CHAPTER XV.
A Chicago Divorce "Shyster."—Hosford found.—His pathetic Narrative.—More Facts.
MR. BANGS was in no hurry to leave Sheboygan Falls, as he found that he was in a fruitful field for information, and he continued garnering it in and stacking it away industriously.
It appeared that Hosford's wife, not content with disgracing his name, had soon developed her old and never-satisfied greed for money and any sort of power that might be wielded mercilessly; and it was evident that she had money, for she immediately began dressing with much elegance and travelling about the country extensively. The probability was that she had still retained the money stolen from Bland, and had also, during her years of economy, carefully added to it until she had secured a large sum, as she had occasion to use a good deal of money in a certain transaction, which quite thoroughly illustrated her unprincipled and revengeful character.
When Hosford had removed from Indiana to Wisconsin, he had purchased a larger and a finer farm, and had been obliged to give a mortgage upon it for several thousand dollars, to be used in making necessary improvements. This had been paid off with the exception of about three thousand dollars, which amount, as soon as Mrs. Hosford had begun making it lively for her husband, and had left him for the purpose of wedding Spiritualism and all that the term implies, she immediately produced and bought up the mortgage, placing it in ex-Senator Carpenter's hands for foreclosure; but poor Hosford, struggling under his heavy load of desertion, disgrace and persecution, managed to raise the money and take it up, thus preventing the villainous woman from turning him out of his own home, which she had deserted and desecrated.
This had proven too much for even the patient Hosford to endure, and he had set about getting a divorce. But this was a harder thing to do than he had anticipated. Although he was in possession of nearly as much information as Bangs had secured, it was impossible to obtain definite evidence against her. Her terrible temper, her unscrupulousness, her unbounded and almost devilish shrewdness, and the swift and sudden principle of revenge that seemed only equalled by her greed for money, compelled thorough awe and fear among those from whom Hosford had expected assistance, and the result was he did not get it, and he was obliged to let the suit for divorce go by default. After this every petty annoyance that could occur to the woman's mind was visited on him. She would write him threatening letters; forward him express packages of a nature to both humiliate him and cause him fear; run him in debt at every place where she could force, or "confidence," merchants into trusting her; hire a carriage and secure some male companion as vile as she, with whom she would proceed to her old home, and in the presence of her agonized husband and helpless, innocent children, threaten him with every conceivable form of punishment, including death, and engage in profanity and drunken orgies that would have disgraced the lowest brothel in the land.
Mr. Bangs learned that after this sort of procedure for a considerable period, she suddenly disappeared. Hosford took this opportunity to dispose of his farm and remove with his motherless family to Iowa. Mr. Bangs could not learn at Sheboygan what the woman's history had been during that period, but vague rumors had floated back to the place that she had become an army-follower, which was quite probable; but at the close of the war she had assumed the rôle of an abandoned adventuress, and had wandered about the Pacific Slope until she had made too extensive an acquaintance for her safety in that section, and from thence had wandered through the country towards the East, seeking for any kind of prey; and being hunted from place to place, under countless aliases, until she had in a measure retrieved herself, as far as money matters were concerned, and being careful of herself physically, had regained her good looks which her former terrible dissipation had almost destroyed, and had eventually so insinuated herself into the affections of a rich somebody that she had been furnished money with which to secure a divorce from Hosford, which had been granted in Chicago about a year and a half previous; when she had come on to Sheboygan Falls and while there made her boasts that she would soon marry one of the richest men in New York State, as soon as his wife died, which wouldn't be very long she had hoped and believed. Besides this, the rumors went, she had failed to marry that richest somebody in New York State, and papers had been seen containing an account of the woman and Lyon, her suit against him, and the fact, which particularly interested her old neighbors, that she had engaged no lawyer whatever, but had drawn and filed the bill of complaint herself.
In fact, the entire community were in a state of great excitement over the woman who was also creating much excitement in the East, and each person had his or her story to tell of some striking peculiarity or previous adventure of the madam's, and it required a great amount of sifting and careful work for Mr. Bangs to secure what he came for.
After a few days, however, he had worked so judiciously that he had got pledges from several responsible citizens that they would give their depositions as to her general character and reputation for chastity, or rather, want of it, whenever a commission should be forwarded to a certain lawyer of the city whom he engaged to take them.