He went into his room and sat down. It was Saturday night and noisier than usual on the street. The week had dragged slowly enough, yet he began to dread the coming of that Monday morning, that day which would mean so much for him. He shaded his eyes from the soft twilight, and seemed to see it all! The hot and restless crowd, the ever-penetrating rays of the summer sun, the quivering, panting steed—and, perhaps, the death of another jockey in the end.
“If this happens again,” he muttered to himself, “I’ll blow out the infernal beast’s brains!”
There was a knock at the door, and on opening it a telegram was placed in his hand. Slowly he tore off the covering, thinking: “How tired I am!”
Yes, he was tired, so tired that the four words of the telegram that should have brought him joy had no effect except it was to rivet him to the spot; and there, two, three hours later, he still sat looking down upon the carpet, where the yellow paper had fallen, with the writing upturned, and this is what he saw:
“Your wife is dead.”
CHAPTER V.
PRETTY GOOD ARMS.
Dead! Gone forever “out from the golden day.” Just the release he had dreamed of, perhaps wished for, yet hardly prayed for. Men seldom do that; only women drop down on their knees and pour out their hearts that way, rising sometimes to say it is all for the best.
Emory at last rose from his chair and left his room. It was almost midnight, and the streets were deserted when he reached the City Park. A few steps brought him to a seat under a tree, near which a fountain splashed, a place where he had often sat alone.
“I’ll do as the fellow does in the novels—cool my fevered brow,” he thought, and laughed a little, as he took off his hat, caught some water in the hollow of his hand and wet his forehead. The laugh was hard and hollow, and the sigh that followed it heavy and dull. Of course, he was not sorry for what the world would call his “loss,” but he was a sick-hearted man, disgusted with the way his life began, horrified at the ruggedness of the path he trod.
“I must go home and sleep, if I can; and I must see Cliquot exercised in the morning.”