“Miss Lowe threw shame to the winds. She refused to go, and taunted me with having won my husband from me. I threatened to sue him for divorce, naming her as co-respondent. She retorted that it was what they both wished, in order that he might obtain his freedom to marry her. Without a word to my husband—for we had long been estranged through our differences over her—I left my home, taking my little son, and accompanied by my father, who fully sympathized with my grievances and despised the authors of my unhappiness. I then carried out my threat of suing my husband for divorce, implicating Miss Lowe. To cut the story short, my husband fought against the divorce; but his shameless ward helped it on by every art in her power, never denying the charges against her; and it was soon granted, giving me the custody of our son and the liberty to resume my maiden name. Mr. Dawn removed from Florida to Georgia, where Miss Lowe followed him, and within a few months he married her, thus proving his falsity to me.”
Her story was ended, and she leaned her head back against Arthur’s shoulder, closing her eyes to shut out the sight of the surprised and pitying faces to whom she had just confessed the story of her life’s humiliation.
“Bravely done, dear mother!” whispered Arthur, with a gentle kiss on her cold cheek.
“It is my turn now,” said Everard Dawn, with a heavy sigh, and Doctor Deane rejoined:
“I can not permit you to talk very long, my dear patient.”
“It will not be necessary, sir, for Mrs. Varian has saved me the trouble of a long explanation. What she has related is perfectly true on the face of it, but behind the tragedy of our divorce lie the actual facts of the terrible mistakes of a jealous woman and a heedless man too secure of his great happiness to guard it close enough.”
A great thrill ran through the listeners, as he continued:
“I hold myself to blame that I was impatient of my wife’s jealousy, and laughed at her fears that Miss Lowe was trying to win my heart. I pitied my ward for her orphanage and poverty, and I was too generous to believe that she was aught but a joyous-hearted girl whose little kittenish coquetries amounted to nothing. I was simply blind, besides being inordinately proud and passionately resentful of my wife’s unjust suspicions. I loved her to idolatry, and her lack of faith angered me. I carried everything with too high a hand, perhaps, but I did not dream to what lengths the affair was going.”
Doctor Deane interposed gently:
“You are exhausting your strength by too long a discourse.”