“Finally I left her, saying that I should expect her to take the next boat back to her father’s and that I would make suitable provision for her maintenance so long as she remained away from Teasdale; and that I desired that she should take with her everything belonging to her or that might help to remind me of her who was once my wife. That was the last time I ever met her.
“When I came back in the evening the nurse told me the mistress had gone away, and the children were in the nursery crying for mamma.
“Here was a feature of the case I had not, in my anger, counted upon. What should I do to appease the children? I concluded to transfer my business to other hands for the time, shut up the house, and take the children to my parents, thinking that perhaps grandma might be the best substitute for mother. This, as soon as I could make the necessary arrangements, I did.
“That night upon returning to my room I read, written in trembling hand upon an open page of my note-book, these words, which are burned into my memory: ‘Markham, my husband,—for God knows no act of mine has made me other than your wife,—I feel that the time will come when my innocence will in some way be vindicated. It may never be while I live, but I cannot believe a just and over-ruling Providence will allow such a foul wrong to be done and the perpetrator to go unpunished. And some day, in some way, justice will be done to me or my memory. Then you may, perhaps, realize the tithe of what I now suffer in the remorse which will follow you to the grave. Deal gently and tenderly with my babies who are to be without a mother, and remember, as you would have God deal justly with you, to keep your promise and allow the little Eva to cheer her mother’s desolate heart at the end of this terribly long probation. May Heaven forgive you and open your eyes to the fatal and terrible mistake you have made, is the prayer of your injured and heart-broken Agnes.’
“Well, we had not been long at their grandmother’s before the children were taken sick with that terrible ravaging disease, diphtheria, and in three short days Arthur and Eva, the youngest boy and the baby girl, were chill and cold in death. I would have sent for their mother, I think, had more time been given me; but they were taken down so suddenly and the disease made such rapid progress that ere I was aware of their danger death had already set its seal upon them, and I could only telegraph their mother the sad tidings that two of her loved ones were no more.
“It was some time before I heard from her, and then came such a letter as I never read before, and have never dared to read a second time, so full was it of hopeless agony and pain. I could not sleep for nights after. The words kept ringing in my ears, together with the plaintive moans of my little ones, who cried for mamma with their last conscious moments. I would think, sometimes, that if I lived until the morning I would take the first train to my wife, and despite her treachery would forgive and take her once more to my heart and trust; but the morning light would dissolve alike my visions and my resolutions, and I had to read but one of Teasdale’s letters to harden my heart to all such sentiments. Do you wonder that I never doubted the genuineness of those letters? How could I doubt with the remembrance of their finding ever before me?
“After the death of my little ones I went to Chicago, that metropolis of bustle and activity, hoping a change of scene and business would lift the pall of gloom that rested upon my spirits. There I became acquainted with my present wife. At the hotel where I boarded we were thrown into daily intercourse, and as I became impressed with the strong, quiet dignity and purity of her life, a warmer sentiment seemed to gradually thaw my heart, the more so as I perceived she manifested an evident partiality for me.
“I found it easy, with the aid of those letters, to procure a divorce from Agnes, in Chicago, and last fall I married my second wife and came here, bringing with us the one child left me, whom you have often seen. I have lived a peaceful and quiet life, and striven so far as possible to banish from my memory and thoughts the scenes of the past—that beautiful and nearly tragical past, the happiest days of my life and the most miserable, until—Well, you were with me in my office when a certain letter was delivered to me but a short time ago, and you witnessed the effect upon me and wondered at my agitation. I promised to explain its cause. You will wonder no longer when I tell you that the letter was from Teasdale and contained a full confession of his villainy. In it he avows the perfect innocence of Agnes, and explains just how and why he secreted the letter in my secretary and wrote the others in her absence, thus wreaking a terrible vengeance on us both.
“Admiring my wife, he hoped if he could in some way separate us he might get her into his power; and when she, with scorn, repelled his slightest advances toward her, and I with threats drove him from the house, he became unscrupulous as to his mode of revenge. He bribed one of the servants to place the letter where I found it, as soon as he learned of my wife’s absence from home, and then sent the other two letters, conceived with diabolical cunning that the result would be just what it has been. And I, blind fool that I was, worked right into his hands, and acted the damnable part of an Othello, entailing a life of misery and lifelong regret upon both myself and my innocent Agnes.
“If I were free I would hasten to her, the bride of my youth, and on bended knee implore her forgiveness of the most grievous wrong ever committed by man upon the gentle being who gave her life into his hands, and whose only fault was having loved and trusted so stupid a fool as I.