Several men he knew were in his car, and he talked with them until the train reached Boston. There he was engrossed; he had barely time to snatch a few hours for sleep, none for thought. But the next day, after taking his chair in the train for New York, and observing that he knew no one in the car, he became aware that the heart within him was heavy. He and his wife had quarrelled before, for she had a hot Southern temper, and he was by no means without gunpowder of his own; but none of their disputes had left behind it the flavour of this. That she should tolerate such a man as Bosworth, had disappointed him; that she should espouse his pretensions to their only child, filled him with disgust and something like terror; and her snobbery sickened him. But what had stabbed into the quick of his heart were her final words. He repeated them again and again, hoping to dull their edge.
Moreover, she had never let the night set its ugly seal on their quarrels. Her tempers were soon over, and she had invariably come to him and commanded or coaxed for reconciliation, as her mood dictated. He had steered safely through the first trying years of matrimony, and it appalled him to think that perhaps an unreckoned future lay before them both.
When he entered his house something struck him as out of the common. A servant had fetched his portmanteau from the cab. It suddenly occurred to Mr. Forbes that the man had ostentatiously evaded his eye.
He walked toward the stair, hesitated, then turned.
“Is Mrs. Forbes well?” he asked; and he found that he was making an effort to control his voice.
The man flushed and hung his head. “Mrs. Forbes and Miss Augusta sailed for Europe this afternoon, sir. There’s a letter for you on the mantel-piece in the library.”
Mr. Forbes did not trust himself to say, “Ah!” As he turned the knob of the library door his hand trembled. He entered, and locked the door behind him.
He opened the letter at once and read it.
“I think you did not understand on Monday night that I was in earnest,” it ran. “I am so much in earnest that I shall not stay here to bicker with you. That we have never done. I do not wish to run the risk of speaking again as I spoke the last time we were together. I know that I hurt you, and I am very sorry. If I did not believe that you were entirely wrong in the stand you have taken, I should not think of taking any decisive step in the matter myself; for it hurts me to hurt you—please believe that. But I feel sure that as soon as you are alone and think it over calmly, you will see that your opposition is hardly warrantable, and that the wishes of your wife and daughter are worthy of serious consideration. If we remained to renew the subject constantly you would not give it this consideration; there would be an undignified and regrettable war of words every day.
“This is what I have made up my mind to do: if you persist in refusing your consent—which I cannot believe—I shall, on the tenth day of March, turn over all my own property to the Duke: my houses in Newport and Asheville, my horses and yacht, and my jewels. Two days later they will marry. I stand pledged to these two people that they shall marry, and nothing will induce me to break my word.