Reader, Guy Thornton was not a fool, and Daisy was not a fool, though I
admit they have thus far appeared to disadvantage. Both had made a great
mistake; Guy in marrying a child whose mind was unformed, and Daisy in
marrying at all, when her whole nature was in revolt against matrimony.
But married they are, and Guy has failed and Daisy is going home, and
the New Year's morning, when she was to have received Guy's gift of the
phaeton and ponies, found her at the little cottage in Indianapolis,
where she at once resumed all the old indolent habits of her girlhood,
and was happier than she had been since leaving home as a bride.
On the father, Mr. McDonald, the news of his son-in-law's failure fell
like a thunderbolt and affected him more than it did Daisy. Shrewd,
ambitious, and scheming, he had for years planned for his daughter a
moneyed marriage, and now she was returned upon his hands for an
indefinite time, with her naturally luxurious tastes intensified by
recent indulgence, and her husband a ruined man. It was not a pleasant
picture to contemplate, and Mr. McDonald's face was cloudy and
thoughtful for many days until a letter from Tom turned his thoughts
into a new channel and sent him with fresh avidity to certain points of
law with which he had of late years been familiar. If there was one part
of his profession in which he excelled more than another it was in the
divorce cases which had made Indiana so notorious. Squire McDonald, as
he was called, was well known to that class of people who, utterly
ignoring God's command, seek to free themselves from the bonds which
once were so pleasant to wear, and now, as he sat alone in his office
with Tom's letter in his hand, and read how rapidly that young man was
getting rich, there came into his mind a plan, the very thought of which
would have made Guy Thornton shudder with horror and disgust.
Daisy had not been altogether satisfied with her brief married life, and
it would be very easy to make her more dissatisfied, especially as the
home to which she would return must necessarily be very different from
Elmwood, Tom was destined to be a millionaire. There was no doubt of
that, and once in the family he could be molded and managed as the wily
McDonald had never been able to mold or manage Guy. But everything
pertaining to Tom must be kept carefully out of sight, for the man knew
his daughter would never lend herself to such a diabolical scheme as
that which he was revolving, and which he at once put in progress,
managing so adroitly that before Daisy was at all aware of what she was
doing, she found herself the heroine of a divorce suit, founded really
upon nothing but a general dissatisfaction with married life and a wish
to be free from it. Something there was about incompatibility of
temperament and uncongeniality, and all that kind of thing which wicked
men and women parade before the world when weary of the tie which God
has distinctly said shall not be torn asunder.