They formed a striking contrast as they sat there—she so pretty, careless, saucy, and indifferent; he so haggard with illness, and with that watchful, distrustful look on his face. And yet, it had been a love-match; he loved her to idolatry, and she, rejecting perhaps worthier suitors, at the age of sixteen had run away from school and eloped with Edgar Courtney. Willard Drummond had been among the rejected ones. Before the honey-moon was over, the wild girl had found she had married a jealous, exacting tyrant, who hated every man on whom she smiled, and would have kept her locked up, where no eye but his own could ever rest upon her, had he dared.
At first little Laura submitted to his caprices, because she loved him, or thought she did; but as he grew more and more exacting, this love died wholly away, and the little bride awoke one morning in dismay to find she had made a life-long mistake. Still, she was too good and generous to strive to lay the blame on him for taking advantage of her youth and romantic impulse to fly with him, and would have laughed and danced on as merrily as ever with him through life, without letting him know it, had not his own conduct brought on the denouement.
He continued to be tyrannical. Laura naturally proud and high-spirited, grew at length very tired of his absurd fancies and wishes, and vowed she would no longer be a "meek, submissive wife." But, though inwardly despising him herself, she would allow no one else to speak slightingly of him, as her first interview with Willard Drummond proved. And all the previous night she had hovered over his bedside, anticipating his every want with the most tender and vigilant care; and it was only when, the next morning, he found himself able to get up, that she had resumed her accustomed air of careless indifference to himself and his wishes. Had he been more generous and less suspicious—had he had faith in his young wife, she would have loved him and been his alone; but had he really wished to make her hate him, he could not have taken a surer plan to bring such a result than the one he did.
All this long digression is necessary, that too much blame may not be thrown upon the shoulders of the poor little girl-bride for her reckless conduct and the awful catastrophe that followed.
When Willard and the doctor entered, Christie, who had anxiously waited for this opportunity, seeing Mrs. Tom busily engaged, touched her husband on the arm, and, whispering "Follow me," left the house.
He unhesitatingly obeyed, and overtook her near the end of the garden, where, pale and troubled, she stood, leaning against a tree.
"Weil, Christie, what is it?" he asked, in surprise.
"Willard," she said, lifting her reproachful eyes to his face, "Sibyl Campbell was here last night!"
"Well!" he said, starting and coloring deeply.
"Oh, Willard! she told me all—how you had deceived her, and deceived me! Oh, Willard! how could you do so?"