The Tracy diamonds

by Mary Jane Holmes

She was getting excited and began a tirade against Mr. Hilton, while Craig put in now and then a word in his defense, saying he hoped the young people would be happy. He was not as crushed as Mrs. Tracy had expected him to be, and she grew a little cool towards him at the last and told him she should leave on Monday for New York and seclude herself from the society she would be ashamed to meet after Helen’s disgraceful conduct.

“Here is a letter you sent to Helen on Thursday,” she said. “Mr. Taylor brought it to me this afternoon. It is, of course, no use to her now. I shall not forward it. Take it and burn it, if you like.”

Craig took the letter, and, bidding her good night, went to his room, where he found on his dressing bureau another letter which had come for him that morning from New York, and was from Helen. Jeff had brought it up while he was with Mrs. Tracy, and was hovering near the door to speak to him.

“Do you want anything?” he asked. “A hot flat iron for your feet, perhaps? I can bring you one, if you do.”

Jeff knew that Mrs. Tracy had required water bags and flat irons, and thought it possible Craig might like something of the kind. Craig declined the offer, and Jeff went away, leaving him alone with his trouble and Helen’s letter. On opening the envelope a second letter fell out, soiled and crumpled, with tear stains upon it, but with the seal unbroken. It was the first he had sent to her, and she had returned it unread. She had written rather incoherently, as if greatly excited. She did not expect him to forgive her, she said, and she could not help doing what she had done. When Craig asked her to be his wife she had no thought of deceiving him, but she did not then know how much she loved Mr. Hilton, or that he cared for her as he did.

“I am better suited to him than to you,” she wrote. “He knows me, and you do not. I return your letter unread. I found it at the office when I started for the walk with Mark, which resulted in my throwing you over. I could not read it after that. Don’t think that what I have done has not cost me pain, for it has, but I am very happy with Mark, who knows all my faults. I have nothing to conceal from him, while with you I should have been always trying to seem what I was not and to like what I hated, and you would have found me out and been disappointed and shocked. It is better as it is,—a great deal better, and so you will think when the first wrench is over.”

“I believe she is right, but it is very hard now,” Craig said, tearing her letter in bits as he did the other and burning them in the stove in his room.

How happy he had been writing to her,—how happy all the week with thoughts of the girl who had deceived him so cruelly.

“But I will not let it wreck my life,” he said. “She is not worth it.”

Laying his head upon the table, he recalled the past as connected with Helen,—all Jeff had told him of her, all she had said herself, and his mother’s opinion, which weighed more now than it did a week ago. He was beginning to see things more clearly than when the glamour of love was over him, and he writhed for a time in bitter pain for his loss, not only of Helen, but for his loss of faith in her. Then he began to wonder why he felt so faint. The window was open, and it was not so very warm, but something oppressed him like a sweet, powerful odor. Suddenly he remembered the roses. The lid had come off as Jeff put the box on the table, and the room was full of the perfume.