"I can—ruin!"
"I am ruined. All is gone. I am a beggar."
She started back, turning whiter than her dress, and leaned heavily against a chair.
"Ruined!" she repeated. "A beggar!"
"Ugly words, are they not? but quite true. I did not know it until last night; Kearstall came from town to tell me. My last grand speculation has failed, and in its failure engulfed everything. I am as poor as the poorest laborer on this estate; poorer than I was five years ago, before this fortune was left me."
There was a sort of savage pleasure in thus hideously putting things in their ugliest light. Rich or poor, she despised him alike. What need was there for him to mince matters?
"There are your settlements, your six hundred a-year and the Dover farm, that crumb of the loaf is left, and remains yours. I am sorry for you, Mrs. Fletcher—sorry that your sacrifice of youth and loveliness, on the altar of Mammon, has been in vain. I had hoped, when I married you, of winning some return for the limitless love I gave you. I know to-night how futile that hope has been. Once again, for your sake, I am sorry; for myself I do not care. The world is a wide place, and I can win my way. I give you your freedom, the only reparation for marrying you in my power to make. I leave here to-night, New York to-morrow; and so—farewell!"
She stood like a stone; he turned and left her. Once she had made a movement, seeing the white anguish of his face, as though to go to him—but she did not. He was gone, and she dropped down in the rose-and-silver glitter of her fairy-room, as miserable a woman as day ever dawned on.
A month later, and she was far away, buried alive in the Dover Cottage. All had gone; the nine days wonder was at an end; the "rich Fletcher" and his handsome wife had disappeared out of the magic whirl of society; and society got on very well without them. They had been, and they were not—and the story was told. Of all who had broken bread with the ruined man, there were not two who cared a fillip whether he were living or dead.