"Oh Grace!" it read, "you know that I adore you--too well, too well! for I cannot bear to live with you and know that your heart--the heart I thought so wholly and entirely mine--has ever held the image of another! You should have told me of this before we married. You wronged me bitterly, Gracie, but I will not upbraid you. Still, until I can learn to curb this jealous passion of mine, I will not, cannot remain where you are. I should only render you miserable. You and my boy will remain in my home--remember, I command this--and you will draw on my banker as usual for what sums you may need or want. I do not limit you in anything, my wife, my own idolized wife--please yourself in all things, do as you like, and try to be content and happy. If I can ever overcome this jealous madness--can ever reconcile myself to knowing that I was _second_ instead of first in your pure heart, I will come to you, but not till then. Try to be happy with our little boy, and forgive your own, erring, unhappy
White and still as marble, the deserted wife sat holding that mad note in her hand, looking before her into vacancy, moveless, speechless--yes, and pallid as she would ever be in her coffin.
A terrible, overwhelming sense of her desolation rushed upon her; but, strangely enough, her first thoughts were not of her husband in his jealous grief, but of herself--of the scandal, the disgrace, the nine-days' wonder that would follow all this. She knew her husband well enough to know that once his mad resolve was taken it would be adhered to.
He was no Bruce Conway, with wavering, doubting will, that could be blown aside by a passing breeze. Firm, proud, sensitive, but unbending as adamant, was Paul Winans when once his resolution was taken. No one knew it better than his wife, though he had ever been kind and loving to her.
A dumb horror settled on her soul as she realized the meaning of his letter. He blamed her as having willfully deceived him. She had not meant to do so; she had not thought it a matter of any moment to Paul Winans whether or not she had loved before she met him. Other men would not have cared--why should he? He had not questioned her, had taken her past for granted. How could she tell him of that unsought, scorned, neglected love that had darkly shadowed the joy of her young girlhood? He was unjust to her. She felt it keenly in the midst of her sufferings.