A Noble Woman

by Ann S. Stephens

Weeks had glided along. It was now late autumn; the gorgeous leaves lay strewn along the ground, and the wind sighed up from the ocean chill and bleak, scattering thoughts of decay with each gust. With that gathering desolation, the coldness and the shadows had crept deeper and deeper into Grantley Mellen's life.

He had accompanied Elizabeth to the city, one of these chilly autumn days, and put her in a carriage at the ferry, that she might attend to the purchases and calls which was her ostensible errand to town, while he went about the business on hand, with an arrangement that they were to meet in time for the afternoon boat.

Elsie had chosen to pass the day at home; indeed, the light-hearted girl and Elizabeth were never together now when it could possibly be avoided. Elsie seemed determined to keep aloof from the mystery of the unhappy woman's life, lest its gloominess should cast some shadow over the brightness of her own path.

While Elizabeth was absent on her mysterious visit, Mellen occupied himself with a matter which would have added another trouble to the anxiety of that bitter day, had she dreamed of it. From the first he had determined that the disappearance of that gauntlet bracelet should be in some way explained, if it lay in human power to discover the mystery. What his precise motive was he could hardly have told. The trinket might have been picked up by some vagabond who had wandered into the grounds; if so there was little hope of ever gaining any tidings concerning it, but Mellen could not satisfy himself that such was the case; he believed the jewel would yet be found.

There was some mystery in Elizabeth's life—of that irksome suspicion he could not divest himself. Twenty times each day he went over in his mind every event that had occurred since his return, from the moment when he came upon her wandering so wildly about on that stormy night.

Twenty times each day he convinced himself that there was nothing in the whole catalogue to awaken the slightest doubt in any mind not given up to self-torture and jealousy like his; yet, argue as he would, bring conviction as closely home to his soul as he might, doubts rose up again and haunted him like ghosts that had no power to speak, but pointed always towards trouble and blackness which lay in the past.

If the bracelet had been given to a needy person for any reason, it would undoubtedly find its way to the hands of some pawnbroker—that was his thought. He reproached himself for indulging it—he called himself unworthy the love of any woman while he could harbor such suspicions, but they would not pass out of his mind—the treachery which had wrecked his youth had sown the seeds of suspicion too deeply in his soul to be easily eradicated.

Then he compounded with his conscience, and decided that he was right in taking every step possible to solve these doubts, if only to prove the innocence of his wife. He kept repeating to himself that this was the reason which urged him on.

"I want to be convinced," he thought again and again, "of my own injustice—it is right that I should endure this self-abasement as a punishment for doubting a woman who is beyond suspicion."

Solacing his self-reproaches a little by such arguments and reflections, he had gone to work in earnest to make such discoveries as would drive these harassing doubts away forever.