第44章

"Sit down," he said as he reached the threshhold{sic}."I want to talk to you."She seated herself, with hands folded in her lap.Her head was aching from the beat of the blood in her temples.

"Zeke and I have talked it over," said Warham."And we've decided that the only thing to do with you is to get you settled.So in a few minutes now you're going to be married."Her lack of expression showed that she did not understand.In fact, she could only feel--feel the cruel, contemptuous anger of that voice which all her days before had caressed her.

"We've picked out a good husband for you," Warham continued.

"It's Jeb Ferguson."

Susan quivered."I--I don't want to," she said.

"It ain't a question of what you want," retorted Warham roughly.

He was twenty-four hours and a night's sleep away from his first fierce outblazing of fury--away from the influence of his wife and his daughter.If it had not been for his brother Zeke, narrow and cold, the event might have been different.But Zeke was there to keep his "sense of duty" strong.And that he might nerve himself and hide and put down any tendency to be a "soft-hearted fool"--a tendency that threatened to grow as he looked at the girl--the child--he assumed the roughest manner he could muster.

"It ain't a question of what you want," he repeated."It's a question of what's got to be done, to save my family and you, too--from disgrace.We ain't going to have any more bastards in this family."The word meant nothing to the girl.But the sound of it, as her uncle pronounced it, made her feel as though the blood were drying up in her veins.

"We ain't going to take any chances," pursued Warham, less roughly; for now that he had looked the situation full and frankly in the face, he had no nerve to brace himself.The necessity of what he was prepared to do and to make her do was too obvious."Ferguson's here, and Zeke saw the preacher we sent for riding in from the main road.So I've come to tell you.If you'd like to fix up a little, why your Aunt Sallie'll be here in a minute.You want to pray God to make you a good wife.And you ought to be thankful you have sensible relations to step in and save you from yourself."Susan tried to speak; her voice died in her throat.She made another effort."I don't want to," she said.

"Then what do you want to do--tell me that!" exclaimed her uncle, rough again.For her manner was very moving, the more so because there was none of the usual appeal to pity and to mercy.

She was silent.

"There isn't anything else for you to do."

"I want to--to stay here."

"Do you think Zeke'd harbor you--when you're about certain to up and disgrace us as your mother did?""I haven't done anything wrong," said the girl dully.

"Don't you dare lie about that!"

"I've seen Ruth do the same with Artie Sinclair--and all the girls with different boys.""You miserable girl!" cried her uncle.

"I never heard it was so dreadful to let a boy kiss you.""Don't pretend to be innocent.You know the difference between that and what you did!"Susan realized that when she had kissed Sam she had really loved him.Perhaps that was the fatal difference.And her mother--the sin there had been that she really loved while the man hadn't.

Yes, it must be so.Ruth's explanation of these mysteries had been different; but then Ruth had also admitted that she knew little about the matter--and Susan most doubted the part that Ruth had assured her was certainly true.

"I didn't know," said Susan to her uncle."Nobody ever told me.

I thought we were engaged."

"A good woman don't need to be told," retorted Warham."But I'm not going to argue with you.You've got to marry.""I couldn't do that," said the girl."No, I couldn't.""You'll either take him or you go back to Sutherland and I'll have you locked up in the jail till you can be sent to the House of Correction.You can take your choice."Susan sat looking at her slim brown hands and interlacing her long fingers.The jail! The House of Correction was dreadful enough, for though she had never seen it she had heard what it was for, what kind of boys and girls lived there.But the jail--she had seen the jail, back behind the courthouse, with its air of mystery and of horror.Not Hell itself seemed such a frightful thing as that jail.

"Well--which do you choose?" said her uncle in a sharp voice.

The girl shivered."I don't care what happens to me," she said, and her voice was dull and sullen and hard.

"And it doesn't much matter," sneered Warham.Every time he looked at her his anger flamed again at the outrage to his love, his trust, his honor, and the impending danger of more illegitimacy."Marrying Jeb will give you a chance to reform and be a good woman.He understands--so you needn't be afraid of what he'll find out.""I don't care what happens to me," the girl repeated in the same monotonous voice.

Warham rose."I'll send your Aunt Sallie," said he."And when Icall, she'll bring you down."

The girl's silence, her non-resistance the awful expression of her still features--made him uneasy.He went to the window instead of to the door.He glanced furtively at her; but he might have glanced openly as there wasn't the least danger of meeting her eyes."You're marrying about as well as you could have hoped to, anyhow--better, probably," he observed, in an argumentative, defensive tone."Zeke says Jeb's about the likeliest young fellow he knows--a likelier fellow than either Zeke or I was at his age.I've given him two thousand dollars in cash.That ought to start you off well." And he went out without venturing another look at her.Her youth and helplessness, her stony misery, were again making it harder for him to hold himself to what he and the fanatic Zeke had decided to be his duty as a Christian, as a father, as a guardian.Besides, he did not dare face his wife and his daughter until the whole business was settled respectably and finally.