Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 68.djvu/443

THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics.

VOL. LXVIII.—OCTOBER, 1891.—NO. CCCCVIII.

When I reached Arden, I took one of the melancholy vehicles which stand at our station, and very much astonished the driver by ordering him to take me, not to my own home, but to the House of Martha.

"You know they're busted up, sir," remarked the man, turning to me, as his old horse hurried us along at his best pace.

"But the sisters have not left?" I eagerly asked.

"Not all," he replied, "but two or three of them went down this morning."

"Drive on quicker," I said. "I am in a hurry."

The man gave the horse a crack with his whip, which made no difference whatever in our speed, and said: "If you got a bill agin any of them, sir, you need n't worry. The Mother is still there, and she's all right, you know."

"Bill! Nonsense!" I answered.

"I'm sorry they're busted," said the man. "They did n't do much hackin', but they give us a lot of haulin' from the station."

As I hurried up the broad path which the broad path which led to the front of the House of Martha, I found the door of the main entrance open,—something I had never seen before, although I had often passed the house. I entered unceremoniously, and saw before me, in the hallway, a woman in gray stooping over a trunk. She turned at the sound of my footsteps on the bare floor, and I beheld Sister Sarah. Her eyes flashed as she saw me, and I know that her first impulse was to order me out of the house; but this, of course, she now had no right to do, yet there were private rights which she still maintained.

"I should think," she said, "that a man who has done all the mischief you have done—who has worked and planned and plotted and contrived until he has undermined and utterly ruined a sisterhood of pious women who ask nothing of this world but to be let alone to do their own work in their own way, would be ashamed to put his nose into this house; but I suppose a man who would do what you have done does not know what shame is. Have you come here to sneer and gibe and scorn and mock and gloat over the misfortunes of the women whose home you have broken up, ruined, and devastated?"

"Madam," I replied, "can you tell me where I can find Miss Sylvia Raynor?"

She looked as if she were about to spring and bite.

"Atrocious!" she exclaimed. "I will not stay under the same roof with you." And she marched out of the door.

I made my way into the reception-room. I met no one, and the room was empty, although I heard on the floor above the sound of many footsteps, apparently those of the sisters preparing for departure.