As she approached the red house she saw a buggy standing at the door, and her heart gave a leap. But it was only Mr. Royall who got out, his travelling-bag in hand. He saw her coming, and waited in the porch. She was conscious that he was looking at her intently, as if there was something strange in her appearance, and she threw back her head with a desperate effort at ease. Their eyes met, and she said: “You back?” as if nothing had happened, and he answered: “Yes, I’m back,” and walked in ahead of her, pushing open the door of his office. She climbed to her room, every step of the stairs holding her fast as if her feet were lined with glue.
Two days later, she descended from the train at Nettleton, and walked out of the station into the dusty square. The brief interval of cold weather was over, and the day was as soft, and almost as hot, as when she and Harney had emerged on the same scene on the Fourth of July. In the square the same broken-down hacks and carry-alls stood drawn up in a despondent line, and the lank horses with fly-nets over their withers swayed their heads drearily to and fro. She recognized the staring signs over the eating-houses and billiard saloons, and the long lines of wires on lofty poles tapering down the main street to the park at its other end. Taking the way the wires pointed, she went on hastily, with bent head, till she reached a wide transverse street with a brick building at the corner. She crossed this street and glanced furtively up at the front of the brick building; then she returned, and entered a door opening on a flight of steep brass-rimmed stairs. On the second landing she rang a bell, and a mulatto girl with a bushy head and a frilled apron let her into a hall where a stuffed fox on his hind legs proffered a brass card-tray to visitors. At the back of the hall was a glazed door marked: “Office.” After waiting a few minutes in a handsomely furnished room, with plush sofas surmounted by large gold-framed photographs of showy young women, Charity was shown into the office….
When she came out of the glazed door Dr. Merkle followed, and led her into another room, smaller, and still more crowded with plush and gold frames. Dr. Merkle was a plump woman with small bright eyes, an immense mass of black hair coming down low on her forehead, and unnaturally white and even teeth. She wore a rich black dress, with gold chains and charms hanging from her bosom. Her hands were large and smooth, and quick in all their movements; and she smelt of musk and carbolic acid.
She smiled on Charity with all her faultless teeth. “Sit down, my dear. Wouldn’t you like a little drop of something to pick you up?…No….Well, just lay back a minute then….There’s nothing to be done just yet; but in about a month, if you’ll step round again…I could take you right into my own house for two or three days, and there wouldn’t be a mite of trouble. Mercy me! The next time you’ll know better’n to fret like this….”
Charity gazed at her with widening eyes. This woman with the false hair, the false teeth, the false murderous smile–what was she offering her but immunity from some unthinkable crime? Charity, till then, had been conscious only of a vague self-disgust and a frightening physical distress; now, of a sudden, there came to her the grave surprise of motherhood. She had come to this dreadful place because she knew of no other way of making sure that she was not mistaken about her state; and the woman had taken her for a miserable creature like Julia….The thought was so horrible that she sprang up, white and shaking, one of her great rushes of anger sweeping over her.
Dr. Merkle, still smiling, also rose. “Why do you run off in such a hurry? You can stretch out right here on my sofa….” She paused, and her smile grew more motherly. “Afterwards–if there’s been any talk at home, and you want to get away for a while…I have a lady friend in Boston who’s looking for a companion…you’re the very one to suit her, my dear….”