"
"Do you mean to say that your wife is going to turn me out?"
Eunice gasped, rather than spoke, the words.
Christopher drew his reddish brows together.
"I just mean that Victoria says she won't marry me if she has to
live with you. She's afraid of you. I told her you wouldn't
interfere with her, but she wasn't satisfied. It's your own
fault, Eunice. You've always been so queer and close that people
think you're an awful crank. Victoria's young and lively, and
you and she wouldn't get on at all. There isn't any question of
turning you out. I'll build a little house for you somewhere,
and you'll be a great deal better off there than you would be
here. So don't make a fuss."
Eunice did not look as if she were going to make a fuss. She sat
as if turned to stone, her hands lying palm upward in her lap.
Christopher got up, hugely relieved that the dreaded explanation
was over.
"Guess I'll go to bed. You'd better have gone long ago. It's
all nonsense, this waiting up for me."
When he had gone Eunice drew a long, sobbing breath and looked
about her like a dazed soul. All the sorrow of her life was as
nothing to the desolation that assailed her now.
She rose and, with uncertain footsteps, passed out through the
hall and into the room where her mother died. She had always
kept it locked and undisturbed; it was arranged just as Naomi
Holland had left it. Eunice tottered to the bed and sat down on
it.
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