And the next morning, directly after breakfast, Colonel Chester received a message from his wife, requesting him to come to her room for a few minutes, if convenient, as she wished to speak with him.
Colonel Chester went. What passed at that interview no one knew more than what might be guessed from what followed.
Colonel Chester came out of the room, banging the door after him, with a half-uttered imprecation upon “sickly fancies,” “irritable nerves,” and “foolish women.” But immediately after this interview Mrs. Chester became much worse; her fever rose to delirium, and she was alarmingly ill for several days. Milton Sinclair heard of her state, and, little suspecting the cause, came to see her. He was met by Colonel Chester, who informed him that his wife was too ill to receive even her pastor, and requested him to walk into the library. There Colonel Chester informed him that circumstances had occurred which made it his painful duty to beg that Mr. Sinclair would temporarily suspend his visits to Mount Calm.
“Alice!” exclaimed the young man. That name contained everything, and rendered a full explanation indispensable. It was given.
Deadly pale, Sinclair walked up and down the floor, pressing his head tightly between his two palms and groaning—groaning the name, the prayer, that in the bitterest agony of the soul starts to every lip:
“My God! oh, my God! have pity on me! God have mercy on me!”
The heart-broken tone of these words touched even that hard man of the world, Colonel Chester.
“Come, come, Sinclair; you must have been prepared for this for some months past. I did not violently and at once separate you from Alice when I first came home, although you must have known that all our plans were changed. I gave you time to wean yourself gradually off. In other circumstances, indeed, I should have felt myself most honored, most happy in the alliance; but we do not control our own destinies. Good-day, Sinclair. You will forget Alice.”
CHAPTER III.
THE FATHER’S TYRANNY.
An thou be mine, I’ll give thee to my friend!