So this was Marriage!  Did she flee to her unjustly acused husband’s side and comfort him?  Not she.  She went to bed.

At daylight, being about smotherd, I opened the closet door and drew a breath of fresh air.  Also I looked at her, and she was asleep, with her hair in patent wavers.  Ye gods!

The wife of Reginald Beecher thus to distort her looks at night!  I could not bare it.

I averted my eyes, and on my tiptoes made for the Window.

My sufferings were over.  In a short time I had slid down and was making my way through the dewey morn toward my home.  Before the sun was up, or more than starting, I had climbed to my casement by means of a wire trellis, and put on my robe de nuit.  But before I settled to sleep I went to the pantrey and there satisfied the pangs of nothing since Breakfast the day before.  All the lights seemed to be on, on the lower floor, which I considered wastful of Tanney, the butler.  But being sleepy, gave it no further thought.  And so to bed, as the great English dairy-keeper, Pepys, had said in his dairy.

It seemed but a few moments later that I heard a scream, and opening my eyes, saw Leila in the doorway.  She screamed again, and mother came and stood beside her.  Although very drowsy, I saw that they still wore their dinner clothes.

They stared as if transfixed, and then mother gave a low moan, and said to Sis: 

“That unfortunate man has been in Jail all night.”

And Sis said:  “Jane Raleigh is crazy.  That’s all.”  Then they looked at me, and mother burst into tears.  But Sis said: 

“You little imp!  Don’t tell me you’ve been in that bed all night.  I know better.”

I closed my eyes.  They were not of the understanding sort, and never would be.

“If that’s the way you feel I shall tell you nothing,” I said wearily.

“Where have you been?” mother said, in a slow and dreadful voice.

Well, I saw then that a part of the Truth must be disclosed, especialy since she has for some time considered sending me to a convent, although without cause, and has not done so for fear of my taking the veil.  So I told her this.  I said: 

“I spent the night shut in a clothes closet, but where is not my secret.  I cannot tell you.”

“Barbara!  You must tell me.”

“It is not my secret alone, mother.”

She caught at the foot of the bed.

“Who was shut with you in that closet?” she demanded in a shaking voice.  “Barbara, there is another wreched Man in all this.  It could not have been Mr. Beecher, because he has been in the Station House all night.”

I sat up, leaning on one elbow, and looked at her ernestly.

“Mother” I said, “you have done enough damage, interfering with Careers—­not only mine, but another’s imperiled now by not haveing a last Act.  I can tell you no More, except”—­here my voice took on a deep and intence fiber—­“that I have done nothing to be ashamed of, although unconventional.”