She left the room, and soon returned cloaked and hooded, to find Christian waiting in overcoat and gloves and with hat in hand. With her arm in his they walked in perfect silence through the gay, bustling streets, passing God knows how many other spirits as sad as their own. When they came to the humble little house which was Mary's home, Christian stopped on the step as though he would say something, but Mary said "Good-night," and passed into the hall.
We magazine-writers have no chance in the space allotted to a short story for a quantitative analysis of emotions and situations, or for following the processes by which marked changes come about in the human heart. We must content ourselves with informing the reader that certain changes or modifications ensued, trusting that he will receive the statement without requiring reasons or the modus operandi.
For a time it seemed to Mary Trigillgus that the sun would never shine for her again, but a certain admixture in her feeling of scorn and contempt for Christian prevented her from sinking into a total despondency. As she revolved day after day the strange separation of two lives which should have flowed on together, there grew in her heart a kind of bitterness toward the society which had demanded the separation. And then the diffused bitterness gathered, and was concentrated on the woman and the man who had robbed her of her happiness. Especially did her heart rise against Christian Van Pelt. Gold had won him from her: he had made his choice between gold and her love; and then she would chafe against the poverty which from her earliest recollection had fettered her tastes and aspirations, and at every step had been her humiliation. And then she would feel a wild, unreasoning longing to win gold. What a triumph to earn gold beyond what his wife had brought him—beyond what they would together possess! From the time this thought first occurred to her it never left her except for brief intervals. Day after day, hour after hour, it recurred to her, until she became possessed with it. It was in her dreams by night, and with the day she seized and revolved it, until her brain whirled with delirium. A hundred wild schemes and projects came and went in scurrying confusion. With hungry eyes she read the daily advertisements of "Business Chances," "Partners Wanted," etc., and in answering some of these was led into some strange discoveries and adventures.
"I am mad! I am losing my reason! More gold than their millions! I cannot even make a living for myself, lunatic!" she would say; and straightway in fancy would read in the papers the announcement of a fortune being left to Mary Trigillgus—of great and marvelous riches coming to her—and would thrill with her triumph over Christian Van Pelt. She would even pen these announcements to see how they looked, and read them aloud to study their sound.
Mrs. Trigillgus grew alarmed at her daughter's unaccountable moods. A physician was summoned, who decided that she was overworked, and advised a few months in the country. But Mary refused to leave the city, and continued to search for her "chance."
One day she was reading the New York Tribune, when her eye caught a little paragraph in relation to the eclipse of the sun which was to occur on the twentieth of August, and of the preparations that were being made in the scientific world for its observance—of the universal interest it was exciting, etc. etc.
Mary thought of the amount of smoked glass which would be prepared for the day, then of the soiled fingers, then of a remedy for this, and then—her chance flashed upon her.
For a time she sat there, with kindled eyes, with throbbing heart and brain, revolving and shaping her thought. Then she put on her hat and took the omnibus for Mr. Ten Eyck's office.
"Mr. Ten Eyck," she said, after the customary commonplaces, "you once said that you would be glad to serve my mother. Are you as willing to serve her daughter?"
"Certainly," replied Mr. Ten Eyck, growing a little uneasy; "that is, if I can, you understand."