CHAPTER XV.

AN APPALLING TRAGEDY.

Late that same evening a stately woman walked into the office of the —— Hotel.

She was enveloped in a long cloak and was closely veiled.

She inquired if Mrs. Truman Winthrop had taken rooms there that day.

“No,” the clerk answered, “there is no one by that name in the house.”

The woman started slightly and glanced keenly at him.

“Are you quite sure?” she asked.

“Yes, madam; here is the hotel register; madam can examine for herself,” and the young man placed the book before her.

She ran her eye quickly up and down the lines of the open book.

The name of Winthrop was not there, neither could she find that of Salome Howland, for which she also looked.

She stood silent and perplexed for a moment; then she asked:

“Has there no young woman of perhaps twenty-one or twenty-two years of age, of medium height, dark but rather pale complexion, with black hair and eyes, come here unattended to-day to engage rooms?”

“No, madam; no such person as you have described has been here to-day,” was the positive rejoinder.

Madame Winthrop—for the veiled woman was she—thought for a moment; then she said:

“I expected to find such a lady here. She may, however, have changed her plans. If she does not arrive by to-morrow, and any letters come addressed to Mrs. Truman Winthrop, or Mrs. Salome Winthrop, will you kindly have them remailed to the care of Mrs. Alexander Winthrop, No. — Thirty-fourth Street?”

The polite clerk readily promised to do as she requested, and madam, after courteously thanking him, took her leave.

There was a strange glitter of triumph in her eyes as she swept out of the office and entered her carriage.

“It is as I hoped,” she muttered. “Everything works well, and I think we may congratulate ourselves that we have seen the last of her.”

Alas! she little thought how soon her triumph was to be turned into remorse.

She waited, with some anxiety and impatience, until the arrival of the next steamer, and when, a day or two after, she received two European letters addressed to Salome, which had been remailed from the —— Hotel, she knew that her plot had been successful.

Salome had, without doubt, done just as she desired: she had, stung to desperation by Dr. Winthrop’s supposed unjust judgment and sentence, fled from her home and husband.

Such a step, she knew, would be the one of all others most likely to anger and embitter her son, and she hoped, by exerting the proper influence, to induce him to repudiate the wife she so despised, and obtain a divorce from her upon the ground of desertion. Then, she believed, he would eventually turn to Sadie Rochester, and thus secure the whole of the fortune which his uncle had willed him upon certain conditions, and the Rochester wealth as well.

She would spare no pains to bring this about, and if she succeeded, she would feel well repaid for all her sinful scheming against the innocent young wife.

She felt no compunctions about opening the letters she had received, and read, without a quiver of remorse, all the outpouring of her son’s fond affection for his wife. He expressed great anxiety because he had not heard from her during the last two weeks, and begged her to send him word by cable if she were ill, and he would leave his father in the care of another physician and hasten back to her.

“My first duty is, of course, to my wife,” he wrote, “and nothing shall keep me here if you need me. Why, why have you not written? Why, if you are ill, has not my mother or Evelyn written about you?”

Madam also received a letter begging her to write just how Salome was. She felt that the proper moment had now come to acquaint Dr. Winthrop with the fact of his wife’s sudden disappearance; and she at once wrote a garbled account of what had occurred.

She began by giving him another exaggerated description of Salome’s meeting with the strange man, which, she stated, Evelyn had witnessed by the merest chance, and added that she had afterward interviewed him and tried to ascertain the secret of his familiarity with Salome. The man was insolent and evasive—tried to make conditions upon the compliance with which he would make some mysterious revelations about the girl.

Of course such terms were indignantly resented, and then they tried to talk the matter over with Salome and induce her to explain it. She utterly refused and seemed greatly annoyed, even angry, to learn that her interview with the stranger was known to them. After that she had seemed sullen and unhappy, and was apparently only too glad to avail herself of the opportunity to leave the house on Madison Avenue when his message had come telling her to go to the —— Hotel. Even then they had invited and urged her to come to the Thirty-fourth Street residence with them, but she had curtly refused and parted with them in the coldest manner imaginable. Madam concluded her fallacious account by saying that she had since been to the —— Hotel to call upon Salome and see if she was comfortably situated, when to her astonishment she learned that she had not been there at all.

“It’s the greatest mystery in the world,” she wrote, “what can have become of the poor girl! She was far from being well, although not really ill, having been confined to her bed only one day since your departure, but, of course, we are very much exercised as to what has become of her. Do you suppose—can it be possible that she has gone with—that strange man whom she met—can he have had anything to do with her mysterious disappearance?”

This letter dispatched, madam felt that she had driven an effectual wedge toward the separation of her son and his despised wife, and she tried to school herself to patience while waiting for the result.

A week passed, and one morning upon opening the paper madam’s eyes fell upon the black head-lines announcing a new and heart-sickening horror.

A disastrous fire had occurred the previous night in a certain part of the city, and a great lodging-house for working girls had been burned to the ground.

A dozen lives had been lost, the names of those whose bodies had been found being given, while several were missing.

Madam ran her eye down the list, and she suddenly grew pale with horror as she read, midway of the column, the name “Miss S. Howland, age about twenty-one.”

“Can it be Salome!” she breathed with livid lips. She sat staring blankly at the name for several minutes, cold chills creeping over her and tingling to her finger-tips and almost paralyzing her from head to foot. A feeling of guilt and remorse blanched her face and sent a look of terror into her eyes, for—if Salome had perished in that dreadful way she knew that she was, in a measure, responsible for her fate.

As soon as she could collect her thoughts and recover from the numbness that seemed to stiffen every joint and muscle of her body, she ordered her carriage and drove at once to the place where the fire had occurred.

She could not get very near, for a score or more of men were still at work among the ruins and the police would not allow the curious spectators to approach.

But madam, by persistent questioning, discovered who had been the keepers of the lodging-house and where they could be found.

Being energetic people, who depended entirely upon the letting of rooms for their living, they were already engaged in fitting up another establishment for their homeless lodgers, not far from the one that had been destroyed, and thither madam proceeded at once.

The man and his wife were not averse to talking over the exciting event, and readily gave all the information she desired.

Yes, they knew the girl whom Madame Winthrop described. She had come to them about a week before and seemed worn out and almost ill. She had insisted upon having a room by herself, and as they had but one empty—a small room at the end of a hall up three flights—she had paid a month’s rent in advance and at once taken possession of it. The fire had broken out in the second story and midway of the hall; the building, being old, had burned very rapidly, and only the girls who lodged in the upper story and at the end of the house where Miss Howland had a room had failed to escape. The flames had enveloped the stairway, filled the place with smoke, and they must have been suffocated before the fire reached them. Yes, they were sure that at least a dozen girls had perished—four bodies had already been recovered, although but two could be recognized. A crushed and mangled body had been found lying by the remnants of Miss Howland’s trunk, and so they were quite certain that one of the victims was the girl whom madam was seeking.

Madame Winthrop shivered with horror as she listened to this dreadful recital, and then asked if the book in which the names of the lodgers had been registered had been saved.

Yes, everything had been saved from the lower story and much of value from the second. Could she see the book? Certainly; they were only too willing to oblige her.

It was brought, and the woman, with a face in which there was not an atom of color and a heart quaking with fear and dread, read the name of S. Howland, and at once recognized Salome’s handwriting.

She questioned the people very closely, made them describe Salome over and over again and the articles of clothing she had worn, and she was convinced that there could be no mistake. She had not a doubt that Salome had perished most miserably. Instead of going to the hotel to which her husband had directed her, she had, in the bitterness caused by her supposed repudiation, sought to hide herself in this obscure lodging-house, and under the name by which she had been known previous to her marriage.

What her ultimate purpose had been, how she had expected to live and where, after she had gained a little rest and strength, no one could tell, for the inmates of the house had seen very little of her, as she had kept very closely in her own room; but one thing was sure, if her object had been to effectually cut herself off from her husband and his family, she had succeeded but too well in doing so.

Madam felt faint and sick when she had learned all that the lodging-house keepers could tell her, and she lay back weak and trembling in her carriage all the way home. Yet, in spite of her guilt and remorse over her sin, there was in the depths of her worldly heart a sense of relief, a feeling of triumph over the fact that her son was free.

The mortifying _mésalliance_ had been severed; there would no longer be any fears of meeting the sneers or smiles of ridicule of their aristocratic acquaintances on account of it. Dr. Winthrop’s brilliant career would no longer be clogged by a wife whose history was enveloped in a mystery; he could now seek the coveted hand and fortune of Miss Sadie Rochester if he chose, and madam secretly vowed that it should be no fault of hers if he did not in the near future so choose.

* * * * *

Ill-tidings fly fast, and Dr. Winthrop was not long in learning by cable of the terrible calamity that had overtaken his beautiful young wife.

Shocked, amazed, perplexed by the dreadful message which Madame Winthrop felt compelled to wire him, heart-broken and utterly unnerved by his loss, he left his father, who had slowly begun to improve, with his brother and a skilful physician and took the first steamer home.

Who can portray the agony of suspense which he endured during those eight days of enforced idleness upon the ocean?

They seemed an interminable age to him, and he was fearfully worn out and haggard with grief and anxiety when he finally presented himself before his mother and sister in their home in Thirty-fourth Street.

Madame Winthrop hardly knew him, he was so changed, and her heart quaked with guilt and fear when he came into her presence.

She saw at once that he had some suspicion of the truth, for he questioned both her and Evelyn with a sternness and relentlessness that actually frightened them into admitting much that they would have been glad to conceal.

“I believe that I have you two women to thank for the life-long wretchedness that is to be my portion,” he said with exceeding bitterness when he had learned all that he could force from them. “Why could you not let my wife alone? I believe you persecuted her until you drove her to desperation.”

“My son, you use hard words; but I felt justified in questioning Salome when I learned how she had compromised herself by meeting that man,” Madame Winthrop returned, striving to recover her accustomed dignity, but looking both pale and miserable. “You do not suppose that I was going to allow her to disgrace her husband or his relatives by making such appointments if I could help it?”

“Salome would never have done anything to compromise herself, to say nothing about any one else,” Dr. Winthrop sternly returned. “She was a true lady in every sense of the word and I had the utmost faith and confidence in her. My darling! my darling! oh! to think that I have lost you!” he burst forth in a voice of agony, as he wiped the great drops of perspiration from his brow and paced the floor like one wild.

Madam and Evelyn felt appalled before such grief as this. In their determination to crush the gentle young wife they had not counted the full cost to their son and brother. So cold and hard of heart themselves, they could not realize the strength and depth of affection which he had for the girl whom he had married under such peculiar circumstances.

“Who was this man? What do you know about him?” he demanded, when he could regain his self-control.

“W. H. Brown, he calls himself. He seemed to know all about Salome’s past and was very anxious to learn where she lived.”

“Does not that very anxiety prove to you that she was innocent of any wrong?” Dr. Winthrop cried—“that she refused to give him her address because she wanted to have nothing to do with him?”

“No, it proves nothing to me but that she feared to have the man seen by us and her relations with him known to us,” madam responded coldly; “and when she found that we had learned of it, she flatly refused to answer any of our questions.”

“Of course, mother; and you had no business to arraign her,” Dr. Winthrop indignantly rejoined. “I was the proper person for her to make such confessions to, and I have not a doubt that she would have confided the whole story to me upon my return.”

Evelyn flushed guiltily at this, remembering the intercepted letter which she believed had contained an explanation of all that her brother could wish to learn.

“I cannot understand why she should go to that wretched lodging-house instead of to the —— Hotel,” Dr. Winthrop said, in deep perplexity. “Did she know that you wrote to me accusing her of these improprieties?”

“It would be natural that she should suppose I would,” said madam evasively.

“Then I wonder she did not herself write and explain everything.”

“Guilt never is desirous of explaining itself,” but his mother changed color slightly over the memory of letters which she herself had intercepted.

“There is no question of guilt in the matter,” hotly returned her son; “if there is it rests with you two. I will believe no wrong of my darling. Ha!” with sudden thought; “did she know that you wrote to me about the escape of sewer-gas?”

“Sewer-gas!” exclaimed Evelyn, surprised, for madam had not confided to her fully just how she meant to get rid of her brother’s wife; the sewer-gas had been a cunning after-thought with her and she had neglected to mention it to Evelyn.

Madame Winthrop shot a lightning glance of warning at her; but it was too late, for Dr. Winthrop was quick to comprehend that some plot had been sprung upon his unsuspecting wife.

“Did she even know there was sewer-gas in the house?” he thundered with white lips—“have you dared to lie to me about this matter?”

“Truman!” his mother tried to say, with all her accustomed stateliness; but her voice faltered, her eyes drooped, and a guilty flush arose to her brow, beneath the compelling power of his searching glance, and his suspicions were verified.

He arose and stood before her white to his lips.

“I can understand now why she would not go to the hotel,” he said, in a voice that made both of his listeners shiver; “the whole thing has been a plot to crush an innocent girl and drive her from the protection of her husband; though what possible good you expected to reap from its success I cannot comprehend. I see it all—she knew that you had written to me condemning her, and she may have been too proud to attempt to vindicate herself of the accusations of her husband’s mother; or—heavens! can I believe you guilty of such wickedness?—perhaps she did so, and you intercepted her letters; she did not know you had written to me that her health was suffering from the defective plumbing in the house, and when she received my cable dispatch telling her to leave it at once she must have thought that I believed the very worst—that I condemned her and wished to have her no longer in my home. How she must have suffered! my poor, proud, sensitive darling! for she had pride as quick and strong as even that of a Winthrop, and if she believed I thought her no longer worthy to share my home, she doubtless resolved that she would rid me and my persecuting family of herself entirely. And now she is dead—my beautiful, pure-hearted, much-wronged wife, and I can never right the terrible wrong. Great Heaven! I cannot—I will not bear it! I wonder that I do not curse you both and tell you that I will never look upon your faces again; I—surely will never forgive either of you—you have murdered my wife!”

He turned abruptly from them as he ceased speaking, and left the room, while the two cowering, frightened women could only sit and look into each other’s faces in speechless amazement and agony.