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CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE
I AM VERY SORRY FOR MOLLIE
(Copyright, 1915, by the Newspaper Enterprise Association.)
It was Eleanor Fairlow that told us
the Hatton story after all.
When Mr. Hatton recovered from
his fainting fit he was delirious with
fever and no one but Mother Nora1
and Pat were allowed to see him. A
few days after his illness had been
published in the papers Mis Fairlow
came over to see me. She brought
the baby a beautiful silver spoon. I
'. did not want to take it, but I really
had no reasons for refusing.
"You are looking rather ill, Mar
gie," she said, "are you?"
4 "No, I'm not ill," I answered, "but
with Tim and Annie and this terrible
school-book muddle, I expect I have
been worrying perhaps more than is
good for me."
"I tell you I was very sorry for Mol
he when I saw that paragraph in the
papers. Such a thing as that follows
a girl all through her life."
"Don't you think we exaggerate
not only its effect, but its impres-
sion?" I could not help saying, as I
was not going to have Eleanor Fair
low think that Mollie was hurt in any
way. "Only a comparatively few
in fact just our own set probably
know that the insinuation was made
about Mollie, and it will die of its
own accord in a week or two when
, they get something else to write
about."
"I am more afraid of scandal than
anything else in the world. I was
v nearly sick, Margie, when that wom-
an tried to blackmail Dick. I was so
-l afraid I would be brought into it."
"Yes, I remember at the time," I re
marked coldly, "that you did not
seem at all anxious to come forward
and say that he was with you on the
i train."
"But, don't you understand, my
dear, that if circumstances had
shaped themselves so that I should
have had to have done that, it would
have damned me forever? People
would have said: 'Dick and she were
old sweethearts, etc., etc' "
"I fail to see what harm there was
in you and Dick being on the same
train, and as long as Dick was mar
ried you certainly could not have
been sweethearts then. Someone has
written that 'there is nothing as dead,
as a dead love.' "
"Oh, Margie, how can you say
such things. Of course, Dick and I
were not in love with each other. I
was just repeating what I thought
people would say.
"And because of what people will
say about Mollie, I wish you would
warn her about being seen with Mr.
Hatton. Of course, you know he is
a married man?"
"I know nothing of the kind.
Where is his wife and why is nothing
said of her?"
"It's a tragic story. Chadwick
Hatton married beneath him a wom
an who was selfish and underbred,
who separated him from Pat and
Mother Nora and made him perfectly
miserable during the two years she
lived with him. She was everything
that a woman should be drank and
at last took morphine, I've been told."
"Why does he not divorce her?"
"Because she has been pronounced
insane. He keeps her in a private
sanitarium and does everything he
can for her, but it is said she is hope
lessly insane."
"Isn't that terrible. Why Chad
wick Hatton is a young man."
"Yes, and it looks as though she
will outlive him."
"Isn't there any way he can get
free from her?"
"No, there is not a state in the
union where divorce will be granted
on insanity. I was going to tell this
to Dick the other night and then I
thought he must know of it."
Eleanor Fairlow stayed quite a
while longer, bat for the life of me
&& I
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