Ethelyn's Mistake

by Mary Jane Holmes

"Frank Van Buren in town? Where is he stopping?"

"Up at Moore's. Came last night; and between you and me, Judge, I took a little too much. Makes my head feel like a tub. Sorry for Frank. He and his wife ain't congenial, besides she's lost her money that Frank married her for. Serves him right for being so mean to Mrs. Markham, and I told him so when he opened his heart clear to the breast-bone and told me all about it; how his mother broke it up about the time you were down there; and, Markham, you don't mind my telling you, as an old friend, how he said she went to the altar with a heavier heart than she would have carried to her coffin. Quite a hifalutin speech for Frank, who used to be at the foot of his class."

Richard grew faint and cold as death, feeling one moment an impulse to knock young Clifford down, and the next a burning desire to hear the worst, if, indeed, he had not already heard it. He would not question Harry; but he would listen to all he had to say, and so kept quiet, waiting for the rest. Harry was just enough beside himself to take a malicious kind of satisfaction in inflicting pain upon Richard, as he was sure he was doing. He knew Judge Markham despised him, and though, when sober, he would have shrunk from so mean a revenge, he could say anything now, and so went on:

"She has not seen him yet, but will to-night, for he is going. I got him invited as my friend. She knows he is here. He sent her a note this morning. Pity I can't go, too; but I can't, for you see, I know how drunk I am. Here we part, do we?" and Harry loosed his hold of Richard's arm as they reached the corner of the street.

Wholly stunned by what he had heard, Richard kept on his way, but not toward the Stafford House. He could not face Ethelyn yet. He was not determined what course to pursue, and so he wandered on in the darkness, through street after street, while the wintry wind blew cold and chill about him; but he did not heed it, or feel the keen, cutting blast. His blood was at a boiling heat, and the great drops of sweat were rolling down his face, as, with head and shoulders bent like an aged man, he walked rapidly on, revolving all he had heard, and occasionally whispering to himself, "She carried a heavier heart to the altar than she would have taken to her coffin."

"Yes, I believe it now. I remember how white she was, and how her hand trembled when I took it in mine. Oh! Ethie, Ethie, I did not deserve this from you."

Resentment--hard, unrelenting resentment--was beginning to take the place of the deep pain he had at first experienced, and it needed but the sight of Mrs. Miller's windows, blazing with light, to change the usually quiet, undemonstrative man into a demon.

"She is to meet him here to-night, it seems, and perhaps talk over her blighted life. Never, no, never, so long as bolts and bars have the power to hold her. She shall not disgrace herself, for with all her faults she is my wife, and I have loved her so much. Oh, Ethie, I love you still," and the wretched man leaned against a post as he sent forth this despairing cry for the Ethie who he felt was lost forever.

Every little incident which could tend to prove that what Harry had said was true came to his mind; the conversation overheard in Washington between Frank and Melinda, Ethelyn's unfinished letter, to which she had never referred, and the clause in Aunt Van Buren's letter relating to Frank's first love affair. He could not any longer put the truth aside with specious arguments, for it stood out in all its naked deformity, making him cower and shrink before it. It was a very different man who went up the stairs of the Stafford House to room No-- from the man who two hours before had gone down them, and Ethelyn would hardly have known him for her husband had she been there to meet him. Wondering much at his long absence, she had at last gone on with her dressing, and then, as he still did not appear, she had stepped for a moment to the room of a friend, who was sick, and had asked to see her when she was ready. Richard saw that she was out, and sinking into the first chair, his eyes fell upon the note lying near the bureau drawer. The room had partially been put to rights, but this had escaped Ethie's notice, and Richard picked it up, glowering with rage, and almost foaming at the mouth when, in the single word, "Ethie," on the back, he recognized Frank Van Buren's writing!

He had it then--the note which his rival had sent, apprising his wife of his presence in town, and he would read it, too. He had no scruples about that, and his fingers tingled to his elbows as he opened the note, never observing how yellow and worn it looked, or that it was not dated. He had no doubt of its identity, and his face grew purple with passion as he read: