IV.
There was a dark-faced inspector, a man-of-all-work in lumber camp, called Roland, who had often called at Arthur’s, and who occasionally partook a little too freely of Northern fire-water, as the Indians term it, and whose poverty at such times would consent to almost anything, on one pretence and another.
Young Roland was sent to inquire if Mr. Arthur was in, or if Mrs. Arthur needed shopping done, or errands attended to, with instructions to hint that his employer was seen riding out with the enchantress in a cutter, seemingly on the way to another village. These little irritations were to be repeated for effect, but no effect seems probable. They did create some inquiry, and at such dates of confidential conferences Mrs. Arthur was alone with the hireling spy and listened to his inferences of her husband’s indiscretions.
Neither by word nor deed nor murmur did Caroline exhibit a sign or symbol of her unhappiness, save by the deeper lines and paler countenance that easily escaped detection to one who barely looked her in the eyes twice a day for months together.
It was a failure; she would never act, he must take the initiative.
Armed with a sworn affidavit of her infidelity with Roland on a recent occasion, together with further papers to complete their separation and settle an alimony of a few thousand dollars as her share of their large property, Cyrus Arthur visited his wife late at night as a robber would call for her jewels, and demanded a complete surrender. Stunned and shocked, and overcome by the intelligence, she wept most bitterly, pleaded, begged, and implored her husband, in the name of Heaven, to spare her and her children from a disgrace so terrible. The sighing of the pines in a Northern forest would have moved him as soon from his purpose. She was between him and an envied object; he must succeed. He was already goaded to desperation. Seizing the part of her plea relating to her little girls, he made the worst of it.
“If you would spare yourself and them from disgrace eternally, make no denial and all shall be secret, and no one the wiser.”
“Can this be true?” asked the distracted mother of the other’s lawyer.
“Yes,” he replied, cases have been heard on default and divorces granted, and not one scrap of bill or answer ever published.
“What is a bill and answer?” questioned the little woman in her tears, for she never dreamed of a divorce between her and her husband till that moment.
“It is the ground and denial for divorce,” replied the attorney.
“Cyrus Arthur,” said his wife, as she looked at the eyes that evaded her earnestness, “do you mean this proceeding, or are you trifling?”
“I am in earnest,” he answered.
“Have you forgotten my home, my surroundings, the shock to my mother, my father, my own feelings, my neighbors, our children? Do you realize how you sin, and wrong me?
“How I have toiled and helped you, planned our success! How I have suffered, gone almost in the grave, in bringing you these children! Are you in earnest?
“If your heart is not iron, speak to me; shall I deny such a foolish slander? Shall I tell you before God, who will one day judge us all, that every one of the charges are infamous lies and perjuries; shall I place my word against his and you deny me?”
“But you cannot swear in court in such cases,” said the ready lawyer.
“Then Heaven will hear me; I am innocent. And may the Almighty end my life right here, if I have ever, by act or look, or word or deed, done aught that a true woman should not do in every day of our married life, from first to last, as God is my witness!”
“But your children?” he pleaded, as if he had heard not a word of her earnest protest.
On and on they argued, later and later grew the hour, till, worn out at midnight they passed her the papers, and eight thousand dollars, with which she was to return to her home in New England, and abandon all defense to the proceeding, including a release of all dower interest in his estate, real and personal.
You may smile at the absurdity, you may question the reason of such haste and compulsion.
“But who, alas! can love and still be wise?”
Ask of the court records in every American city, and you will find stronger cases and stronger instances, more degradation, greater hardship, and equal perjury. Ask of one court and find this case!
No sleep nor rest comes to Caroline Arthur. Early dawn found her surrounded by her weeping children, in alarm at the sudden illness, for she only called it illness.
Twice she started for the City National Bank to deposit her money, and twice relented. Once she determined to consult a neighbor, and later concluded she would bear alone her sorrow.
Hastily filing his bill and securing her appearance, an early demand for a hearing before a commissioner, in less than a single week came a divorce on the ground of infidelity.
Elated by his victory, with his deeds well recorded, and the court’s great seal granting their divorcement, Cyrus Arthur stalked the streets in supreme confidence as a man of victory.
It is said that Roman generals, once victorious ever bore about with them the marks of conquerors; so did our modern general, but for a brief duration.
Once in the newspapers, and the busy streets were vocal with open denunciation. “Eight thousand dollars from a property worth one hundred and fifty thousand dollars!” came from bankers. “The wife that made him what he is,” said another. “A shame to our civilization,” said the third. “A fraud, a sham, a pretext,” said another.
And the majority joined in the last anthem,—“a sham, a pretext,” a trick to turn off his worn-out wife and marry that impious trader in unvirtue and immorality.
Press interviews were had, and the dear little lady of clean hands and honest heart, whose soul shone as a diamond in the filth of foul slander around her, utterly and consistently refuted and denied the whole story, and related its history with marvellous circumstantial evidence to convince any reasonable person of her truthfulness.
Indignation knew no bounds; a firm of able lawyers at once filed a cross bill, and a prayer to set aside the fraudulent bill and another to annul all conveyances to Arthur; and within almost as brief a limit as he had secured his decree she had been restored to her rights with a divorce from Arthur and a thirty-thousand-dollar settlement.
He was driven from the city in infamy, and she lived on in honor; but the stain on the children was of a nature more permanent.