§ 25
Peter hurried back to the Todd home, and there was white-faced little
Jennie lying on the bed, still sobbing. One would think she might have
used up her surplus stock of emotions; but no, there is never any limit
to the emotions a woman can pour out. As soon as Peter had got fairly
started on the humiliating confession that he had a wife, little Jennie
sprang up from the bed with a terrified shriek, and confronted him with
a face like the ghost of an escaped lunatic. Peter tried to explain that
it wasn't his fault, he had really expected to be free any day. But
Jennie only clasped her hands to her forehead and screamed: "You have
deceived me! You have betrayed me!" It was just like a scene in the
movies, the bored little devil inside Peter was whispering.
He tried to take her hand and reason with her, but she sprang
away from him, she rushed to the other side of the room and stood there,
staring at him as if she were some wild thing that he had in a corner
and was threatening to kill. She made so much noise that he was afraid
that she would bring the neighbors in; he had to point out to her that
if this matter became public he would be ruined forever as a witness,
and thus she might be the means of sending Jim Goober to the gallows.
Thereupon Jennie fell silent, and it was possible for Peter to
get in a word. He told her of the intrigues against him; the other side
had sent somebody to him and offered him ten thousand dollars if he
would sell out the Goober defense. Now, since he had refused, they were
trying to blackmail him, using his wife. They had somehow come to
suspect that be was involved in a love affair, and this was to be the
means of ruining him.
Jennie still would not let Peter touch, her, but she consented to
sit down quietly in a chair, and figure out what they were going to do.
Whatever happened, she said, they must do no harm to the Goober case.
Peter had done her a monstrous wrong in keeping the truth from her, but
she would suffer the penalty, whatever it might be; she would never
involve him.
Peter started to explain; perhaps it wasn't so serious as she
feared. He had been thinking things over; he knew where Pericles Priam,
his old employer, was living, and Pericles was rich now, and Peter felt
sure that he could borrow two hundred dollars, and there were places
where little Jennie could go — there were ways to get out of this
trouble —
But little Jennie stopped him. She was only a child in
some ways, but in others she was a mature woman. She
had strange fixed ideas, and when you ran into them it
was like running into a stone wall. She would not hear of
the idea Peter suggested; it would be murder.
"Nonsense," said Peter, echoing McGivney. "It's nothing;
everybody does it." But Jennie was apparently not
listening. She sat staring with her wild, terrified eyes,
and pulling at her dress with her fingers. Peter got to
watching these fingers, and they got on his nerves. They
behaved like insane fingers; they manifested all the emotions
which the rest of little Jennie was choking back and repressing.
"If you would only not take it so seriously!" Peter
pleaded. "It's a miserable accident, but it's happened, and
now we've got to make the best of it. Some day I'll get
free; some day I'll marry you."
"Stop, Peter!" the girl whispered, in her tense voice. "I don't
want to talk to you any more, if that's all you have to say. I don't
know that I'd be willing to marry you — now that I know you could deceive
me — that you could go on deceiving me day after day for months."
Peter thought she was going to break out into hysterics again,
and he was frightened. He tried to plead with her, but suddenly she
sprang up. "Go away!" she exclaimed. "Please go away and let me alone.
I'll think it over and decide what to do myself. Whatever I do, I won't
disgrace you, so leave me alone, go quickly!"
