CHAPTER XIV.

SALOME RECEIVES HER SENTENCE.

Madame Winthrop herself did not appear to be in a very amiable frame of mind that morning, and it was evident to Evelyn that her failure to bring Salome into subjection to her demands the previous day still irritated her excessively.

“Where is your mistress?” she curtly demanded of Nellie as she entered the dining-room upon some errand.

“She is ill; she is not able to come down this morning,” the girl replied.

“What is the matter?”

“I don’t know, marm; but she did not sleep well last night.”

So madam and her daughter breakfasted by themselves, and then withdrew to madam’s room, when she revealed a plot which she had spent most of the night in concocting.

Evelyn listened aghast.

She knew that her mother was very resolute, but had never imagined that she would resort to such extremes in order to accomplish an object.

“Do you suppose you can make it work?” she asked somewhat doubtfully.

“I do not know; but of one thing I am sure—I shall never recognize that impostor as my son’s wife,” said madam firmly. “Scarcely any one save the servants know that Truman has brought a wife home; if we can only manage to get rid of her before he returns, I believe we could manage him about a divorce.”

“What need of a divorce if the marriage was illegal?” queried Evelyn.

“I do not suppose it was really illegal, but I was so enraged with her that I did not care much what I told her. If it would only rouse her pride, so that she would take herself away where he could never find her, I should be happy.”

“But True has taken no pains to conceal his marriage. You know he drove about a great deal with her, and it is a wonder that people have not found it out. Besides, he has given her a check-book, and if she likes she can draw any amount of his money,” said Evelyn.

“How do you know?” asked her mother, looking startled.

“I saw it one day when she was out driving and I was looking about her rooms. True has signed a number of blank checks, and all she need do is to fill them out with whatever amount she wishes to draw.”

“We must have that book, Evelyn. It will never do to let her go to the bank and make free in any such way,” madam resolutely responded.

That afternoon she sought the young wife in her own room.

She found her pale and hollow-eyed, but felt no regret for having caused her suffering.

Salome received her courteously, trying to remember only that she was her husband’s mother.

“I have been thinking,” the scheming woman began, as she seated herself where she could catch every varying expression of the girl’s face, “that since matters seem to be in such a complicated and uncertain state, it might be as well for you to go away from here for a while—at least until Dr. Winthrop returns.”

“Go away from here!” repeated Salome, astonished.

“Yes: if people and the servants should discover the situation there might ensue a very disagreeable scandal.”

“I do not think I quite understand you,” Salome said slowly, but her lips were livid.

“Why, if it should become known that your marriage was not legal, people would say very uncomfortable things about you, as well as about my son. We are a very proud family,” madam continued pompously, “and it would be a great trial, as well as a great injury to Dr. Winthrop, to have any scandal connected with his name. Now, Evelyn and I have talked the matter over, and we have concluded that it will be best to take you with us to our own house—shut up this house—and then you can remain somewhat secluded until my son returns, when, if he sees fit, he can have his marriage ratified, or—make any other arrangement which may seem best for him and you.”

Salome felt as if she must shriek as she listened to this inhuman, insulting speech.

It was horrible to be made to feel that she was occupying such a questionable position in the home of Dr. Winthrop; while the proposition to leave it and accompany Madame Winthrop to her home, there to hide herself—thus virtually acknowledging that she believed herself to be no wife—was not to be thought of for a single instant.

She bent her head in thought for several moments, trying to decide what she should do; then she turned with an air of resolution to her companion.

“Mrs. Winthrop,” she said gravely, “Dr. Winthrop brought me here as his wife—he installed me here as the mistress of his home and treated me in every respect as one upon whom he had bestowed such an honor. As his wife and the mistress of his home, I shall remain here until his return; unless I receive a message directly from him telling me to change my residence. I feel compelled to say,” Salome went on, with increasing firmness, “that I consider that you have acted unkindly and officiously, both toward me and—my husband, in the course you have pursued since Dr. Winthrop went abroad, and although he wished you to remain here as my guests until his return, yet, if we cannot live more harmoniously than we have hitherto lived, I think it would be for our mutual comfort if you and Evelyn would return to your own home.”

Madame Winthrop arose in high dudgeon at this plain speaking, her face almost purple from wrath.

“Am I to understand that you turn me, Dr. Winthrop’s own mother, out of my son’s house?” she demanded, in tones that shook with passion.

“No, madam,” Salome quietly and politely responded, “I have no desire to do anything so rude as that; but I cannot continue to live as we have been living—my strength will not admit of it. If I have to endure excitement like that of the past twenty-four hours, I know it will not be long before I shall be in as critical a state as when I left Boston. I shall be only too happy to have you and your daughter remain where you are if you will desist from this persecution; otherwise, as I have no other home, I shall be forced to ask you to return to Thirty-fourth Street.”

Madam stood in speechless astonishment for a moment, for she had never dreamed of any such termination to an interview which she had intended to make so humiliating. Then, it not being exactly clear to her how to meet this very resolute spirit exhibited by her son’s wife, she stalked silently and majestically from the room, and Salome, left to herself, burst into a passion of bitter tears.

She was very unhappy, for that day had brought no letter as she had expected, although Evelyn received one from her brother Norman. He stated that his father still remained in a very critical condition, and Dr. Winthrop would probably be detained longer than he had at first expected.

This was sad news to Salome, and she tried to think that her husband’s time was so fully occupied with his father that he had not been able to write; but she hoped the next steamer would bring her a letter, and she resolved to be patient and try not to grieve.

Two or three days went by, and matters seemed to have settled themselves a little more pleasantly. Madam did not once refer to disagreeable subjects, was even distantly gracious, and Salome fondly hoped that all hostilities were at an end.

But she did not know the determined woman. She had laid her plot to rid her son of the wife whom she suspected and disliked, and she was not one to swerve from her purpose.

She had already begun her work by suppressing every letter that came for or went from Salome. She had also written a very crafty letter to Dr. Winthrop, in which she mentioned that she had suddenly fainted one day when making her a little visit in her room; that she still seemed more delicate than usual, and she was quite anxious about her. She had informed him, also, of the suspicious meeting between his wife and the strange man.

“We feared at first,” she wrote regarding her ill health, “that it might be caused by the old heart trouble, although her symptoms did not indicate it; but since then Evelyn and I have not felt quite well, and this fact, together with a certain odor that seems to pervade the house, has led me to fear there is a flaw in the plumbing, which allows the escape of sewer-gas; you know we had an experience of this kind in the old home some years ago. I had a talk with Salome, and tried to persuade her to go home with us, but she seems determined to remain here until your return. She did not appear to receive my proposition in a very friendly spirit, and very resolutely said that nothing but an express message from you to that effect would induce her to leave the house. Pray do not think that I wish to interfere in your domestic arrangements, my son, but really I feel that it would be safest for the comfort and welfare of all parties if we could leave the house at once, and close it until you can return and attend personally to whatever may be wrong.”

It of course took eight or nine days for this missive to reach Dr. Winthrop, and during this time Salome heard nothing from him, except indirectly through letters which madam or Evelyn received from Norman, his brother.

Madam did not mean that she should have one word from him until she received her notice to leave his house, which, she felt sure, would come in the form of a brief cable message, since he surely would not risk her health long enough to wait for a letter to reach her. This she believed would so wound her proud, sensitive nature, and work in with her own crafty innuendoes regarding the illegality of her marriage, that she would do something desperate.

Dr. Winthrop, almost a prisoner by the bedside of his sick father, wondered why he did not hear from his wife, until he received his mother’s alarming epistle, and then he believed that she must have been too ill to write to him.

“Sewer-gas in the house! and they have been living there eight days longer!” he exclaimed, looking very anxious as he finished reading the startling communication. “They must leave the place immediately.”

But he realized that Salome was not quite happy, aside from the state of her health. There was something in the tone of madam’s letter, in spite of all her care to disguise her enmity toward his wife, that betrayed this. What she had said about Salome not receiving her advice in a very friendly spirit and refusing to act upon it, indicated it, and he resolved that he would not insist upon her going with them to their home; but out of that poisoned atmosphere, in which he believed she was living, go she must without an hour’s unnecessary delay.

And so, on the spur of the moment, he cabled the following message to her:

“Close house immediately; go to the —— Hotel; remain there until my return.”

The hotel he named was a quiet but well-conducted house, and he had chosen to have her go there because it would be more home-like than a larger and more pretentious place; indeed, it was a kind of family hotel, and its very exclusiveness and remoteness from busy haunts would seem more like the home in Madison Avenue.

Having dispatched the message and relieved his mind somewhat, he went back to his apartments and wrote his reasons for it and his wishes more at length, charging her to be very careful of her health and prescribing certain remedies for her to take to counteract the effects of sewer-gas.

The letter was full of tenderness and of regret for her illness; it spoke of his anxiety and disappointment on account of not hearing from her, and begged her, if she were not able to write herself, to have Nellie do so; she was to have Nellie go with her to the hotel, though in his haste he had forgotten to mention it in his cable message. If Salome had ever received this precious letter she would have known that all was well—that she was still the dearest object which earth held for her husband. But it was destined to go the way of several others and never into the hands of the young wife, to comfort her almost breaking heart.

She was feeling better the morning that the cable message arrived, and, as a steamer was expected that day, she looked forward to a letter with almost feverish eagerness.

When the postman came on his afternoon round she hastened out to the door to get the mail. But, as had been usual of late, Evelyn was there before her.

“No letter per steamer to-day,” she said, affecting to be greatly disappointed, as she slipped the letters through her hands. “One for mamma, two for me, and—two for True; bills, I suppose.”

These last she passed to Salome, and then hastily ran upstairs.

“What can it mean?” murmured the young wife, as, bitterly disappointed, she turned slowly back toward the library.

Just then the hall bell rang, and almost mechanically she went to open the door herself, although she was never in the habit of doing so.

A messenger-boy stood there and handed her a telegram. She signed for it, and then with trembling fingers tore it open.

The words which met her startled gaze were fraught with terrible significance to her:

“Close house immediately. Go to the —— Hotel. Remain there until my return.

“TRUMAN H. WINTHROP.”

This, then, was the answer to her letter of confession, the first and only words she had received from him since she wrote it.

He had received it, and perhaps one from his mother also, with her version of all that had passed. He recognized the delicate, precarious—possibly he felt disgraceful position in which they were all placed, and he had concluded that it would not do for her to remain in his house, nominally his wife, when she had no legal right there.

In her sensitive and overwrought state of mind it seemed equivalent to an acknowledgment that their marriage had only been a farce, and therefore his standing, as well as her own, would be compromised if she remained there.

She knew where the —— Hotel was; she knew that it was quiet and unpretentious, a place where she would not be likely to be known or recognized by any of Dr. Winthrop’s acquaintances.

And now the very consideration which he had shown for her feelings and comfort in this respect she turned in judgment against him, strange as it may seem, and it goes to show how easily people mistake the motives of others. He had not asked her to go with his mother and sister, who of course would return to their own home if his house was to be closed; but she was to hide herself in this quiet hotel, and there await his return to have her fate decided.

The more she thought about it, the more morbid she became, the more she distorted and misinterpreted the meaning of the message, and her proud spirit rose in rebellion at being so summarily and unjustly dealt with.

With a heavy and aching heart she dragged herself upstairs, shut herself in her chamber, and did not go down again that day.

The next morning she made her appearance as usual at the breakfast-table, but, to the surprise of madam and Evelyn, she was clad in a travelling-costume. She was very pale and wan; there were dark circles under her eyes, but a very resolute expression about her sweet mouth which betrayed that she had arrived at some very grave decision.

“I received a cable message from Dr. Winthrop yesterday,” she quietly remarked as she passed it to madam, “and he requests me to close the house and go to the —— Hotel to await his return. I have made all my arrangements, and if it will not seriously inconvenience you, I would like to dismiss the servants to-day and send the keys to Dr. Winthrop’s lawyer before I go.”

A flash of triumph shot into Madame Winthrop’s eyes as she read that brief message, for her plot had worked exactly as she had hoped and wished.

She saw that Salome believed she had received her sentence in that message; that she was crushed and humiliated, although she marvelled at her quiet dignity and her wonderful self-control.

“Oh, yes, we can easily manage to get away by noon, as we have only our trunks to pack,” she responded, giving Evelyn a significant look. “And I think,” she added, “that Truman is very wise to propose this measure. You can come with us, Salome, if you would prefer to do so instead of going to a hotel,” she concluded, with an appearance of hospitality, although she knew well enough that her offer would be refused.

“Thank you; but my plans are all settled, and I shall leave as soon as I can see that everything is in order,” Salome answered, with dignified courtesy.

Madam understood that she intended to see that her husband’s commands and interests were faithfully attended to—that the house would have to be closed under her own supervision, and that they would be expected to take their departure before she went; in fact, that she would be mistress there until she surrendered the keys.

It did not take them long to do their packing, and their trunks were sent directly to their own house in Thirty-fourth Street. They, however, engaged Dr. Winthrop’s servants to come to them, as they had none of their own. All were glad to secure places so readily, and eagerly accepted the proposition—all save Nellie, who begged Salome to allow her to go with her.

“I shall not need you, Nellie,” Salome answered, with quivering lips, for the girl had been very kind to her, and she had become deeply attached to her.

“But you will take me back when you go to housekeeping again?” the girl pleaded. “I will stay with my sister, and you can send for me when Dr. Winthrop comes back. I wouldn’t live with those—cats”—and she nodded significantly toward madam’s room—“for double wages.”

“I should be very glad to have you with me again, Nellie,” Salome answered evasively; “and—if you are at liberty when—when I need you again, I will send for you.”

The girl thanked her and burst into tears as she took her wages, and then went away to pack her trunk.

Madam and Evelyn hastened operations and left the house about eleven o’clock, without even saying a word of farewell to Salome. She was engaged in overseeing the packing of the silver, and, oppressed by a sense of guilt, they were glad to get away from her accusing presence.

Salome neglected nothing; everything was put in perfect order under her supervision. All the silver and everything that would be likely to tempt rogues were sent to a safety vault; the water and gas were turned off, and nothing was allowed to be left in a way to come to any harm.

The servants were all paid and a generous gift added to their wages, and then Salome was ready to leave her beautiful home.

Dick was still to have charge of the horses and exercise them every day, and he was both touched and pleased with this mark of her confidence.

He asked if he should bring the ponies around to take Salome where she wanted to go, but she told him no, she had ordered a carriage, though her pale face flushed a bright scarlet as she rejected his offer and thought that she should never ride after the pretty creatures again.

Then with her own hands she locked the door, through which she passed feeling that she was a discarded wife, giving the key to Dick, to be delivered to Dr. Winthrop’s lawyer, and stepped into the carriage, while the driver placed her trunk, the one she had brought with her from Boston, on the rack behind.

The next moment she was driven away, while Dick, who stood on the steps looking after her, shook his head in perplexity as he brushed a tear from his cheek with his sleeve and muttered:

“Something’s wrong; that heart-broken look on her white face ain’t fer nothing. I dunno what’s up, but things have been getting mixed and muddled ever since they came home. I only wish the doctor’d put in an appearance this very minute.”