Neither by word nor deed nor murmur did Caroline exhibit a sign or symbol of her unhappiness, save by the deeper lines and paler countenance that easily escaped detection to one who barely looked her in the eyes twice a day for months together.
It was a failure; she would never act, he must take the initiative.
Armed with a sworn affidavit of her infidelity with Roland on a recent occasion, together with further papers to complete their separation and settle an alimony of a few thousand dollars as her share of their large property, Cyrus Arthur visited his wife late at night as a robber would call for her jewels, and demanded a complete surrender. Stunned and shocked, and overcome by the intelligence, she wept most bitterly, pleaded, begged, and implored her husband, in the name of Heaven, to spare her and her children from a disgrace so terrible. The sighing of the pines in a Northern forest would have moved him as soon from his purpose. She was between him and an envied object; he must succeed. He was already goaded to desperation. Seizing the part of her plea relating to her little girls, he made the worst of it.
“If you would spare yourself and them from disgrace eternally, make no denial and all shall be secret, and no one the wiser.”
“Can this be true?” asked the distracted mother of the other’s lawyer.
“Yes,” he replied, cases have been heard on default and divorces granted, and not one scrap of bill or answer ever published.
“What is a bill and answer?” questioned the little woman in her tears, for she never dreamed of a divorce between her and her husband till that moment.
“It is the ground and denial for divorce,” replied the attorney.
“Cyrus Arthur,” said his wife, as she looked at the eyes that evaded her earnestness, “do you mean this proceeding, or are you trifling?”