University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.
THE RESULT.

THE bell in the tower of St. John's pealed forth its
summons to the house of prayer, and one by one,
singly or in groups, the worshippers went up to
keep this first solemn day of Lent,—true, sincere worshippers,
many of them, who came to weep, and pray, and acknowledge
their past misdeeds; while others came from
habit, and because it was the fashion, their pale, haggard
faces and heavy eyes telling plainly of the last night's dissipation,
which had continued till the first hour of the

morning. Mrs. Howard was there, and Mrs. Miller too,
both glancing inquiringly at Judge Markham's pew and
then wonderingly at each other. Ethelyn was not there.
She had breakfasted in her room after Richard left, and
when that was over had gone mechanically to her closet
and drawers and commenced sorting her clothes,—hanging
away the expensive dresses, and laying across chairs and
upon the bed the more serviceable ones, such as might properly
be worn on ordinary occasions. Why she did this
she had not yet clearly defined, and when, after her wardrobe
was divided, and she brought out her heavy travelling
trunk, she was not quite certain what she meant to do.
She had been sorely wounded, and, as she thought, without
just cause. She knew she was to blame for not having
told Richard of Frank before she became his wife, but of the
things with which he had so severely charged her she was
guiltless; and every nerve quivered and throbbed with passion
and resentment as she recalled the scene of the previous
night, going over again with the cruel words Richard had
uttered in his jealous anger, and then burning with shame
and indignation as she thought of being locked into her
room, and kept from attending the masquerade, where her
absence must have excited so much wonder.

“What did they say, and what can I tell them when we
meet?” she thought, just as Mrs. Howard's voice was
heard in the upper hall.

Service was over, and several of the more intimate of
Ethie's friends had stopped at the Stafford House to see
her.

“I have come to see if you were sick, or what, that you
disappointed me so. I was vexed enough, I assure you,”
Mrs. Miller said, looking curiously at Ethelyn, whose face

was white as ashes, save where a crimson spot burned on
her cheeks, and whose lips were firmly pressed together.

She did not know what to say, and when pressed to give
a reason stammered out—

“Judge Markham wished me to stay with him, and as
an obedient wife I stayed.”

With ready tact the ladies saw that something was
wrong, and kindly forbore further remarks, except to tell
what a grand affair it was, and how much she was missed.
But Ethie detected in their manner an unspoken sympathy
or pity, which exasperated and humiliated her more than
open words would have done. Heretofore she had been
the envy of the entire set, and it wounded her deeply to
fall from that pedestal to the level of ordinary people. She
was no longer the young wife, whose husband petted and
humored her so much, but the wife whose husband was
jealous and tyrannical, and even abusive, where language
was concerned; and she could not rid herself of the suspicion
that her lady friends knew more than they professed
to know, and was heartily glad when they took their departure
and left her again alone.

There was another knock at her door, and a servant
handed in a card bearing Frank Van Buren's name. He
was in the office, the waiter said. Should he show the
gentleman up?

Ethie hesitated a moment, and then taking her pencil
wrote upon the back of the card, “I am too busy to see
you to-day.”

The servant left the room, and Ethelyn went back to
where her clothes were scattered about and the great
trunk was standing open. She did not care to see Frank
Van Buren now. He was the direct cause of every sorrow

she had ever known, and bitter feelings were swelling in
her heart in place of the softer emotions she had once experienced
toward him. He was nothing to her now. Slowly
but surely the flame had been dying out, and Richard had
never been so near to winning his wife's entire devotion as
on that fatal night when, by his jealousy and rashness, he
built so broad a gulf between them.

“It is impossible that we should ever live together again,
after all that has transpired,” Ethelyn said, as she stood
beside her trunk and involuntarily folded up a garment and
laid it on the bottom.

She had reached a decision, and her face grew whiter,
stonier, as she made haste to act upon it. Every article
which Richard had bought was laid aside and put away in
the drawers and bureaus she would never see again. These
were not numerous, for her bridal trousseau had been so extensive
that but few demands had been made upon her
husband's purse for dress, and Ethelyn felt glad that it was
so. It did not take long to put them away, or very long
to pack the trunk, and then Ethie sat down to think “what
next?”

Only a few days before, a Mr. Bailey, who boarded in
the house, and whose daughter was taking music lessons,
had tried to purchase her piano, telling her that so fine a
player ought to have one with a longer key-board. Ethie had
thought so herself, wishing sometimes that she had a larger
instrument, which was better adapted to the present style
of music, but she could not bring herself to part with Aunt
Barbara's present. Now, however, the case was different.
Money she must have, and as she scorned to take it from
the bank, where her check was always honored, she would
sell her piano. It was hers, to do with as she liked, and

when Mr. Bailey passed her door at dinner-time, she asked
him to step in. She had changed her mind with regard
to her piano, she said. She was willing to sell it now; there
was such a superb affair down at Shumway's Music Rooms.
Had Mr. Bailey seen it?

Ethie's voice was not quite steady, for she was not accustomed
to deception of this kind, and the first step was hard.
But Mr. Bailey was not at all suspicious, and concluded the
bargain at once; and two hours later Ethie's piano was
standing between the south windows of Mrs. Bailey's apartment,
and Ethie, in her own room, was counting a roll of
three hundred dollars, and deciding how far it would go.

“There are my pearls,” she said. “If worst comes to
worst I can sell them and my diamond ring.”

She did not mean Daisy's ring. She would not barter
that, or take it with her, either. Daisy never intended it
for a runaway wife, and Ethelyn must leave it where Richard
would find it when he came back and found her gone. And
then as Ethie in her anger exulted over Richard's surprise
and possible sorrow when he found himself deserted, some
demon from the pit whispered in her ear, “Give him back
the wedding ring. Leave that for him too, and so remove
every tie which once bound you to him.”

It was hard to put off Daisy's ring, and Ethelyn paused
as the clear stone seemed to reflect the fair, innocent face
hanging on the walls at Olney. But Ethie argued that she
had no right to it, and so the dead girl's ring was laid aside;
and then the trembling fingers fluttered about the plain
gold band bearing the date of her marriage. But when she
essayed to remove that too, blood-red circles danced before
her eyes, and such a terror seized her that her hands dropped
powerless into her lap and the ring remained in its place.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and the cars for Olney
left at seven. She was going that way as far as Milford,
where she could take another route to the East. She
would thus throw Richard off the track if he tried to follow
her, and also avoid immediate remark in the hotel. They
would think it quite natural that in her husband's absence
she should go for a few days to Olney, she reasoned; and
they did think so in the office when at six she asked that
her trunk be taken to the station. Her rooms were all in
order. She had made them so herself, sweeping and dusting,
and even leaving Richard's dressing-gown and slippers
by the chair where he usually sat the evenings he was at
home. The vacancy left by the piano would strike him at
once, she knew; and so she moved a tall bookcase up there,
and put a sofa where the bookcase had been, and a large
chair where the sofa had been, and pushed the centre-table
into the large chair's place; and then her work was done,—
the last she would ever do in that room, or for Richard,
either. The last of everything is sad, and Ethie felt a thrill
of pain as she whispered to herself, “It is the last, last
time,” and then thought of the outer world which lay all
unknown before her. She would not allow herself to think
long, lest her courage should give way; and she tried, by
dwelling continually upon Richard's cruel words, to steel
her heart against the good impulses which were beginning
to suggest that what she was doing might not, after all, be
the wisest course. What would the world say?—and dear
Aunt Barbara, too? How it would wring her heart when
she heard the end to which her darling had come! And
Andy,—simple, conscientious, praying Andy,—Ethie's
heart came up in her throat when she thought of him and
his grief at her desertion.

“I will write to Andy,” she said. “I will tell him how
thoughts of him almost deterred me from my purpose,”
and opening her little writing-desk, which Richard gave
her at Christmas, she took up her pen and held it poised a
moment, while something said, “Write to Richard, too.
Surely you can do so much for him. You can tell him the
truth, and let him know how he misjudged you.”

And so the name which Ethie first wrote down upon the
paper was not “Dear Brother Andy,” but simply that of
“Richard.”