“Yes; it is as bad as that. I don’t know what day you will send me a telegram of three words, ‘She has gone.’ Yet she loves me, really and truly loves me. That is the mystery of it. More than this, her very heart-strings are knit up with those of our child.”
“Mayor Packard,”—I had resumed work,—“was any letter delivered to her that day?”
“That I can not say.”
Fact one for me to establish.
“The wives of men like you—men much before the world, men in the thick of strife, social and political—often receive letters of a very threatening character.”
“She would have shown me any such, if only to put me on my guard. She is physically a very brave woman and not at all nervous.”
“Those letters sometimes assume the shape of calumny. Your character may have been attacked.”
“She believes in my character and would have given me an opportunity to vindicate myself. I have every confidence in my wife’s sense of justice.”
I experienced a thrill of admiration for the appreciation he evinced in those words. Yet I pursued the subject resolutely.
“Have you an enemy, Mayor Packard? Any real and downright enemy capable of a deep and serious attempt at destroying your happiness?”