meeting as anything beyond the meeting of indifferent acquaintances.
It was just one week from the day Paul Hendrickson caught an unexpected glimpse of Mrs. Dexter’s face at the window, and passed on with her image freshened in his heart, that he called in at the Ardens’, after an unusually long absence, to spend an evening. Miss Arden’s countenance lighted with a sudden glow on his appearance, the rich blood dyeing her cheeks, and giving her face a heightened charm; and in the visitor’s eyes there was something gentler and softer in her beauty than he had before observed. He probably guessed the cause; and the thought touched his feelings, and drew his heart something nearer to her.
“That is a painful story about Mrs. Dexter,” said Mrs. Arden, almost as soon as the young man came in. The recently heard facts were uppermost in her thoughts.
“What story? I have not heard anything.” Hendrickson was on his guard in a moment; though he betrayed unusual interest.
“It is dreadful to think of!” said Miss Arden. “What a wretched creature she must be! I always thought her one of the best of women. Though I must own that at Saratoga last summer, she showed rather more fondness for the society of other men than she did for that of her husband.”
“I am still in the dark,” said Mr. Hendrickson, with suppressed excitement.
“Then you haven’t heard of it? Why, it’s the town talk.”
“No.”
“There’s been a separation between Mrs. Dexter and her husband,” remarked Mrs. Arden. “She left him several days ago, and is now with her aunt, Mrs. Loring.”
“A separation! On what ground?” Hendrickson’s breathing oppressed him.
“Something wrong with Mrs. Dexter, I am told. She had too many admirers—so the story goes; and, worse still—for admiration she couldn’t help—one lover.”
It was Mrs. Arden who said this.
“Who was the lover?” asked Mr. Hendrickson. His voice was so quiet, and his tones so indifferent, that none suspected the intense interest with which he was listening.
“I have not heard his name,” replied Mrs. Arden.
“Does he live in this city?”
“I believe not. Some new acquaintance, made at Newport, I think. You remember that she was very ill there last summer?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the cause of that illness is now said to have been a discovery by Mr. Dexter of some indiscretion on her part, followed by angry remonstrance on his.”
“That is the story?”
“Yes.”
“And what caused the separation which has just taken place?”
“A renewal of this intimacy,” said Mrs. Arden.
“A very serious charge; and, I believe without foundation in truth,” replied Hendrickson. He spoke slowly, yet not with strong emphasis. His auditors did not know that he was simply controlling his voice to hide his agitation.
“Oh, there is no doubt as to its truth,” said Mrs. Arden. “The facts have been substantiated; so Mrs. Anthony told me to-day; and she has been one of Mrs. Dexter’s most intimate friends.”
“What facts?” inquired Hendrickson.
“Facts, that if they do not prove crime against Mrs. Dexter, show her to have been imprudent to the verge of crime.”
“Can you particularize?” said the young man.
“Well, no I can’t just do that. Mrs. Anthony ran on at such a rate that I couldn’t get the affair adjusted in my mind. But she asserts positively that Mrs. Dexter has gone considerably beyond the boundary of prudence; and she is no friend of Dexter’s, I can assure you. As far as I can learn, there have been frequent meetings between this lover and Mrs. Dexter during the husband’s absence. An earlier return home, a few days ago, led to a surprise and an exposure. The result you know.”
“I must make bold to pronounce this whole story a fabrication,” said Mr. Hendrickson, with rising warmth; “It is too improbable.”
“Worse things than that have happened, and are happening every day,” remarked Mrs. Arden.
“Still I shall disbelieve the story,” said Mr. Hendrickson, firmly.
“What else would justify him in sending her home to her aunt?” asked Mrs. Arden.
“He sent her home, then? That is the report?” remarked Hendrickson.
“Some say one thing and some another.”
“And a story loses nothing in the repetition.”
“You are very skeptical,” said Miss Arden.
“I wish all men and women were more skeptical than they are, in touching the wrong doings of others,” replied the young man. “The world is not so bad as it seems. Now I am sure that if the truth of this affair could really be known, we should find scarcely a single fact in agreement with the report. I have heard that Mr. Dexter is blindly jealous of his wife.”
