"When I wrote you my long letter I was about to be married and was to call to see you on our way to Boston; am I not right?" I nodded.
"Well, in a week Rita received a letter from her sister saying she was not well, and suggesting that it would be better we should be married in Tennessee. This letter altered our plans. A few days later a dispatch came from Wilton, telling us, that poor Minnie had died suddenly, she and her baby at the same time. Mrs. Allen was a great stickler for what she called the proprieties of life, and though she had not in her heart a spark of affection for her nieces, she insisted our marriage should be postponed for at least three months.
Rita had been in her care since childhood; it is true the care was of no gentle kind, but she was grateful and did not wish to displease her Aunt. I went to Chicago to get my affairs into shape. Before the time I was to have returned, my darling wrote me that her shrewd worldly-wise Aunt had become suddenly alarmed by the shape political matters were rapidly taking; had determined to convert all she owned into money and to go to her relatives in England for the remainder of her days. The dear girl begged me to come to her as soon as possible. Her wish was my law. I started the next day; for I had acquired the habit of being always ready for a change of base.
Reaching —— I found the shrewish old woman up to her eyes in affairs. I lent her all the assistance possible, and in one month she was ready for her departure. With her and another for witnesses, Rita and I were made one. She dowered her niece with five thousand dollars, kissing her most decorously on the forehead. In a half hour after the ceremony she started north, and we west. Her last words were, "Adieu! Don't write to me. If I ever care to hear from you I will write." She thus passed out of our lives and we know not whether she be alive or dead.
My bride and I went to Memphis and thence to St. Louis. We were absolutely happy. The world was bright and rosy to us both. My wife was, as fully as I, imbued with the belief that we were mated, dovetailed together; were as thoroughly one as Adam or Shiva were one, before Eve or Parvati were taken from them.
Possessed as we were of perfect health, physically we might have been models to an artist for robust, untainted manhood and womanhood. Not a cloud flecked our sky—not a shadow, we thought, could possibly lurk beneath the horizon. At St. Louis, the day after our arrival, we had been out for a walk and on returning I went to the hotel reading room, while Rita gaily tripped up stairs toward our room, kissing her hand to me from the upper landing. I picked up a paper, chance-dropped by some traveller, published in the town near my home; the same which Jim had brought me with the announcement of Belle's marriage. Almost the first thing I saw was an editorial statement that "the marriage between the beautiful Mrs. Belle —— and the Marquis of —— in Rome had been positively and permanently abandoned." My eyes were riveted to the horrible column. It continued: "The proud uncrowned Queen of —— discovered before it was too late, the titled groom desired the gems and gold in the bride's strong box, far more than the jewels and pure metal so effulgently shining in her form and rich in her character, etc., etc." I was stunned—my blood stood still in my heart. I leaned over upon a table and was blind from intense agony. I thought of my own misery, but Great God! what would become of my poor wife! My limbs seemed powerless; I did not move until a light hand rested upon my head.
My wife had come down to find me. "Oh, darling, what is it, what is it?" I took her hand and slowly staggered to our room. I knelt at her feet. I prayed her to forgive me. I hid my face in her lap and sobbed as a broken hearted child. She smoothed my hair and for some minutes with sweetest of all sympathy let my grief flow. Then she lifted my head.
"Tell me what it is, my husband."
I looked into her dear pale face and cried, "I cannot—I cannot break your heart, my poor wife."
"Break my heart, darling! It can never break while it has yours to dwell in."