His domestic life would, in time, become a monotonous restraint.
In dismissing him, I will always believe that he thought often during the years of his aimless existence of Mariposilla. Her beautiful dark eyes, flooded with adoring love, must have haunted many of the indifferent hours spent with his highly refined, philosophical wife.
After the first cool understanding, when both the man and the woman acknowledged the disappointment that each felt in the other, their lives would run on quietly and indifferently, each moved by separate interests that enormous wealth made possible.
Their elegant home I can readily picture. Artistic rooms, undisturbed by little meddlers. Silent halls, in which echoed no voices of children.
Dark shades, often drawn close before the windows of a mansion deserted for months at a time, by reason of the protracted absence of both mistress and master, who seldom traveled in the same direction, finding, as the years made plainer the remoteness of their tastes and principles, that antipodal distances alone could insure for each a comparative comfort.
I learned from authority that Mrs. Sanderson escaped old age.
On the verge of the dreaded boundaries of infirmity her selfish energies gave way. An unexpected puff of disappointment chilled her nerve, while it extinguished, midway in its socket, the brilliant candle that had cheered no lonely heart, had illuminated no sorrowing soul.
For Mariposilla alone the announcement of Sidney's marriage contained crushing evidences of his final desertion. The poor child had always believed that her lover would return. We had never been able to convince her of the hopelessness of the dream.
Now that the blow had at last descended, we hoped for much.
Through all the long weeks we had done nothing but wait. Even now we must wait still longer. We dared not show impatience at the child's terrible grief, when she remained as one stunned, refusing, day after day, our sympathy and society.