Ethelyn's Mistake

by Mary Jane Holmes

Richard did not mean to say that last. It dropped from him mechanically, and in an instant his mother seized upon it, demanding what he meant, and who was the villain referred to. Richard tried to put her off, but she would know what he meant, and so to her and his three brothers he told as little as he could and make any kind of a story, and as he talked his heart hardened toward Ethie, who had done him this wrong. It seemed a great deal worse when put into words, and the whole expression of Richard's face was changed when he had finished speaking, while he was conscious of feeling much as he did that night when he denounced Ethie so terribly to her face. "Had it been a man, or half a man, or anybody besides that contemptible puppy, it would not seem so bad; but to forsake me for him!" Richard said, while the great ridges deepened in his forehead, and a hard, black look crept into his eyes, and about the corners of his mouth. He was terrible in his anger, which grew upon him until even his mother stood appalled at the fearful expression of his face.

"He would do nothing to call her back," he said, when James suggested the propriety of trying in a quiet way to ascertain where she had gone. "She had chosen her own path to ruin, and she might tread it for all of him. He would not put forth a hand to save her and if she came back, he never could forgive her."

Richard was walking up and down the room, white with rage, as he said this, and Andy, cowering in a corner, was looking on and listening. He did not speak until Richard declared his incapacity for forgiving Ethie, when he started up, and confronting the angry man, said to him rebukingly:

"Hold there, old Dick! You have gone a leetle too far. If God can forgive you and me all them things we've done, which he knows about, and other folks don't, you can, or or'to forgive sister Ethie, let her sin be what it may. Ethie was young, Dick, and childlike, and so pretty, too, and I 'most know you aggravated her some, if you talked to her as you feel now; and then, too, Dick, and mother, and all of you, I don't care who says it, or thinks it, it's a big lie! Ethie never went off with a man--never! I know she didn't. She wasn't that kind. I'll swear to it in the court. I won't hear anybody say that about her. I'll fight 'em, first, even if 'twas my own kin who did it!" And in his excitement, Andy began to shove back his wrist-bands from his strong wrists, as if challenging someone to the fight he had threatened.

Andy was splendid in his defense of Ethie, and both James and John stepped up beside him, showing their adhesion to the cause he pleaded so well. Ethie might have ran away, but she had surely gone alone, they said, and their advice was that Richard should follow her as soon as possible. But Richard would not listen to such a proposition now, and quietly aided and abetted by his mother, he declared his intention of "letting her alone." She had chosen her course, he said, and she must abide by it. "If she has gone with that villain"--and Richard ground his teeth together--"she can never again come back to me. If she has not gone with him, and chooses to return, I do not say the door is shut against her."

Richard seemed very determined and unrelenting, and, knowing how useless it was to reason with him when in so stern a mood, his brothers gave up the contest, Andy thinking within himself how many, many times a day he should pray for Ethie that she might come back again. Richard would not return to Camden that day, he said. He could not face his acquaintance there until the first shock was over and they were a little accustomed to thinking of the calamity which had fallen upon him. So he remained with his mother, sitting near the window which looked out upon the railroad track over which Ethie had gone. What his thoughts were none could fathom, save as they were expressed by the dark, troubled expression of his face, which showed how much he suffered. Perhaps he blamed himself as he went over again the incidents of that fatal night when he kept Ethelyn from the masquerade; but if he did, no one was the wiser for it, and so the first long day wore on, and the night fell again upon the inmates of the farmhouse. The darkness was terrible to Richard, for it shut out from his view that strip of road which seemed to him a part of Ethie. She had been there last, and possibly looked up at the old home--her first home after her marriage; possibly, too, she had thought of him. She surely did, if, as Andy believed, she was alone in her flight. If not alone, he wanted no thoughts of hers, and Richard's hands were clenched as he moved from the darkening window, and took his seat behind the stove, where he sat the entire evening, like some statue of despair, brooding over his ruined hopes.

The next day brought the Joneses--Melinda and Tim--the latter of whom had heard from Mrs. Amsden's son of Andy's strange errand there. There was something in the wind, and Melinda came to learn what it was. Always communicative to the Jones family, Mrs. Markham told the story without reserve, not even omitting the Van Buren part, but asking as a precaution that Melinda would not spread a story which would bring disgrace on them. Melinda was shocked, astonished, and confounded, but she did not believe in Frank Van Buren. Ethie never went with him--never. She, like Andy, would swear to that, and she said as much to Richard, taking Ethie's side as strongly as she could, without casting too much blame on him. And Richard felt better, hearing Ethie upheld and spoken for, even if it were so much against himself. Melinda was still his good angel, while Ethie, too, had just cause for thanking the kind girl who stood by her so bravely, and even made the mother-in-law less harsh in her expression.

There was a letter for Richard that night, from Harry Clifford, who wrote as follows:

"I do not know whether you found your wife at Mrs. Amsden's or not, but I take the liberty of telling you that Frank Van Buren has returned, and solemnly affirms that if Mrs. Markham was on board the train which left here on the 17th, he did not know it. Neither did he see her at all when in Camden. He called on his way to the depot that night, and was told she was out. Excuse my writing you this. If your wife has not come back, it will remove a painful doubt, and if she has, please burn and forget it. Yours,

"H. CLIFFORD."