“Martin Vanderlyn, from his wife.” Although prepared to know the truth, almost knowing it before she came into the room, Agnes feels her cheeks and lips grow pale; but she has always great command of herself, and now has not been taken quite by surprise.
“My husband is not a Catholic, although that book bears his name,” says Mrs. Vanderlyn. “Perhaps he is a relative of yours,” she adds, looking inquiringly at her guest.
“I never heard my husband speak of any relative of that name,” Agnes says. “The name is not a very common one, either. It seems strange that two of us should meet here. Is your husband absent?” She has remarked that Mrs. Vanderlyn had said, “My husband is not a Catholic,” and the avoidance of the use of the past tense gives her the chance to put her question, which she does to cover her own confusion, and mislead the lady as to herself. An expression of pain passes over Mrs. Vanderlyn’s face, as she quietly replies:
“Yes; he is absent, travelling.” It is not the first time that the poor lady has been obliged to answer a similar question, so she is not much disturbed; but Agnes feels sorry she has asked it. Mrs. Vanderlyn goes on speaking of her increased indisposition: “Mr. Vanderlyn does not know how very rapid has been the progress of the disease. I am much worse now than when he left home.”
Agnes cannot find it in her heart to ask how long it is since he left her. She thinks she knows, and she thinks she understands that Mrs. Vanderlyn does not wish her to know that she is a divorced woman. She respects this as a delicacy of feeling which her own position fully teaches her to appreciate. With her present knowledge of Martin Vanderlyn as a husband, her sympathies are all with his wife. She believes now that it was his fault and not hers which made the trouble between them. Her strong good sense tells her that Mrs. Vanderlyn being a Catholic was no sufficient reason for his separating from her; and she cannot believe that this lady has been a disagreeable companion to live with.
Overwhelmed with all the thoughts surging in her mind, she soon takes her leave, all the sooner that she hears her boy calling to her.
“You have a little son,” Mrs. Vanderlyn remarks. “Will you not bring him in to see me? I am very fond of children, and the only one I had is dead; I shall soon meet her, I hope. But to-morrow you will bring your boy to see me, will you not?” And she holds her hand out to Agnes, and looks wistfully in her face. Agnes is touched almost to tears as she promises.
The next day, with her “curled darling” clinging to her skirts, she goes to see this sister, as she somehow feels Mrs. Vanderlyn to be to her. Are they not both the deserted wives of the same man? And she feels that this one is more truly the wife than herself, in spite of all the law can do for her. And it has not escaped her notice that Mrs. Vanderlyn spoke of Martin as her husband still.
As she approaches Mrs. Vanderlyn, little George is hiding his face in her skirts, only allowing himself to look out, from time to time, between his fingers, at the lady. No urging from his mother seems likely to get him out of his intrenchment.
“Let him alone,” Mrs. Vanderlyn says; “that is the way with many children. When we stop urging him, he will show himself of his own accord.”