He had come to New York, a talented struggler. Now he was a millionaire, chief proprietor of a great publishing house, which had become great under his management, and he loved to make the road a little smoother for those less able and less fortunate.
Cartice loved him, it is true; but not as the common mind understands the term. Sometimes her eyes grew moist, while she looked at him and wished she might have a chance to prove her gratitude. He was to her like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. In the weakness of spirit ages have bred in her sex, she regarded him as a wall that stood between her and possible calamity.
“I need fear no financial disaster, while he lives,” she thought. “His hand will be ever friendly; his heart ever kind.”
Farnsworth was far above the average of men, but he had a serious weakness of character that made curious comradeship with his better attributes. Anybody, the least trustworthy, the most malicious, could sow in him seeds of suspicion against his best friend, and in ten hours they would be full-grown trees, loaded with bitter and baneful fruit. When this happened his kindness vanished and he could be as cruel as hate. His conscience fled the field, whenever his vanity was ruffled.
Knowing this a woman poisoned his mind against Cartice Doring, by a few lying words—a woman who believed it would be to her interest to get Cartice out of her way. The seed sown sprouted, grew, blossomed and bore fruit within twenty-four hours.
The next day Cartice found a note of dismissal on her desk, the curtness of which was incompatible with the pretensions of a gentleman, if addressed to one merely in the capacity of employee. But when the employee was a social equal, a faithful friend of years and a lady, it showed a lack of self-control on the part of the writer seldom surpassed.
The tenor of it was that, as she was “not doing justice” to the work entrusted to her care, her services were dispensed with. A check for the whole of the unfinished week was enclosed.
Cartice read the letter and sat like one frozen, and the heart-breaking, unbearable look of long ago came again into her eyes.
Every one who has received an unexpected, felling blow from the hand of a friend can understand the blended astonishment and anguish of that moment.
She knew who had turned Farnsworth against her and why it had been done, but that could not help the irremediableness of the situation. She could not go to Farnsworth and mortify him by telling him this; and she knew his implacable spirit too well to hope that he would so much as allow her an audience. Serious as was the blow to her finances, its worst effect was on her heart. Black and deep are the bruises made by the hands we love.