One day when the sick man seemed unusually feeble, Gertrude brought in a glass of wine and smilingly told him the physician had ordered it.
"Take it away!" he exclaimed with a shudder. "The love of stimulating drinks has been my ruin."
"Mrs. Wallingford," he went on, for the first time addressing her by this title, "did you never suspect what it was that made me so irritable, so unjust; so much more like a fiend than like the tender husband I had promised to be?"
"Yes, Paul, I knew that you loved wine, and drank more than was good for you."
"I did. I learned to drink a glass or two at our club, before you came to Chicago. It did not affect me as it does many. I never staggered, or lost my consciousness; but I thought it quickened my intellectual powers. If I were going to plead a case I took an extra quantity. Many called my pleading a brilliant success. I knew that it was the excitement of liquor. The secondary effect was on my temper; and as I dared not vent my irritability on others, I tortured my poor long-suffering wife."
"It was this; and the consciousness that some of my clients began to class me with intemperate men that led me to accept Mr. Curtis' proposition to accompany him to Europe."
"No, no, I will never touch my lips to the wineglass. When I think what I have lost by it, I loathe and abhor it as I loathe and abhor myself. I might have been the happiest husband and father in the world; but I was blind! I was blind!"
As he had never made the most distant allusion to her letter announcing the birth of little Paul, she had been urged by her brother to make no mention of the child. Indeed, she was not sure she could control her own emotions if the subject were introduced.
Once a fortnight, a letter from Marion, filled with news of the little fellow, came to gladden the mother's heart. His sayings and doings, even the most trivial, were treasured up by her. In the last letter there had come a photograph of the boy, dressed in his winter outfit, in which he looked so bright and beautiful, that she could scarce refrain from rushing into Paul's chamber to exhibit it; but Edward's entreaties, and her own reflections prevailed. So far, the sick man had never in direct terms told her that his affection for her was stronger than it was during the days of their first acquaintance; but should she lessen the dignity and reserve of manner which she had carefully maintained in all their intercourse, she could readily perceive it would be far more difficult for him to conceal the feelings which were growing too strong for him.
Paul learned from Pedro that every evening the parlors were crowded with visitors; often mentioning persons of distinction, with whom he himself had never aspired to associate. From his physician he heard of the estimation in which his benefactors were held. Mrs. Wallingford was considered the most elegant, highly educated and attractive American who had visited Rome for years; and her brother the model of a gentleman.