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 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 the street.
Wholly stunned by 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 rapidly 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 the
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.