“At this critical juncture, I heard Mr. Walton coming. I ran out in the hall to meet him and managed to gasp out, ‘I want to see you a minute.’ “I told him what the man had said, and he said, ‘Carrie, tell me all about it. What do you know about him?’ “Then I told him we were married, and had been for six months. He scowled and said, ‘Bad, very bad. I advise you to tell the gentleman the whole affair, just as it is. Do not try to protect the man; let him stand on his own merits.’ “So I went back to the attorney. “‘Well,’ he said, ‘are you ready to tell me all you know?’ “‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but I have not much to tell. It is only this. Mr. Bates and I were married six months ago, so I guess even you will admit that we had a right to be seen together often, if we chose to.’ “He said, ‘My child, I am sorry to be obliged to tell you, but the fact of the matter is, you are not his legal wife. I am representing the father of a girl fifteen years old, whom he has seduced, and in my investigations I have learned that he has a legal wife and one child living.’ “How do people live through such awful ordeals, yet possess their senses? I was young and believe that was my only salvation. The world turned suddenly as dark as death; all the sunshine and mirth had gone out of it. That night when I went home I saw other girls laughing and talking as if they had not a care in the world, and I wondered how they could do it. I was still stunned by the awful blow which had fallen upon me. I might have found a little consolation in talking to Jack, but even that was denied me, for the attorney told me that he had been taken into custody, arrested on the charge of seduction. “I did not know what to do. I could not tell my parents of my marriage, for I knew my father’s pride and sternness, and I feared he would turn me out of doors when he knew the truth. I managed to live through the night somehow, and dragged myself to the office the next morning. Mr. Walton asked me if I had told my parents and I told him I had not, and asked him to break the news to me, which he consented to do. “After he had gone I sat in the office trembling for the result. “He came back at last, after what seemed to me an interminable length of time, and told me to go home. Mamma took me in her arms and tried to console me, but papa ignored my presence entirely and refused to speak to me for months. “When Jack came to trial they brought his wife to appear against him; that is, it went against him, of course. She was a sweet young woman, just the age that I am now, twenty-one years, and he had married her as soon as she came out of the convent. I was not able to go on the witness stand, the shock of the whole thing had proved too much for me, so they took my deposition and the trial went on without me.” “What was the result of the trial?” I asked. “He was sentenced to a term in Joliet, and is serving his time there now, and I never want to see his hateful face again.