change in my plans for so long that I've been enquiring. I know
of a position I can get in New York, and right off. I wrote
about it last week. I heard of it through the Suffrage League.
It's a position in the office there in New York. I would have
explained all this to Tom if he had been decent, but he wasn't.
He is narrow and prejudiced. Oh, Lucy, help me to escape. I've
got fifteen dollars, of Tom's and Edith's, and I shall keep it,
too! They owe _me_ a debt instead of _I_, them. That's the way I
feel. But fifteen dollars is not enough to start to New York
with. There's a train at 6.20 and another at 8.15. I am going
down to the station now, this _minute_, and wait for you to come
down there with more money and help me off. If you get out of
that room before six, I could take the earlier train. If not,
then the 8.15. I will wait for you in the ladies' waiting-room
where the couches are. If you think my going suddenly this way
is out of the question, then I'll simply turn around and come
back with you to the house here, and grin and bear the situation
somehow. I'll have to. So meet me anyhow. Don't tell any one
where I am. Just stroll out and we'll pretend we've been to the
Country Club.
"I know that I've been horrid to you all my life, critical and
pharisaic. You can pay me back for it now. You can refuse to
help me if you want to. I shan't blame you. But, oh, dear, let
me go away alone, just for a little while anyway. Let nature try
and heal.
"I have my bag and toilet articles. Money is all I want--money
and perhaps just one person in my family to wish me well.
"RUTH."
I glanced at the clock It was just quarter of six. There was no
opportunity of laying this question on the table and waiting for the
clearing light of morning to help me make a wise decision. This was an
occasion when a woman's intuition must be relied upon. As I stood there
with Ruth's letter in my hand, swift and sure was the conviction that
came to me. I must help Ruth get away. She would surely escape sometime
from the kind of bondage Tom was planning to place her under. If not
tonight, or next week, then a month hence. Was it not better for her to
go, even though suddenly and shockingly, with the God-speed and the
trust of some one in her own family?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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