assure you. Not nearly as hard as you think or as wicked as
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this other way. Don’t forget there is a life there—a human—
if it is really as you think. A human life which you are
seeking to end and that I cannot help you to do. I really
cannot. There may be doctors—I know there are—men
here and there who take their professional ethics a little less
seriously than I do; but I cannot let myself become one of
them. I am sorry—very.
“So now the best I can say is—go home to your parents
and tell them. It may look hard now but you are going to
feel better about it in the long run. If it will make you or them
feel any better about it, let them come and talk to me. I will
try and make them see that this is not the worst thing in the
world, either. But as for doing what you want—I am very,
very sorry, but I cannot. My conscience will not permit me.”
He paused and gazed at her sympathetically, yet with a
determined and concluded look in his eye. And Roberta,
dumbfounded by this sudden termination of all her hopes in
connection with him and realizing at last that not only had
she been misled by Clyde’s information in regard to this
doctor, but that her technical as well as emotional plea had
failed, now walked unsteadily to the door, the terrors of the
future crowding thick upon her. And once outside in the
dark, after the doctor had most courteously and ruefully
closed the door behind her, she paused to lean against a
tree that was there—her nervous and physical strength all
but failing her. He had refused to help her. He had refused
to help her. And now what?
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Chapter 38
THE first effect of the doctor’s decision was to shock and
terrify them both—Roberta and Clyde—beyond measure.
For apparently now here was illegitimacy and disgrace for
Roberta. Exposure and destruction for Clyde. And this had
been their one solution seemingly. Then, by degrees, for
Clyde at least, there was a slight lifting of the heavy pall.
Perhaps, after all, as the doctor had suggested—and once
she had recovered her senses sufficiently to talk, she had
told him—the end had not been reached. There was the
bare possibility, as suggested by the druggist, Short and the
doctor, that she might be mistaken. And this, while not
producing a happy reaction in her, had the unsatisfactory
result of inducing in Clyde a lethargy based more than
anything else on the ever-haunting fear of inability to cope
with this situation as well as the certainty of social exposure
in case he did not which caused him, instead of struggling
all the more desperately, to defer further immediate action.
For, such was his nature that, although he realized clearly
the probably tragic consequences if he did not act, still it
was so hard to think to whom else to apply to without
danger to himself. To think that the doctor had “turned her
down,” as he phrased it, and that Short’s advice should
have been worth as little as that!
But apart from nervous thoughts as to whom to turn to next,
no particular individual occurred to him before the two
weeks were gone, or after. It was so hard to just ask
anywhere. One just couldn’t do it. Besides, of whom could
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he ask now? Of whom? These things took time, didn’t
they? Yet in the meantime, the days going by, both he and
Roberta had ample time to consider what, if any, steps they
must take—the one in regard to the other—in case no
medical or surgical solution was found. For Roberta, while
urging and urging, if not so much by words as by
expression and mood at her work, was determined that she
must not be left to fight this out alone—she could not be.
On the other hand, as she could see, Clyde did nothing. For
apart from what he had already attempted to do, he was
absolutely at a loss how to proceed. He had no intimates
and in consequence he could only think of presenting the
problem as an imaginary one to one individual and another
here or there in the hope of extracting some helpful
information. At the same time, and as impractical and
evasive as it may seem, there was the call of that diverting
world of which Sondra was a part, evenings and Sundays,
when, in spite of Roberta’s wretched state and mood, he
was called to go here and there, and did, because in so
doing he was actually relieving his own mind of the dread
specter of disaster that was almost constantly before it. If
only he could get her out of this! If only he could. But how,
without money, intimates, a more familiar understanding of
the medical or if not that exactly, then the sub rosa world of
sexual free-masonry which some at times—the bell-hops of
the Green-Davidson, for instance, seemed to understand.
He had written to Ratterer, of course, but there had been no
answer, since Ratterer had removed to Florida and as yet
Clyde’s letter had not reached him. And locally all those he
knew best were either connected with the factory or society
—individuals on the one hand too inexperienced or
dangerous, or on the other hand, too remote and
dangerous, since he was not sufficiently intimate with any of
them as yet to command their true confidence and secrecy.
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At the same time he must do something—he could not just
rest and drift. Assuredly Roberta could not long permit him
to do that—faced as she was by exposure. And so from
time to time he actually racked himself—seized upon straws
and what would have been looked upon by most as forlorn
chances. Thus, for instance, an associate foreman,
chancing to reminisce one day concerning a certain girl in
his department who had “gotten in trouble” and had been
compelled to leave, he had been given the opportunity to
inquire what he thought such a girl did in case she could not
afford or did not want to have a child. But this particular
foreman, being as uninformed as himself, merely observed
that she probably had to see a doctor if she knew one or
“go through with it”—which left Clyde exactly where he was.
On another occasion, in connection with a conversation in a
barber shop, relating to a local case reported in The Star
where a girl was suing a local ne’er-do-well for breach of
promise, the remark was made that she would “never have
sued that guy, you bet, unless she had to.” Whereupon
Clyde seized the opportunity to remark hopefully, “But
wouldn’t you think that she could find some way of getting
out of trouble without marrying a fellow she didn’t like?”
“Well, that’s not so easy as you may think, particularly
around here,” elucidated the wiseacre who was trimming
his hair. “In the first place it’s agin’ the law. And next it takes
a lotta money. An’ in case you ain’t got it, well, money
makes the mare go, you know.” He snip-snipped with his
scissors while Clyde, confronted by his own problem,
meditated on how true it was. If he had a lot of money—
even a few hundred dollars—he might take it now and
possibly persuade her—who could tell—to go somewhere
by herself and have an operation performed.
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Yet each day, as on the one before, he was saying to
himself that he must find some one. And Roberta was
saying to herself that she too must act—must not really
depend on Clyde any longer if he were going to act so. One
could not trifle or compromise with a terror of this kind. It
was a cruel imposition on her. It must be that Clyde did not
realize how terribly this affected her and even him. For
certainly, if he were not going to help her out of it, as he had
distinctly said he would do at first, then decidedly she could
not be expected to weather the subsequent storm alone.
Never, never, never! For, after all, as Roberta saw it, Clyde
was a man—he had a good position—it was not he, but
she, who was in this treacherous position and unable to
extricate herself alone.
And beginning with the second day after the second period,
when she discovered for once and all that her worst
suspicions were true, she not only emphasized the fact in
every way that she could that she was distressed beyond
all words, but on the third day announced to him in a note
that she was again going to see the doctor near
Gloversville that evening, regardless of his previous refusal
—so great was her need—and also asking Clyde whether