Page:Weeds (1923).pdf/189

 all too clearly explained by these few words that her ear had inadvertently caught and that now seemed to be burnt into her brain. It was the talk of the neighborhood, then; and there was only one person who could have betrayed the secret. It was desperately hard for her to force herself to this conclusion; but she made herself admit that it was the only one possible. That spirit in her which gave her eyes their level, searching look, which made her see through the flimsy shams and hypocrisies and self-deceptions of the people about her, forced her to look at her own situation with the same undeviating gaze.

She wandered about through sleepy, grass-grown back streets and lanes drowsing in the hot afternoon sunshine and deserted as a graveyard. She met nobody but an old man hobbling with the aid of two crutches. She had a feeling that the old man looked at her as if he knew and blushed furiously when she accidentally met his eye.

She took no note of the passing of time, and did not see that the shadows had begun to grow long, when she heard Jerry's voice anxiously calling her name and immediately after saw him appear around the corner of a fence.

"Hey, Judy! What the devil?" In his tone was the irritation which follows upon relieved anxiety. "Where you bin a-hidin' to? I bin a-lookin' all over taown fer you. I was beginnin' to think sumpin'd happened you."

Without waiting an instant, she turned upon him and accused him of what he had done. Even while she accused him, she felt herself buoyed up by a quite unreasonable hope that he would be able to deny her charge. The sight of him had for the moment restored her confidence in him. The moment, however, was a short one. Instantly she saw by his face that it was true, unbelievably but inexorably true. He stood before her sheepish, contrite and ashamed.

"Why did you do it?"

She flashed the words at him as if each one was a sword.

"Judy, I was drunk. It happened a long time ago, afore we was married; an' it was about the one time in my life I bin