"You poor little rat," she said compassionately. "Gee! He was crazy. I
never saw such a face. Gee!"
Anna said nothing. She dropped on the side of the bed and took the
coffee, drinking gingerly through a lip swollen and cut.
"I'm going to leave," Katie went on. "It'll be my time next. If he tries
any tricks on me I'll have the law on him. He's a beast; that's what he
is."
"Katie," Anna said, "if I leave can you get my clothes to me? I'll carry
all I can."
"He'd take the strap to me."
"Well, if you're leaving anyhow, you can put some of my things in your
trunk."
"Good and right you are to get out," Katie agreed. "Sure I'll do it.
Where do you think you'll go?"
"I thought last night I'd jump in the river. I've changed my mind,
though. I'll pay him back, and not the way he expects."
"Give it to him good," assented Katie. "I'd have liked to slip some of
that Paris green of his in his coffee this morning. And now he's off for
church, the old hypocrite!"
To Katie's curious inquiries as to the cause of the beating Anna was now
too committal.
"I held out some money on him," was all she said.
Katie regarded her with a mixture of awe and admiration.
"You've got your nerve," she said. "I wonder he didn't kill you. What's
yours is his and what's his is his own!"
But Anna could not leave that morning. She lay in her bed, cold
compresses on her swollen face and shoulders, a bruised and broken
thing, planning hideous reprisals. Herman made no inquiry for her. He
went stolidly about the day's work, carried in firewood and coal from
the shed, inspected the garden with a view to early planting, and ate
hugely of the mid-day dinner.
In the afternoon Rudolph came.
"Where's Anna?" he asked briskly.
"She is in her room. She is not well."
If Rudolph suspected anything, it was only that Anna was sulking. But
later on he had reason to believe that there trouble. Out of a clear sky
Herman said: "She has had a raise." Anna was "she" to him.
"Since when?" Rudolph asked with interest.
"I know nothing. She has not given it to me. She has been buying herself
a watch."
"So!" Rudolph's tone was wary.