Short Fiction

herself. And there had been his pride, could pride there be where only shamelessness was, that this young gentlewomen had answered the accusation in the only manner which it deserved, by making no answer at all. How was he to tell her to unseal her unsullied lips? Though he used arguments that might lure a saint from Paradise, the abomination would still be there, he was asking her to be cross-questioned in regard to her honor by a man such as his wife had employed. No, he could not. Better a thousand times the divorce than that ineffaceable indignity to her. Something else there must be. But what? As a child who plays a game, he felt that something burning yet still withheld. And suddenly it was his.

The letter which he presently wrote was not, however, for Miss Adulam, it was addressed to her uncle, Erastus Wilberforce. And as it lay signed and sealed before him, he covered his face with his hands. When he stood up, an illusion had unmasked, he had looked in his heart, it was empty.

The morrow was blank. Another day went by, during which he wandered through that dismal house from which even a ghost had fled. At noon, on the third day, a wire came:

“Victory! Will be with you at nine.

“J. O’Donnell.”

The message left him strangely unmoved, though one may wonder whether spring is sweeter than summer to a flower once dead. Punctual as a comet, the lawyer appeared. “Look at that!” he exclaimed. “You told me that Miss Adulam was a thoroughbred, but you didn’t tell me she was another Lady Flora Hastings too.”

At the paper he extended Nevius glanced and shuddered. It was a certificate, attested by two physicians that Miss Janet Adulam was virgo intacta.

“Why, Nevius, it is the Hastings affair over again. It will turn Tooth inside out. Outwitted, foiled, cornered, undone is that unholy shyster. Farewell to the Nevius divorce! And I may tell you Metuchen will be tickled to death. So far as he could he intimated he was with us every trip. I think I will take a drink. But what the devil are you looking so glum for? Nevius, listen to me, it was your duty to deny everything, but till I got that certificate, I’ll be shot if⁠—”

Nevius checked him as with a bit. “What will Tooth do?” he asked, and so seriously that O’Donnell’s jubilance evaporated. “What will he do when you produce this thing?”

“Increase the charges on his bill. I suppose. What is there for him to do except to return to his Tombs practice?”

“Do you know,” added Nevius absently, “I would prefer it not to go on record.”

“Are you mad?” O’Donnell snarled. “This is the case. We have won it without calling a witness. Could I have foreseen it, do you suppose I would have bothered over those wenches your wife employed?”

Nevius shook his head, his eyes strange and weary.

“No, and could I have foreseen that my wife⁠—O’Donnell, the point is here. If you show this privately to Tooth he will understand that he has lost. And yet he likes to win, does he not?

“Where is the attorney who don’t? I myself⁠—”

“Yes, I know. You have been very kind, O’Donnell, but there is one thing more you can do. Show this to Tooth, tell him to withdraw the charge against Miss Adulam, to amend his complaint, and if he agrees, assure him that I will not further contest his efforts.”

“I don’t understand.”

“After this Vührer business, he is not above a trick or two, is he? Tell him to invent a corespondent, the servants he can coach to testify to what he wants, and⁠—the divorce is his. I am tired of it all. O’Donnell, do this for me, won’t you?”

Sweet to the profession is the smell of an enemy’s corpse, and just as that fragrance was to be O’Donnell’s why should he be taken afar? He was not at all pleased and said so, but to the loss of the odors for which he had hungered, at last he became reconciled. A fortnight later a report was handed up recommending that divorce be granted to Hilda Nevius, plaintiff, on the ground of her husband’s illicit commerce with a woman unknown. Which report was promptly and properly confirmed.

A day or two and Nevius found his name again in leaded type. Beneath, augmented with new embroideries, was the old story retold. There was the initial accusation of the grief-stricken wife, his own admission of guilt and headlong flight. Then his return, denying everything but doing nothing to defend charges which had just been substantiated in full. According to the reporter the evidence was of such a character that it had to be heard in camera. Nevius had not even had the courage to appear. But every accusation had been proved, and now his poor, wounded wife, who had borne with his infidelities until forbearance had ceased to be a virtue, at last was free. In dissolving the miserable bands the court had granted her permission to assume her maiden name, a permission of which she would at once avail herself. She was the daughter of the wealthy banker, Thomas B. Snaith, and very prominent in society, as were also the corespondents, one of whom was a dashing western widow, the other, one of Saratoga’s reigning belles. And so on and so forth at the rate of eight dollars a column and a tenner for the “beat.” “The Lord loveth a cheerful liar,” Nevius reflected as he put the Chronicle down.

But O’Donnell had not been deprived of certain fragrances for nothing. He wrote a note, the substance of which⁠—that Miss Adulam had been fully exonerated and her name withdrawn⁠—appeared on the morrow in the Chronicle’s obscurest corner and in the Chronicle’s smallest type.

XVII

The paths to happiness are not many, but they are well defined. The finger-posts