“Dear Carol:
“I have bad news for you, or, at least what seems bad to me. Your whole affair with that woman has come out. My father has been told, and he says that if I do not come to him at once he will disinherit me. Precisely what course he will pursue I do not know; indeed since I first learned of your conduct I have been so dumb and crushed that the family have seen that I am incapable of acting for myself, and have taken the matter entirely out of my hands. But, independent of them, I know that you will agree with me, that it is best that we should part. For years we have led different lives; you never would take me anywhere; your pleasures were your own, not mine. But I will not reproach you. I know your nature, and how you resent interference. Hereafter there will be no one to bother you. A bachelor’s life, without ties or duties, is what you prefer. As for myself, I may tell you that a more wretched, brokenhearted woman does not exist. In separating myself from you, I say goodbye to so much—to my wasted years, to my ruined youth, to love, to happiness and to life. But it must be said, and in such grief as you would pity could you see, I say it. So soon as I am able I leave this empty and dishonored house; there are other women that will come to you in it, be truer to them than you have been to me. I can write no more, my eyes are blinded with my tears.
When Nevius finished this curious communication he neither changed color nor fainted away. But he did rumple it a little and then smoothed it out and read it again. It is a trick, he told himself, a forgery, a practical joke. But where was the trickster capable of perpetrating a jest such as that? “She must be mad,” he reflected. “What affair of mine has come out? Why must she go to her father. Why is she dumb and crushed? Why—why—why—?”
But ask questions of canary-colored furniture in a Paris hotel and see how communicative it is. Yet to the soul that is sinking Hope throws a straw. With the idea that something in the other letters might convey a clue to the mystery he ran them over. One was from the Canal Company. He threw it down. Another was from his broker; he tossed it aside. A third was from Chicago; he let it lie unopened. But the fourth was more promising; in one corner it bore the neat imprint of the Athenaeum Club and it was covered with the oblique scrawl with which Alphabet Jones was accustomed to distress his publishers and confuse his friends.
“Dear Reprobate:
“It is the way of this envious world to hate an adulterer. The brute has had such a confounded good time that the rest of us are jealous—an apothegm which you won’t have to read twice to understand that I have been interviewed by Mrs. Carol. Yesterday I was sent for and I at once precipitated myself to renew the expression of my homage. Your princess was looking remarkably well, but of you and of one who shall be nameless she did not speak as she looked, in fact, it would be hyperbole to say that she was complimentary. Of course I reasoned with her as best I could. I told her that accidents increased the best of families; that woman proposes and a poor devil accepts; that matrimony is paved with improper attentions. But my arguments were treated like cobwebs. I was told that you had gone abroad to avoid trouble, and though I intimated that I should do the same thing, and moreover that disappearances were deceptive, I was warmly urged to advise you to remain where you are. As a consequence I advise you to do nothing of the sort, though, between ourselves, it is always stupid to come back and explain things which need no explanation, and as for exoneration only sinners feel the need of that. Perhaps then your best course is to study the maxims of that Hindu philosopher whose name is I Dhont Kare; try not to be any more particular than you have been in the observance of the XI commandment; and, in any event, Tace et Memento. Divorces, as you may be aware, are quite modish this year. They are of all shades of green, cut low and behold, with or without frills as personal taste dictates, and are worn en train, sans pudeur et avec reproche.
“N.B.—Your wife would rather be dead than out of the fashion.
“With this for carte du pays, choose your own route. But which ever way you go, don’t talk back, it is middle-class to begin with, and besides an insult ignored insults the insulter more than the insulted.
In a crescendo of bewilderment Nevius turned to the furniture again. “Am I asleep?” he asked. “Is this real, or a nightmare? Is it actual or am I insane? Who is it that shall be nameless? What is this rubbish about divorce? What is this obesity of the mind which Jones mistakes for wit? What does he mean by suggesting that I should remain where I am? Remain where I am! The steamer isn’t built that can carry me fast enough. One word with Hilda, only one, and this farce will end?”
Yet would it? Presently, with a remorse that was childish in its poignancy,
