University of Virginia Library

20. CHAPTER XX.
THE CRISIS.

IT was the Tuesday before Lent. The gay season
was drawing to a close, for Mrs. Howard and
Mrs. Miller, who led the fashionable world of
Camden before Ethelyn's introduction to it, were theoretically
the highest kind of church-women, and while neglecting
the weightier matters of the law were strict to bring
their tithes of mint and anise and cummin. They were
going to wear sackcloth and ashes for forty days and stay
at home, unless they met occasionally in each other's house
for a quiet game of whist or euchre. There could be no
harm in that, particularly if they abstained on Fridays, as
of course they should. Mr. Bartow himself could not find
fault with so simple a recreation, even if he did try so hard
to show what his views were with regard to keeping the
Lenten fast. Mrs. Miller and Mrs. Howard intended to be
very regular at the morning service, hoping that the odor
of sanctity with which they would thus be permeated
would in some way atone for the absence of genuine heart-religion
and last them for the remainder of the year. First,
however, and as a means of helping her in her intended seclusion
from the world, Mrs. Howard was to give the largest
party of the season,—a sort of carnival, from which the revellers
were expected to retire the moment the silvery-voiced
clock on her mantel struck the hour of twelve and
ushered in the dawn of Lent. It was to be a masquerade,
for the Camdenites had almost gone mad on that fashion

which Ethelyn had the credit of introducing into their
midst; that is, she was the first to propose a masquerade
early in the season, telling what she had seen, and giving
the benefit of her larger experience in such matters.

It was a fashion which took wonderfully with the people,
for the curiosity and interest attaching to the characters
was just suited to the restless, eager temperament of the
Camdenites, and they entered into it with heart and soul,
ransacking boxes and barrels and worm-eaten chests, scouring
the country far and near, and even sending as far as
Davenport and Rock Island for the necessary costumes.

Ethelyn enjoyed the masquerades, and for this last and
most elaborate of all she had made great preparations, for
she was to appear as “Mary Queen of Scots.” Richard
had not opposed her joining it, and he walked over piles
of ancient-looking finery, and got his boot tangled in the
wig which Ethie had hunted up, and was persuaded into
saying he would go to the party himself, not as a masquer,
but in his own proper person as Richard Markham, the
grave and dignified Judge whom the people respected so
highly. Ethie was glad he was going. She would always
rather have him with her, if possible; and the genuine
satisfaction she evinced when he said he would accompany
her went far toward reconciling him to the affair about
which so much was being said in Camden. When, however,
he came in to supper on Tuesday night, complaining
of a severe headache, and saying he wished he could remain
quietly at home, inasmuch as he was to start early the next
morning for St. Louis, where he had business to transact,
Ethelyn said to him, “If you are sick, of course I will not
compel you to go. Mr. and Mrs. Miller will look after
me.”

She meant this kindly, for she saw that he was looking
pale and haggard, and Richard took it so then; but
afterward her words became so many scorpions, stinging
him into fury. It would seem as if every box, and
drawer, and bag, had been overturned, and the contents
brought to light,—for ribbons, and flowers, and laces, were
scattered about in wild confusion, while on the carpet, near
the drawer where Ethie's little mother-of-pearl box was
kept, lay a tiny note, which had inadvertently been dropped
from its hiding-place when Ethie opened the box in quest
of something which was wanted for Queen Mary's outfit.
Richard saw the note just as he saw the other litter, but
paid no attention to it then, and after supper was over went
out as usual for his evening paper.

Gathered about the door of the office was a group of
young men, all his acquaintances, and all talking together
upon some theme which seemed to excite them greatly.

“Too bad, to make such a fool of himself,” one said,
while another added, “He ought to have known better
than to order champagne, when he knows what a beast a
few drops will make of him, and he had a first-rate character
for to-night, too.”

Richard was never greatly interested in gossip of any
kind, but something impelled him now to ask of whom
they were talking.

“Of Hal Clifford,” was the reply. “A friend of his
came last night to Moore's Hotel, where Hal boards, and
wishing to do the generous host Hal ordered champagne
and claret for supper, in his room, and got drunker than a
fool. It always lasts him a day or two, so he is gone up
for to-night.”

Richard had no time to waste in words upon Harry

Clifford, and after hearing the story started for his boarding-place.
His route lay past the Moore House, and as he
reached it the door opened and Harry came reeling down
the steps. He was just drunk enough to be sociable, and
spying Richard by the light of the lamp-post he hurried to
his side, and taking his arm in the confidential manner he
always assumed when intoxicated, he began talking in a
half-foolish, half-rational way, very disgusting to Richard,
who tried in vain to shake him off. Harry was not to be
baffled, and, with a stammer and a hiccup, he began, “I
say—a—now, old chap, don't be so fast to get rid of a
cove. Wife waiting for you, I suppose. Deuced fine
woman. D'ye know her old beau is here?”

“Who? What do you mean?” Richard asked, turning
sharply upon his companion, who continued—

“Why, Frank Van Buren. Cousin, you know; was
chum with me in college, so I know all about it. Don't
you remember my putting it to her that first time I met
her at Mrs. Miller's? Mistrusted by her blushing there was
more than I supposed; and so there was. He told me all
about it last night.”

Richard did not try now to shake off his comrade.
There seemed to be a spell upon him, and though he longed
to thrash the impudent young man saying such things of
Ethelyn, he held his peace, with the exception of the single
question—

“Frank Van Buren in town? Where is he stopping?”

“Up at Moore's. Came last night; and, between you
me, Judge, I took a little too much. Makes my head feel
like a tub. Sorry for Frank. He and his wife ain't congenial,
beside she's lost her money that Frank married her
for. Serves him right for being so mean to Mrs. Markham,

and I told him so when he opened his heart and told
me all about it; how his mother broke it up about the
time you were down there; and how she went to the altar
with a heavier heart than she would have carried to her
coffin. Quite a hifalutin speech for Frank, who used to be
at the foot of his class.”

Richard grew faint and cold as death, feeling one moment
an impulse to knock young Clifford down, and the
next a burning desire to hear the worst, if, indeed, he had
not already heard it. He would not question Harry; but
he would listen to all he had to say, and so he kept quiet,
waiting for the rest. Harry was just enough beside himself
to take a malicious kind of satisfaction in inflicting
pain upon Richard, as he was sure he was doing. He
knew Judge Markham despised him, and though, when
sober, he would have shrunk from so mean a revenge, he
could say anything now, and so went on.

“She has not seen him yet, but will to-night, for he is
going. I got him invited as my friend. She knows he is
here. He sent her a note this morning. Pity I can't
go too; but I can't, for, you see, I know how drunk I am.
Here we part, do we?” and Harry loosed his hold of
Richard's arm as they reached the corner of a street.

Wholly stunned with what he had heard, Richard kept
on his way, but not toward the Stafford House. He could
not face Ethelyn yet. He was not determined what
course to pursue, and so he wandered on in the darkness,
through street after street, while the wintry wind blew
cold and chill about him; but he did not heed it, or feel
the keen, cutting blast. His blood was at a boiling heat,
and the great drops of sweat were rolling down his face,
as, with head and shoulders bent like an aged man, he

walked on, revolving all he had heard, and occasionally
whispering to himself, “She carried a heavier heart to
the altar than she would have taken to her coffin.”

“Yes, I believe it now. I remember how white she
was, and how her hand trembled when I took it in mine.
Oh! Ethie, Ethie, I did not deserve this from you.”

Resentment,—hard, unrelenting resentment,—was beginning
to take the place of the deep pain he had at first
experienced, and it needed but the sight of Mrs. Miller's
windows, blazing with light, to change the usually quiet,
undemonstrative man into a demon.

“She is to meet him here to-night, it seems, and perhaps
talk over her blighted life. Never, no, never, so long as
bolts and bars have power to hold her. She shall not disgrace
herself, for, with all her faults, she is my wife, and I
have loved her so much. Oh, Ethie, I love you still!” and
the wretched man leaned against a post as he sent forth
this despairing cry for the Ethie who he felt was lost forever.

Every little incident which could tend to prove that
what Harry had said was true came to his mind: the conversation
overheard in Washington between Frank and
Melinda, Ethelyn's unfinished letter, to which she had
never referred, and the clause in Aunt Van Buren's letter
relating to Frank's first love affair. He could not any
longer put the truth aside with arguments, for it stood out
in all its naked deformity, making him cower and shrink
before it. It was a very different man who went up the
stairs of the Stafford House to room No. — from the man
who two hours before had gone down them, and Ethelyn
would hardly have known him for her husband had she
been there to meet him. Wondering much at his long
absence, she had at last gone on with her dressing, and

then, as he still did not appear, she had stepped for a moment
to the room of a friend who was sick and had asked
to see her when she was ready. Richard saw that she was
out, and sinking into the first chair, his eye fell upon the
note lying near the bureau-drawer. The room had partially
been put to rights, but this had escaped Ethie's notice,
and Richard picked it up, glowering with rage, and almost
foaming at the mouth when, in the single word “Ethie,”
on the back, he recognized Frank Van Buren's writing,
which he had often seen on the back of his mother's letters.

He had it then,—the note which his rival had sent,
apprising his wife of his presence in town, and he would
read it, too. He had no scruples about that, and his fingers
tingled to his elbows as he opened the note, never observing
how yellow and worn it looked, or that it was not dated.
He had no doubt of its identity, and his face grew purple
with passion as he read—

Words could not express Richard's emotions as he held
that note in his shaking hand, and gazed at the words,
“My own darling Ethie.” Quiet men like Richard Markham
are terrible when aroused; and Richard was terrible
in his anger, as he sat like a block of stone contemplating
the proof of his wife's unfaithfulness. He called it by that
hard name, grating his teeth together as he thought of her

going by appointment to meet Frank Van Buren, who had
called him an “old maid,” and planned to have him left
behind if possible. Then, as he recalled what Ethelyn had
said about his remaining at home if he were ill, he leaped
to his feet, and an oath quivered on his lips at her duplicity.

“False in every respect,” he muttered, “and I trusted
her so much!”

It never occurred to him that the note was a strange one
for what he imagined it to portend, Frank merely directing
it to “Ethie,” and charging her to be present at the party,
without even announcing his arrival, or giving any explanation
for his sudden appearance in Camden. Richard was
too much excited to reason upon anything, and stood leaning
upon the piano, with his face turned toward the door,
when Ethie made her appearance, looking very pretty and
piquant in her Mary Stuart guise. She held her mask in
her hand, but when she caught a glimpse of him she hastily
adjusted it, and springing forward, exclaimed, “Where
were you so long? I began to think you were never coming.
We shall be among the very last. How do I look
as Mary? Am I pretty enough to make an old maid like
Elizabeth jealous of me?”

Had anything been wanting to perfect Richard's wrath,
that allusion to an “old maid” would have done it. It
was the drop in the brimming bucket, and Richard exploded
at once, hurling such language at Ethelyn's head
that, white and scared, and panting for breath, she put up
both her hands to ward off the storm, and asked what it
meant. Richard had locked the door, the only entrance to
their room, and stooping over Ethelyn, he hissed into her
ear his meaning, telling her all he had heard from Harry
Clifford, and asking if it were true. Ere Ethelyn could

reply there was a knock at the door, and a servant's voice
called out, “Carriage waiting for Mrs. Markham.”

It was the carriage sent by Mrs. Miller for Ethelyn, and
quick as thought Richard stepped to the door, and unlocking
it, said, hastily, “Give Mrs. Miller Mrs. Markham's
compliments, and say she cannot be present to-night. Tell
her she regrets it exceedingly;” and Richard's voice was
very bitter and sarcastic in its tone as he closed the door
upon the astonished waiter; and relocking it, he returned
again to Ethelyn, who had risen to her feet, and with a
different expression upon her face from the white, scared
look it had worn at first, stood confronting him fearlessly
now, and even defiantly, for this bold step had roused her
from her apathy; and in a fierce whisper, which, nevertheless,
was as clear and distinct as the loudest tones could
have been, she asked, “Am I to understand that I am a
prisoner here in my own room? Is it your intention to
keep me from the party?”

“It is;” and with his back against the door, as if
doubly to bar her egress, Richard regarded her gloomily,
while he charged her with the special reason why she
wished to go. “It was to meet Frank Van Buren, your
former lover,” he said, asking if she could deny it.

For a moment Ethelyn stood irresolute, mentally going
over with all that would be said if she stayed from Mrs.
Miller's, where she was to be the prominent one, and calculating
her strength to stem the tide of wonder and conjecture
as to her absence which was sure to follow. She
could not meet it, she decided; she must go, at all hazards,
even if, to achieve her purpose, she made some concessions
to the man who had denounced her so harshly, and used
such language as is not easily forgotten.

“Richard,” she began, and her eyes had a strange, glittering
light in them, “with regard to the past I shall say
nothing now, but that Frank was here in Camden I had not
the slightest knowledge till I heard it from you. Believe
me, Richard, and let me go. My absence will seem very
strange, and cause a great deal of remark. Another time
I may explain what would best have been explained before.”

The light in her eye was softer now, and her voice
full of entreaty; for Ethie felt almost as if pleading
for her life. But she might as well have talked to the wall
for any good results it produced. Richard was moved
from his lofty height of wrath and vindictiveness, but
he did not believe her. How could he, with the fatal
note in his hand, and the memory of the degrading
epithet it contained, and which Ethie, too, had used
against him, still ringing in his ears? The virgin queen
of England was never more stony and inexorable with
regard to the unfortunate Mary than was Richard toward
his wife, and the expression of his face froze all the better
emotions rising in Ethie's heart, as she felt that in a measure
she was reaping a just retribution for her long deception.

“I do not believe you, madam,” Richard said; “and if
I were inclined to do so, this note, which Harry said was
sent to you, and which I found upon the floor, would tell
me better;” and tossing into her lap the soiled bit of paper,
accomplishing so much harm, he continued, “There is my
proof; that, in conjunction with the name of opprobrium,
which you remember you insinuatingly used, asking if
you were pretty enough to make the old maid Elizabeth
jealous. You are pretty enough, madam; but it is an

accursed beauty, which would attract to itself men of Frank
Van Buren's stamp.”

Richard could not get over that epithet. He would have
forgiven the other sin almost as soon as this, and his face
was very dark and stern as he watched Ethelyn reading the
little note. She knew in a moment what it was, and the
suddenness of its appearance before her turned her white
and faint. It brought back so vividly the day when she
received it,—the hazy September day, when the Chicopee
hills wore the purplish light of early autumn, and the air
was full of golden sunshine. It was a few weeks after that
childish betrothal among the huckleberry hills, and Frank
had come up to spend a week with a boy-friend of his, who
lived across the river. There was to be an exhibition in
the white school-house, in the river district, and Frank had
written urging her to come, and asking that Aunt Barbara
should be left behind,—“the old maid,” he sometimes
called her to his cousin, thinking it sounded smart and
manlike. Aunt Barbara had stayed at home from choice,
sending her niece in charge of Susie Granger's mother;
but the long walk home, after the exercises were over, the
lingering, loitering walk across the causeway, where the fog
was rising so damply, the stopping on the bridge, and looking
down into the deep, dark water, where the stars were reflected
so brightly, the slow climbing of the depot hill, and the
long talk by the gate beneath the elms, whose long arms began
to drop great drops of dew on Ethie's head ere the interview
was ended,—all this had been experienced with Frank,
whose arm was round the young girl's waist, and whose hand
was clasping hers, as with boyish pride and a laughable effort
to seem manly, he talked of “our engagement,” and leaped
forward in fancy to the time “when we are married.”

All this came back to Ethelyn, and she felt again the
breath of the September night, and saw through the
clustering branches the light waiting for her in the dear
old room in Chicopee. She forgot for a moment the
stern man watching her so jealously, and hardening
toward her as he saw how pale she grew, and heard her
exclamation of surprise when she first recognized the note,
and remembered that in turning over the contents of the
box she must have dropped it upon the floor.

“Do you still deny all knowledge of Frank's presence in
town?” Richard asked, and his voice recalled Ethelyn from
the long-ago back to the present time.

He was waiting for her answer; but Ethie had none to
give. Her hot, imperious temper was in the ascendant
now. She was a prisoner for the night; her own husband
was the jailer, who she felt was unjust to her, and she
would made no explanations, at least not then. He might
think what he liked or draw any inference he pleased from
her silence. And so she made him no reply, except to
crush into her pocket the paper which she should have
burned on that morning when, crouching on the hearth-stone
at home, she destroyed all other traces of a past
which ought never to have been. He could not make her
speak, and his words of reproach might as well have been
given to the winds as to that cold, statue-like woman, who
mechanically laid aside the fanciful costume in which she
was arrayed, doing everything with a deliberation and coolness
more exasperating to Richard than open defiance would
have been. A second knock at the door, and another servant
appeared, saying, apologetically, that the note he held
in his hand was left at the office for Mrs. Markham early in
the morning, and forgotten till now.

“Give it to me, if you please. It is mine,” Ethelyn said,
and something in her voice and manner kept Richard quiet
while she took the offered note and went back to the chandelier,
where, with a compressed lip and burning cheek, she
read the genuine note sent by Frank.

This was what Ethelyn read, knowing, as she read, that
it would make matters right between herself and husband,—
at least so far as an appointment was concerned; but she
would not show it to him then. She was too angry, too
much aggrieved, to admit of any attempts on her part for a
reconciliation; so she put that note with the other, and
then went quietly on arranging her things in their proper
places. When this was done, she sat down by the window,
and peering out into the wintry darkness watched the many
lights and moving figures in Mrs. Miller's house, which
could be distinctly seen from the hotel. Richard still intended
to take the early train for St. Louis, and so he retired
at last; but Ethelyn sat where she was until the carriages
taking the revellers home had passed, and the lights
were out in Mrs. Miller's windows, and the bell of St. John's
had ushered in the second hour of the fast. Not then did

she join her husband, but lay down upon the sofa, where
he found her when, at six o'clock, he came from his broken,
feverish sleep, to say his parting words. He had contemplated
the propriety of giving up his trip and remaining
at home while Frank Van Buren was in town, but this he
could not very well do.

“I will leave her to herself,” he thought, “trusting that
what has passed will deter her from any further improprieties.”

Something like this he said to her when, in the gray
dawn, he stood before her, equipped for his journey; but
Ethelyn did not respond, and with her cold, dead silence
weighing more upon him than bitter reproaches would have
done, Richard left her and took his way through the chill,
snowy morning to the depot, little dreaming, as he went,
of when and how he and Ethelyn would meet again.