Drusilla read this article and, without a word of comment, a movement of feature, or a change of color, she put it down and took up a letter with a broken seal. She unfolded and read it. It was from General Lyon to Richard Hammond.
Old Lyon Hall, Nov. 1, 18—.
My Dear Dick:—Alick and Anna are to be married on Thursday, the fifteenth instant. And now, my dear boy, I wish you, with your accustomed frankness and good humor, to “let by-gones be by-gones,” and to come down and be present at the wedding. I know it will be painful to you; but brave men do not shrink from pain. And, Dick, you know that there are but four of us left out of all the old stock—Dick, Alick, Anna and me. I have long passed the threescore and ten years allotted as the natural term of a man’s life, and so may daily look for my summons hence. Dick, Alick and Anna seem to me as my own children. Dick, you have never in your life pleased me with one single sight of your face at Old Lyon Hall. I know why you have kept away, my boy. But now I trust you will conquer your reluctance and come, rather than grieve the soul of Your loving uncle,
Leonard Lyon.
Still without a syllable of complaint, or a variation of complexion, she let this letter flutter down from her hand, and she raised the sole remaining one.
This was a sealed envelope, directed to herself. She broke the seal and found an old and closely written communication from General Lyon to Richard Hammond, which it is unnecessary to give here at length. It was very necessary, however, for Drusilla’s knowledge of the whole truth that she should read every line of it. So at least thought Dick, and therefore he had sent it to her with the others, but sealed, lest other eyes should see its meaning. In this letter General Lyon spoke of the long season in Washington during which himself, Alick, Anna and Dick were always together. And thus Drusilla, for the first time, learned the true nature of that “business connected with his late father’s will” which had taken Alexander daily and nightly from her side. And now she discovered the double-dealing and the deep dishonor of the man she called her husband.
She dropped this last letter, and it fell at her feet. Her face turned no paler, because in fact it was already as pale as it could possibly be, and had not a vestige of color to lose.
She had already suffered so much, so much that it seemed impossible for her to suffer more. Blow after blow had fallen with cruel weight upon her young heart, until it seemed benumbed.
Besides, what had she learned now worse than that which she had known and wept for many days—his treachery to her? Only through the numbness of her heart and the dullness of her head, one feeling and one thought clearly and strongly moved—that his marriage with Miss Lyon must be arrested and he himself saved from this last culmination of his criminal career.
The extremity of sorrow, when it does not destroy life or reason, always strengthens the character. Such must have been its effect upon Drusilla to enable her to rise above her misery and her weakness, with the fixed determination to go in person to Old Lyon Hall, for the purpose of preventing that “Marriage in High Life” which the Valley Courier had announced to the world with such a grand flourish of editorial trumpets.