"Could she have destroyed herself?"
"Just as likely as not; she was the sort of desperate person likely to do it, and she had no fear of death, or eternity, or anything that way. Well, he was frantic when he found she was lost forever, and would have given even every cent he was worth in the world for the least tidings of her, dead or alive, but it was all a waste of ammunition; and, maddened and despairing, he fled from the scene of disaster, sprang on board a steamship bound for Europe, and was off. But he couldn't stay away; he couldn't rest anywhere, so he came back, and plunged headlong into the giddy maelstrom of politics, and became the man of the people—the Demosthenes; the magnificent orator whose lips, to quote the Political Thunderbolt, 'have been touched with coals of living fire;' a pleasant simile, I should think. Poor Rich! they don't know the crucible of suffering from which this fiery, impassioned eloquence has sprung. Ambition will be to him for the rest of his mortal life, wife, and family, and home, for he is not the man to dream for a second of ever marrying again."
"A sad story! And yet he can smile, and jest, and talk gayly, as I heard him half an hour ago, when he was the very life and soul of the company."
"He must—it is expected of him; a man of the people must please the people; and besides, he does it to drown thought; he tries to forget for a time the gnawing remorse that, if indulged, would drive him mad. He lives two lives—the inward and outward—and both as essentially different as day from night. He believes himself the murderer of his wife; in fact, an old lady who brought her up—for the girl was an orphan—told him so, and would not look at him or let him in her house. His mother, touched with remorse, confessed what she had done, and thus he learned all his wife had so silently suffered. It was enough to drive a more sober man insane, and that's the truth. Ah! there was more than one sad heart after her when she went. Poor little Emily Murray! the nicest, and best, and prettiest girl from here to sundown, was nearly broken-hearted. I offered her my own hand and fortune, though I didn't happen to have such an article about me, and she gave me my dismissal on the spot. Heigho! Burnfield's done for poor old Rich and me."
"What! Burnfield, did you say?" exclaimed Randall, with a start.
"Yes, Burnfield. You have no objections to it, I hope?"
"You—did you know—did you ever happen to hear of a widow and a little girl by the name of Darrell there?" said Mr. Randall, in an agitated voice.
"Well, I should think I did—rather!" said Curtis emphatically. "The widow died one night, and the little girl was brought up by one Miss Jerusha Skamp of severe memory, and it's of her I have been talking for the last half-hour, if you mean Georgia Darrell."
"What!" exclaimed Randall, wildly, as he sprang to his feet. "Do you mean to tell me that Georgia Darrell grew up in Burnfield, and was the wretched wife of Richmond Wildair?"
"Indeed I do," replied Curtis, with increasing emphasis. "Why, what the dickens is the matter with you? What does all this mean?"