“‘Too busy to write’ to me—‘too busy to write.’ Oh, Alick, dear, what sort of business would it be that could keep me from writing to you for ten whole days? But, then, I am a woman and you are a man, and that makes all the difference, I suppose. But, oh, my heart is so weak—so weak, my Heavenly Father!” she cried, suddenly, in her sorrow, appealing to the All Compassionate.
And then again she betook herself to work as an antidote to despair.
After this a heart-sickening month of silence passed away, in which she heard no word from him. And then she got a second note, dated from some distant village in New England, from which he wrote to tell her that he had been travelling for the last four weeks, and he was travelling still upon that business growing out of his father’s will; that it would be useless for her to write to him, as he was continually moving rapidly from place to place, and could not wait to receive her letters. His health continued good, and he hoped that hers did. And he was ever her friend—“A.”
This letter filled less than half a page, and the writing was even less like Alexander’s than that of the other one had been. And Drusilla wept bitterly over it.
“If I were not his wife, I should think he was deserting me by degrees,” she sobbed, hitting at last the very truth.
In addition to all her other causes of distress, she had the bitterness of knowing that he had not waited to get one of the affectionate daily letters she had directed to him at Richmond; that they were all wasted, like her love, because he had not even taken the trouble to tell her that he was going to travel.
And now one word about Alexander’s duplicity, which he called discretion. (If people could be got to call crimes by their right names, perhaps they would not commit them.) When Alexander was at home, having access to all Drusilla’s boxes, he secretly got possession of all the letters he had ever written to her and he destroyed them. His first subsequent letter was written from Richmond, to which he had come with his uncle and cousin for a sojourn of a few days previous to setting out with them on a tour of pleasure. His second one was from a hamlet in the Green Mountains, where he was staying with the General and Miss Anna, in these first warm days of July. Both letters were written in a disguised hand, and signed only with his initial, lest they should ever be brought up against him.
Some suspicion of his bad faith was forcing its way even into the confiding bosom of his wife. But the heart-wasting weariness of the next few weeks, who can tell? To keep her heart from breaking, she kept steadily at work. Ah, work! How great is the love of our Heavenly Father in commuting the very curse laid upon man at his fall into blessings; in infusing into the very punishment of his sins consolation for his suffering. For surely, in addition to its creative and productive force, work has consoling power, since, next after religion, it is to the desolate and wearyhearted the greatest comfort on earth.
Drusilla found it so; for, if occupation did not give her happiness, it certainty kept her from despair. The months rolled slowly on. One of the most distressing elements in her misery was the fact she could not even write to her husband, not knowing where to direct her letters; and this was farther embittered by the knowledge that he himself had cut off all such communication between them.
Still she continued to send Leo daily to the post-office in the hope of getting a letter from him; but week after week wore away without bringing news of Alexander.