Naturally his friends abandoned him.
“Craddock is making a beast of himself,” said one who had formerly sat at his table. “To give him money merely accelerates the process.”
“When a man loses all self-respect, how can he expect to retain the sympathy of other people?” queried a second.
“I never thought much of a man who would go to the gutter on account of a woman. It shows a lack of stamina,” observed a third.
All of which was true. But particular cases have exceptionally aggravating circumstances. Special combinations may produce results which, although seemingly under human control, are almost, if not quite, inevitable.
One day Craddock's wife came back to him. In Paris she had made a discovery. She had kept the letter from Jack to the actress in a box that always accompanied her. Opening this box suddenly, her eye fell upon the postmark, stamped upon the envelope. She had never noticed this before. She knew that the date written above the letter itself was incomplete, the year not being indicated. According to the postmark, the year was 1875.
That was four years before Jack married her; two years before he first saw her.
She had always supposed the sending of the letter to her to be the act of some jealous rival of Jack's for the actress's affection. Now she knew not to what it might have been attributable.
When she arrived at the hospital where Craddock was recovering from the effects of an unconscious attempt at suicide, she was ten years older, in fact, than when she had left him; twenty years older in appearance. She took him home and has been trying to make a man of him. She manifests toward him limitless patience and tenderness, and she tolerates uncomplainingly his bi-weekly carousals. But she can afford to, having come into possession of a small fortune at her mother's recent death.
Craddock is amiably content with her. He cannot bring himself to regard her as the beautiful young bride of his youth. So little remains of her former charm, her former vivacity and girlishness, that it seems as if Craddock's wife of other times had died.