"I started from 'Frisco that night on the boat ready to fling myself
into anything--or the river!" she went on hurriedly. "There was a man
in the cabin who noticed me, and began to hang around. I thought he
knew who I was,--had seen me on the posters; and as I didn't feel like
foolin', I told him so. But he wasn't that kind. He said he saw I was in
trouble and wanted me to tell him all."
Mr. Hamlin regarded her cheerfully. "And you told him," he said, "how
you had once run away from your childhood's happy home to go on the
stage! How you always regretted it, and would have gone back but that
the doors were shut forever against you! How you longed to leave, but
the wicked men and women around you always"--
"I didn't!" she burst out, with sudden passion; "you know I didn't. I
told him everything: who I was, what I had done, what I expected to do
again. I pointed out the men--who were sitting there, whispering and
grinning at us, as if they were in the front row of the theatre--and
said I knew them all, and they knew me. I never spared myself a thing.
I said what people said of me, and didn't even care to say it wasn't
true!"
"Oh, come!" protested Jack, in perfunctory politeness.
"He said he liked me for telling the truth, and not being ashamed to do
it! He said the sin was in the false shame and the hypocrisy; for that's
the sort of man he is, you see, and that's like him always! He asked if
I would marry him--out of hand--and do my best to be his lawful wife.
He said he wanted me to think it over and sleep on it, and to-morrow he
would come and see me for an answer. I slipped off the boat at 'Frisco,
and went alone to a hotel where I wasn't known. In the morning I didn't
know whether he'd keep his word or I'd keep mine. But he came! He said
he'd marry me that very day, and take me to his farm in Santa Clara.
I agreed. I thought it would take me out of everybody's knowledge,
and they'd think me dead! We were married that day, before a regular
clergyman. I was married under my own name,"--she stopped and looked
|