She threw herself weeping into the chair where he had sat but just now.
"Gone—and forever!" she sobbed in bitterest agony, and there came over her a longing to die and be at rest from her sorrow. Life seemed too bitter to be borne, now that the last hope had failed, and Ralph had gone from her "forever."
[CHAPTER LIX.]
OH, RALPH CHAINEY, WAKE!
How murderers walk the earth,
Beneath the curse of Cain,
With crimson clouds before their eyes
And flames about their brain;
For blood has left upon their souls
Its everlasting stain!
The Dream of Eugene Aram.
Ralph Chainey left the presence of his loved and lost Kathleen with a heart full of bitterness and pain, and hurried home.
He had concluded his engagement in Boston the previous evening, and it was a great relief to him, for he was eager to get away from the city that held Kathleen. Stay there, and see her wedded to another, he could not! That way lay madness.
He had dismissed his company for several months. He was going to travel, he said, although the manager pointed out to him that now was the time to reap a golden harvest, if ever. He was even more popular now than before, if such a thing could be. The divorce proceedings had given him notoriety. People who had not gone to see him act before, went now, just for a sight of his handsome face.