Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/102

 Everything was going on so exactly as usual,—and nothing was the same; nothing could ever be the same again.

Yesterday's world had been a friendly place, free from fears and filled with pleasant neighbors preferring you happy and wishing you well; to-day, what a strange, hostile, threatening air hung over everything. Marjorie Hale, who had never known what it was to fear people, found herself afraid. If her friends knew what she knew, how they would tear her down and destroy her; they all might not want to; some of them might, conscientiously, attempt to help her; but no one, if he or if she found out, could really save her; in spite of themselves, they must join against the Hales and destroy her family.

This struck her, for long periods, utterly prostrate and nerveless with despair and ignominy and then, contrarily, it spurred her to a nervous excitation in which she felt the presence of more power and will than she had ever before possessed and in which she determined to fight that annihilating peril alone. For she was so alone that, though every one in every house about had become a pitiless menace to her, the greatest danger of all lay in her home; it was in her mother. If her mother suspected, then everything which yet was left would instantly be gone. And Marjorie could not bear the thought of more destruction. So she lay on her bed, shivering with dread, when she heard her mother moving about. Soon she heard her proceed downstairs and knowing that her mother would inquire for her, but would not send to disturb her, Marjorie remained in the refuge of her room and refrained from betraying that she was awake. The program for this day, which she had accepted from