Page:A Good Woman (1927).pdf/242

 Emma turned suddenly to Philip. "You hear what she called me!"

And Naomi, like an echo, cried, "You heard what filthy names she called me."

Mabelle, terrified, rolled her cowlike eyes, and tried to stifle Jimmy's screams. Philip did not even turn. He felt suddenly sick.

Naomi was saying, "If I hadn't all the work to do. . . . If I had the right kind of husband—"

Emma interrupted. "I took care of my child and did all the work as well. I never complained or made excuses."

"You didn't have twins. . . . Sometimes my back fairly breaks. Oh, if I had the right kind of husband, I wouldn't be in your dreary old house!"

Emma turned again, "Philip . . . Philip. . . ."

But Philip was gone. She saw him, hatless and without an overcoat, running through the snow that had begun to come down slowly and softly as a white eiderdown. 

He only stopped running when he grew so weak that he could no longer make an effort. He had gone, without knowing why, in the direction of the Mills, and presently he found himself, with a savage pain just beneath his heart, sitting on the steps of McTavish's undertaking parlors. It was almost dark, and the air was cold and still; he felt it creeping about him as the heat went out of his body. He knew that if he caught cold he would die and suddenly he wanted to live, horribly. It was as if that sickening scene had