After The Storm, T. S. Arthur [best summer reads txt] 📗

of life, steadily receding from each other. Their evenings were now less frequently spent together. If home had been a pleasant place to him, Mr. Emerson would have usually remained at home after the day's duties were over; or, if he went abroad, it would have been usually in company with his wife. But home was getting to be dull, if not positively disagreeable. If a conversation was started, it soon involved disagreement in sentiment, and then came argument, and perhaps ungentle words, followed by silence and a mutual writing down in the mind of bitter things. If there was no conversation, Irene buried herself in a book—some absorbing novel, usually of the heroic school.

Naturally, under this state of things, Mr. Emerson, who was social in disposition, sought companionship elsewhere, and with his own sex. Brought into contact with men of different tastes, feelings and habits of thinking, he gradually selected a few as intimate friends, and, in association with these, formed, as his wife was doing, a social point of interest outside of his home; thus widening still further the space between them.

The home duties involved in housekeeping, indifferently as they had always been discharged by Irene, were now becoming more and more distasteful to her. This daily care about mere eating and drinking seemed unworthy of a woman who had noble aspirations, such as burned in her breast. That was work for women-drudges who had no higher ambition; "and Heaven knows," she would often say to herself, "there are enough and to spare of these."

"What's the use of keeping up an establishment like this just for two people?" she would often remark to her husband; and he would usually reply,

"For the sake of having a home into which one may retire and shut out the world."

Irene would sometimes suggest the lighter expense of boarding.

"If it cost twice as much I would prefer to live in my own house," was the invariable answer.

"But see what a burden of care it lays on my shoulders."

Now Hartley could only with difficulty repress a word of impatient rebuke when this argument was used. He thought of his own daily devotion to business, prolonged often into the night, when an important case was on hand, and mentally charged his wife with a selfish love of ease. On the other hand, it seemed to Irene that her husband was selfish in wishing her to bear the burdens of housekeeping just for his pleasure or convenience, when they might live as comfortably in a hotel or boarding-house.

On this subject Hartley would not enter into a discussion. "It's no use talking, Irene," he would say, when she grew in earnest. "You cannot tempt me to give up my home. It includes many things that with me are essential to comfort. I detest boarding-houses; they are only places for sojourning, not living."

As agreement on this subject was out of the question, Irene did not usually urge considerations in favor of abandoning their pleasant home.

CHAPTER XVII. GONE FOR EVER!

ONE evening—it was nearly three years from the date of their marriage—Hartley Emerson and his wife were sitting opposite to each other at the centre-table, in the evening. She had a book in her hand and he held a newspaper before his face, but his eyes were not on the printed columns. He had spoken only a few words since he came in, and his wife noticed that he had the manner of one whose mind is in doubt or perplexity.

Letting the newspaper fall upon the table at length, Hartley looked over at his wife and said, in a quiet tone,

"Irene, did you ever meet a lady by the name of Mrs. Lloyd?"

The color mounted to the face of Mrs. Emerson as she replied,

"Yes, I have met her often."

"Since when?"

"I have known her intimately for the past two years."

"What!"

Emerson started to his feet and looked for some moments steadily at his wife, his countenance expressing the profoundest astonishment.

"And never once mentioned to me her name! Has she ever called here?"

"Yes."

"Often?"

"As often as two or three times a week."

"Irene!"

Mrs. Emerson, bewildered at first by her husband's manner of interrogating her, now recovered her self-possession, and, rising, looked steadily at him across the table.

"I am wholly at a loss to understand you," she now said, calmly.

"Have you ever visited that person at her boarding-house?" demanded Hartley.

"I have, often."

"And walked Broadway with her?"

"Certainly."

"Good heavens! can it be possible!" exclaimed the excited man.

"Pray, sir," said Irene, "who is Mrs. Lloyd?"

"An infamous woman!" was answered passionately.

"That is false!" said Irene, her eyes flashing as she spoke. "I don't care who says so, I pronounce the words false!"

Hartley stood still and gazed at his wife for some moments without speaking; then he sat down at the table from which he had arisen and, shading his face with his hands, remained motionless for a long time. He seemed like a man utterly confounded.

"Did you ever hear of Jane Beaufort?" he asked at length, looking up at his wife.

"Oh yes; everybody has heard of her."

"Would you visit Jane Beaufort?"

"Yes, if I believed her innocent of what the world charges against her."

"You are aware, then, that Mrs. Lloyd and Jane Beaufort are the same person?"

"No, sir, I am not aware of any such thing."

"It is true."

"I do not believe it. Mrs. Lloyd I have known intimately for over two years, and can verify her character."

"I am sorry for you, then, for a viler character it would be difficult to find outside the haunts of infamy," said Emerson.

Contempt and anger were suddenly blended in his manner.

"I cannot hear one to whom I am warmly attached thus assailed. You must not speak in that style of my friends, Hartley Emerson!"

"Your friends!" There was a look of intense scorn on his face. "Precious friends, if she represent them, truly! Major Willard is another, mayhap?"

The face of Irene turned deadly pale at the mention of this name.

"Ha!"

Emerson bent eagerly toward his wife.

"And is that true, also?"

"What? Speak out, sir!" Irene caught her breath, and grasped the rein of self-control which had dropped, a moment, from her hands.

"It is said that Major Willard bears you company, at times, in your rides home from evening calls upon your precious friends."

"And you believe the story?"

"I didn't believe it," said Hartley, but in a tone that showed doubt.

"But have changed your mind?"

"If you say it is not true—that Major Willard never entered your carriage—I will take your word in opposition to the whole world's adverse testimony."

But Irene could not answer. Major Willard, as the reader knows, had ridden with her at night, and alone. But once, and only once. A few times since then she had encountered, but never deigned to recognize, him. In her pure heart the man was held in utter detestation.

Now was the time for a full explanation; but pride was aroused—strong, stubborn pride. She knew herself to stand triple mailed in innocency—to be free from weakness or taint; and the thought that a mean, base suspicion had entered the mind of her husband aroused her indignation and put a seal upon her lips as to all explanatory utterances.

"Then I am to believe the worst?" said Hartley, seeing that his wife did not answer. "The worst, and of you!"

The tone in which this was said, as well as the words themselves, sent a strong throb to the heart of Irene. "The worst, and of you!" This from her husband! and involving far more in tone and manner than in uttered language. "Then I am to believe the worst!" She turned the sentences over in her mind. Pride, wounded self-love, a smothered sense of indignation, blind anger, began to gather their gloomy forces in her mind. "The worst, and of you!" How the echoes of these words came back in constant repetition! "The worst, and of you!"

"How often has Major Willard ridden with you at night?" asked Hartley, in a cold, resolute way.

No answer.

"And did you always come directly home?"

Hartley Emerson was looking steadily into the face of his wife, from which he saw the color fall away until it became of an ashen hue.

"You do not care to answer. Well, silence is significative," said the husband, closing his lips firmly. There was a blending of anger, perplexity, pain, sorrow and scorn in his face, all of which Irene read distinctly as she fixed her eyes steadily upon him. He tried to gaze back until her eyes should sink beneath his steady look, but the effort was lost; for not a single instant did they waver.

He was about turning away, when she arrested the movement by saying,

"Go on, Hartley Emerson! Speak of all that is in your mind. You have now an opportunity that may never come again."

There was a dead level in her voice that a little puzzled her husband.

"It is for you to speak," he answered. "I have put my interrogatories."

Unhappily, there was a shade of imperiousness in his voice.

"I never answer insulting interrogatories; not even from the man who calls himself my husband," replied Irene, haughtily.

"It may be best for you to answer," said Hartley. There was just the shadow of menace in his tones.

"Best!" The lip of Irene curled slightly. "On whose account, pray?"

"Best for each of us. Whatever affects one injuriously must affect both."

"Humph! So we are equals!" Irene tossed her head impatiently, and laughed a short, mocking laugh.

"Nothing of that, if you please!" was the husband's impatient retort. The sudden change in his wife's manner threw him off his guard.

"Nothing of what?" demanded Irene.

"Of that weak, silly nonsense. We have graver matters in hand for consideration now."

"Ah?" She threw up her eyebrows, then contracted them again with an angry severity.

"Irene," said Mr. Emerson, his voice falling into a calm but severe tone, "all this is but weakness and folly. I have heard things touching your good name—"

"And believe them," broke in Irene, with angry impatience.

"I have said nothing as to belief or disbelief. The fact is grave enough."

"And you have illustrated your faith in the slander—beautifully, becomingly, generously!"

"Irene!"

"Generously, as a man who knew his wife. Ah, well!" This last ejaculation was made almost lightly, but it involved great bitterness of spirit.

"Do not speak any longer after this fashion," said Hartley, with considerable irritation of manner; "it doesn't suit my present temper. I want something in a very different spirit. The matter is of too serious import. So pray lay aside your trifling. I came to you as I had a right to come, and made inquiries touching your associations when not in my company. Your answers are not satisfactory, but tend rather to con—"

"Sir!" Irene interrupted him in a stern, deep voice, which came so suddenly that the word remained unspoken. Then, raising her finger in a warning manner, she said with menace,

"Beware!"

For some moments they stood looking at each other, more like two animals at bay than husband and wife.

"Touching my associations when not in your company?" said Irene at length, repeating his language slowly.

"Yes," answered the husband.

"Touching, my associations? Well, Mr. Emerson—so far, I say well." She was collected in manner and her voice steady. "But what touching your associations when not in my company?"

The very novelty of this interrogation caused Emerson to start and change color.

"Ha!" The blood leaped to the forehead of Irene, and her eyes, dilating suddenly, almost glared upon the face of her husband.

"Well, sir?" Irene drew her slender form to its utmost height. There was an impatient, demanding tone in her voice. "Speak!" she added, without change of manner. "What touching your associations when not in my company? As a wife, I have some interest in this matter. Away from home often until the brief hours, have I no right to put the question—where and with whom? It would seem so if we are equal. But if I am the slave and dependant—the creature of your will and pleasure—why, that alters the case!"

"Have you done?"

Emerson was recovering from his surprise, but not gaining clear sight or prudent self-possession.

"You