Chapter 4
Evangeline stumbled weakly, collapsing into Murphy’s arms as though she could not stand on her own. With tears brimming in her eyes and a trembling voice, she said, “Murphy, don’t blame Gemma. This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have come out dressed
like this to get some water.
“I just thought that it was so late and Gemma would already be asleep, so I didn’t bother putting on a robe and just stepped out in my slip dress. But as soon as I opened the door, I ran into Gemma. She saw these marks on me and called me shameless, saying
that a woman as indecent as me has no right to be with you.”
With just a few words, she painted Gemma as a mentally twisted troublemaker who stayed up in the middle of the night. Evangeline said Gemma had eavesdropped outside Murphy’s door and, after getting consumed by jealousy, resorted to attacking
his fiancée.
“She’s lying. I didn’t insult her,” Gemma said with slightly reddened eyes. “She deliberately provoked me by bringing up my
parents… And… And she even called my mother mentally deranged!”
Back in elementary school, Gemma was bullied by her classmates because of her mother’s story. They surrounded her in a circle, throwing trash at her while calling her the child of a madwoman.
Murphy had been the one to step in and resolve it back then.
