A Reconstructed Marriage

by Amelia E. Barr

At this point Robert had a qualm of jealousy. The boy was his boy, and he ought to be with him, and not with his grandfather. He was defrauded on every side. He said passionately, he would go for the boy, and bring him home at any rate; and Isabel told him plainly it could not be done. "And as for Theodora," she continued, "she looks younger and lovelier than when you married her. You should see her in white lawn with flowers on her breast, or in her wonderful hair; or still better, on horseback, with David riding at her side. Oh, Robert! You never knew the lovely Theodora of to-day."

"If she had any lover," he said slowly, "if she had any lover, you would have discovered that fact, Isabel?"

"Lover! That is nonsense. Her time and interests are taken up with her teaching, writing, and her care of her child. She is educating five girls, daughters of wealthy men living near, and she has published one novel, and is writing another; and she helps Mr. Newton with his manuscripts, and Mrs. Newton with her house. She is as busy as she is happy. We stayed two weeks with her, and I saw no one like a lover. I do remember at the hotel where I first saw her, there was a very handsome dark man, who seemed to be on the most friendly, even familiar terms with both Theodora and Mr. Newton. I asked her once who the man was, and she said he was a neighbor, and that she was educating his two daughters. Then I asked if he was likely to call and she told me he had gone to his mine, and that was the reason we had not seen him every day. She said she was sorry it had so happened, because he would have made our visit much pleasanter."

"No doubt," he answered. "Much pleasanter, of course. Thank you, Isabel. I owe you more than I can ever pay. I shall go to San Francisco, and see with my own eyes how things are."

"You will see nothing wrong, Robert. Be sure of that. Dora is as good as she is beautiful. I did not love her when I thought her an intruder into my home, but in her own home, she is adorable. Every one loves her."

"I object to every one loving her. She is mine. I am going to bring her to her own home—where she ought to be."

He would not remain to dinner. He was in haste to reach a solitude in which he could commune with his own heart. For Isabel's words had roused a fiery jealousy of his wife, and he had suddenly remembered his mother's first question when she heard of Theodora's flight: "Has she gone with that black-a-visored dandy staying at the Oliphants'?" He had then scornfully denied the supposition—had felt as if it was hardly worth denying. But at this hour, it assumed an importance that tortured him. His mother had called him black-a-visored, and Isabel had called him dark. The two were the same man, and this conviction came with that infallible assurance, that turns a suspicion into a truth, beyond inquiry or doubt.

He got back to Glasgow—he hardly knew how. He was a little astonished to find himself there. But something, held in abeyance while he was out of the city, returned to him the moment he felt his feet on the wet pavements, and breathed the foggy atmosphere. He knew himself again as Robert Campbell, and with an accented display of his personality went into the discreet, non-observant refuge of his club. He was hungry, and he ate; in a whirl of intense feeling, and he drank to steady himself. Then he went to see his mother. He wanted a few words with her, about "the black-a-visored dandy."

He found Traquair House topsy-turvy. Christina was giving a dance and there was no privacy anywhere, but in his mother's room. She was dressed for the occasion, and wearing her pearl and diamond ornaments, and he had a moment's surprise and pleasure in her appearance.

"Christina is giving a bit dance," she said apologetically, "and the house is at sixes and sevens. It is the way o' young things. They must turn everything upside down. You look badly, Robert. What's wrong wi' you?"