CHAPTER XVI.

DR. WINTHROP’S BATTLE WITH HIS GRIEF.

Evelyn was the first to recover herself. “I never dreamed that True had such a temper,” she remarked, in a tone of awe, but uttering a sigh of relief that the trying interview was over.

“He is a Winthrop, and as a race they have been noted for their strong characters; though I must say I have always been proud of the way that Truman has controlled himself. I never knew him to give way like this before,” said madam, as she wiped the perspiration from her forehead.

During all her life she never remembered having been so completely cowed by any human being.

Yet she did not feel the least regret for what she had done—she was only annoyed and angered because she had been found out.

Dr. Winthrop, after leaving his mother and sister, went to his own house on Madison Avenue.

He found the ever-faithful Dick in the stable, and at once dispatched him for the key. Upon his return, before going into the house, he questioned the man regarding his wife’s appearance and state of health before she went away.

“She wur the swatest little woman, sir, that ever breathed,” Dick replied, with a glowing face; “she always had a kind word for everybody, and, sir, she were all right for a week or so after yer honor went away, then she began to droop like.”

“But was she really ill, Dick?”

“Begorra, sir, ye have me there! I bethink she wouldn’t have been so down at the mouth if ye had been here. I belave, upon me word, that it wasn’t her body that was ailin’ at all—but sure, she wasn’t happy, like she was before, sir, and it’s yerself that needn’t be told that the mind has a great influence over the body.”

The man was very cautious in what he said; he did not wish to throw suspicion upon his master’s mother or sister, although he, as well as most of the servants, knew that they had made life wretched for her.

Dr. Winthrop understood it also; what Dick had told him was sufficient to confirm his suspicions; they had crushed her with their coldness and arrogance, and they had plotted to drive her from her home and husband.

He was filled with remorse for having allowed them to remain in his house to torment her with their overbearing insolence; but he had hoped that her sweetness and beauty would win their hearts.

With his own heart nearly bursting he went into the house, and his first act was to make a thorough examination of the plumbing.

It was in perfect condition—there was no sewer-gas, no disagreeable odor in the house.

Then with reverent steps he went up to her rooms.

A groan of anguish burst from him as he opened the door of her pretty boudoir.

Everything was in the nicest order, but the silence and beauty that had reigned there seemed to mock his grief.

How exquisitely beautiful everything was! But the charm and spirit of the place had vanished.

He went into her chamber, but only to have his sense of desolation intensified. All the dainty toilet articles, which he had taken such pleasure in selecting for her, lay in their places upon her dressing-case; she had not taken a single thing with her.

He opened her closet in a mechanical way, and started back as if some one had struck him when he saw all the beautiful dresses which he had taken so much pride in purchasing hanging before him and nicely protected from dust by a sheet which had been fastened over them. Did she imagine he would ever allow any one else to wear them?

He went to her bureau and opened the drawers one by one, and he could readily see that whatever had been purchased with his money had been left behind.

“Oh!” he groaned, “how they must have wounded and humiliated her to have made her discard everything that I had given her!”

He lifted the lid of a jewel casket, which he had also purchased for her, expecting to find there the jewels which he had so liked to see her wear.

But the velvet cushion was bare and his heart gave a great bound. She had not, then, utterly repudiated everything, and this thought comforted him a little.

Then a great trembling seized him as he caught sight of a letter pinned to the satin-lined cover of the box.

It was addressed to him, and with quivering fingers he detached it and tore the contents from the envelope.

“MY DEAR HUSBAND,” it began, but tears sprang to his eyes, and so blurred was his sight that for a few moments he could not go on with his reading. “Let me call you so for this last time,” he read when he could see again; “yes, for the last time, for I am going away from you forever. I can see now that it was a great mistake, your marrying me. I was afraid at the time that you were influenced merely by gratitude. I am so sorry now that I had not strength to say no when you urged me to be your wife. If you had but told me truly that it was not love, but pity for my desolate condition and a desire to care for me when I was unable to take care of myself, it would have been so much easier and better every way. Then, too, you were pledged to another, and that made a triple wrong. It breaks my heart to think of it and that some other poor girl, who loved you as blindly, perhaps, as I have done, has been grieving over your broken troth. And now you have banished me from your home, as if you believed me unworthy to remain there. What is my offence, True? Did I not make my explanations clear enough in the letter I wrote you a little more than a week ago? Is it true that because I withheld my true surname—and, True, I had almost forgotten I had any other save that of Howland—is it true, as your mother says, that our marriage was illegal—that I am no wife? Is that why you have sent me away? If you had only written to me and explained, instead of sending me that dreadful cable message. Instead of the word I begged for—stay—you have told me to go. Perhaps you will write now, but since you were in such a hurry to have me go; since you appear to fear a scandal, and I know that you did not love me—though you seemed to—I shall not wait for any cold, cruel letter confirming my fate, but take myself utterly away from you at once. I wrote you all the truth and only truth, True. Did what I told you seem too dreadful, too humiliating, to be overlooked and forgiven? Then I could not help the meeting with that miserable man, whom I detested and feared—indeed, I could not, although your mother insists I have compromised you all by the encounter. It was just as I told you in my letter, and you must know that I could never associate with such a man. I am sorry—so sorry to have brought discord into your family; my own are all dead—father, mother, and sister—and I should have been so glad if I could have stood in the light of a daughter and sister to your friends. But I have written all this before—how useless to repeat it! I merely meant to tell you that I cannot go to that hotel and register myself as your wife, when they tell me that I am not, and when I am in doubt as to what my future is to be—no, not doubt, for they say you will never forgive the deception that made our marriage illegal. If you are not really already free, the law will free you from a runaway wife.” And here a little of her pride and spirit blazed forth. “I should not come back here if you did find me; I cannot forgive you that, while you were pledged to another, you pretended to love me, and married me to repay an imaginary debt. But—I love you—I love you, and I would have been true and faithful to you all my life. Forgive me for breaking down thus, but my poor aching heart would make its last lament. How I shall live without you I cannot tell; perhaps I shall not live long; I think I shall be glad if I do not, and then you will be free indeed. Try to think as kindly of me as you can. I have not willingly deceived you; you know I wanted to tell you everything in the first place, but you would not let me. You were very kind to me the little time we spent together, and when I began to believe that you were growing to love me, as I love you, I was happier than I can express. I shall leave everything, save what I have brought with me. The diamonds and other jewelry I have arranged to send to the safe deposit vault, with the silver; also the check-book you gave me, and which I have not made use of at all. The money that you gave me at the same time—or what there is left after paying the servants—I will keep, for I may not be able to go to work just yet to earn for myself. I have tried to arrange everything as I thought you would like; I hope you will find all in good order when you return. Good-by, True—O True!”

The letter was not signed, and those last words were hardly legible, as if her fingers had almost refused to trace them.

Dr. Winthrop had groaned aloud again and again during the perusal of this hopeless, pathetic epistle, and when he came to the end—to that passionate outburst, “O True!”—he bowed his face upon his hands and sobbed aloud.

“Oh, why did I leave her here?” he sobbed. “I ought to have known how it would be. They persecuted and crushed her with their suspicions and accusations and family pride! My poor, lost darling! it was too, too cruel!”

It was dark before he could regain anything approaching composure, and then he went to seek the people who had kept the ill-fated lodging-house where Salome had gone to hide. He wished to make inquiries regarding the terrible tragedy that had robbed him of his wife.

But he gained no new points.

Miss Howland had come there in a hack, they told him. They did not know where she came from, nor how long she intended to remain there. She was not well—not able to work, and kept secluded in her own room, but as she paid her rent in advance they did not concern themselves about that.

Dr. Winthrop made them describe her minutely and questioned them very closely, and he was convinced there was no mistake—it was Salome of whom they were talking beyond the shadow of a doubt.

“Are you sure that she did not escape—that she was—was——”

He could not complete the sentence except by a shiver of horror.

“Burned?” supplemented the less sensitive landlord. “Yes, sir, it was simply impossible for her to escape—in fact, all the girls who were on that side of the stairway were doomed. But I don’t think they suffered so very much, sir,” he added, as he saw how white the young doctor’s lips were. “They must have been suffocated before the worst came.”

“And—and their—bodies?”

No one would have recognized Dr. Winthrop’s voice as he made this inquiry.

“Well, sir, you see they weren’t all recovered—it was a terrible fire, and when the walls fell in they must have been crushed and slowly consumed among the red-hot ruins. Only five or six were found, and those were buried in Greenwood by subscriptions raised by some kind ladies.”

Dr. Winthrop would hear no more—he staggered to his feet and groped his way like a blind man into the street, wondering if he should go mad—wondering if he should ever again be able to sleep, with the memory of that horror haunting him.

He returned to his house, but not to rest. He paced from room to room of his lonely dwelling all night long and fought his grief as only such strong, deep natures can fight, and when morning broke it was hard to recognize in that bowed form, that haggard and furrowed face, the handsome, stately, and energetic Dr. Truman Winthrop.

He sent Dick out to procure food which he forced himself to eat, simply because he knew that he must have nourishment, and then, still unnerved and broken, shuddering with horror and quivering with grief, he again wandered all day about the desolate and cheerless abode.

When night came he was utterly exhausted, and throwing himself all dressed upon his bed, he slept simply because he was worn out, and tired nature must have rest.

The next day was Saturday, and at an early hour of the morning he again presented himself before his mother and sister.

His face was cold and stern, and he met their anxious, inquiring looks with hard, almost a vacant stare.

“I have come to tell you that I sail again for Europe this noon,” he said in a hollow voice. “I simply notify you of my plans that you need not suffer useless anxiety or make needless inquiries.”

“Truman——” began his mother, in an humble, tremulous tone, for mental suffering had told somewhat upon her during the last few days.

“Please spare me any objections or comments,” he interrupted in a voice that had not a particle of feeling in it. “I shall remain in London with my father until he is able to come home; then I shall send him with Norman. When I shall return I do not know.”

“But your house—your horses and carriages,” said Evelyn.

“My lawyer will attend to everything,” was the brief reply.

“Oh, my son, do not go from us in such a mood as this,” pleaded his mother.

He turned upon her with a fierceness that she had never seen in him before.

“You have broken my heart and you call it a mood,” he said hoarsely. “But for you two my wife would have been living and happy to-day, and I should not have to go desolate to my grave. I will never forgive you—never!”

He turned quickly, as if the sight of them was unendurable, and without another word or even a backward look walked from the room.

A moment later they heard the outer door close after him, and knew not whether they would ever see him again.

Madame Winthrop buried her face in her handkerchief, a groan of misery bursting from her.

Truman—her firstborn—had been her idol all his life, and such a separation as this was a terrible blow to her.

Too late she realized that she had plotted and sinned for naught; too late she saw that her ambition and pride had wrought the ruin of several lives.

Evelyn burst into a passion of tears and berated her brother as “a hard-hearted brute.”

They were very lonely and miserable for a time after that, but callers soon began to crowd in upon them, invitations to dine and to various places of amusement followed, and Evelyn, to drown the voice of conscience, plunged at once into all the gayeties of the season.

Madam of course had to accompany her as chaperon, though at first she did so with fear and trembling, for she was in constant dread of meeting inquiries regarding her son’s romantic marriage.

But, strangely enough, no one appeared to know anything about it, and the only questions she had to answer were those relating to her husband’s recent illness and expected return.

She breathed easier when she found that Salome’s existence seemed a secret, and even, as time went on, began to congratulate herself that things were as they were—“Truman would soon get over his grief, and then—Sadie Rochester again.”

The winter passed; spring came; but May began to send forth her buds and blossoms before Mr. Winthrop was thought well enough to endure the voyage.

Norman Winthrop returned with his father, but could give no definite information as to his brother’s plans. He was going to travel, he told them, but where he did not know, and he had sent no message to either his mother or his sister; neither had he written them one word since his abrupt departure.

The Winthrops all went to Cape May for the summer, where Evelyn and her mother tried to stifle conscience by going into society as much as possible and by entertaining when the health of Mr. Winthrop would permit.

He was still very delicate, and spent much of his time, attended by a servant, upon the beach, or with his books upon the broad veranda of their cottage.

No word came across the ocean to them from the wanderer, and only once during these long months did they hear, even indirectly, from him.

Then they learned that a friend of one of their new acquaintances had met him at Interlaken, where they planned to make the ascent of the Jungfrau together, after which they were going to Germany in company.

It was meagre news, but they were glad to get even this crumb to feed their hungry hearts.