Alexander had his troubles too, and they were not the less trying because he had brought them on himself by his own wrong-doing—rather the more so, in fact, since remorse was added to regret, and the loss of self-respect to the loss of domestic peace.
He was learning by personal experience that “the way of the transgressor is hard.”
He found it very difficult to play two parts and live in two places at the same time.
This was the way his day passed. He usually arose at ten o’clock in the morning, with a bad head-ache and a worse heart-ache, made a quick toilet and a poor breakfast, then threw himself into the saddle and rode away as fast as his horse’s feet could carry him.
He always contrived to be at his rooms in his hotel by eleven o’clock in the forenoon, lest his uncle should call for him and find him out. And always on entering his chamber he would tumble his bed and slop his wash-stand to deceive the servants of the hotel into the idea that he had slept there; for he was in constant dread lest his uncle should discover that he passed the night elsewhere.
To carry on the deception, every day he breakfasted at the hotel table, and he dined with his uncle and cousin. And every evening he accompanied Anna to some place of amusement, where she was always the most admired beauty in the room, and where he was the most envied man, because it was generally understood that he was her betrothed husband.
He seldom returned home before one o’clock, and sometimes not before three in the morning.
You perceive by this how little time he had to bestow on his young wife.
Meanwhile Drusilla was more lonely than words can tell.
Just think of it.