Governor Markham's wife was not dead, as they had supposed. She was a shameless creature, who eight or ten years before eloped with a man a great deal younger than herself. She was very beautiful, people said, and very fascinating, and the governor worshiped the ground she trod upon. He took her going off very hard at first, and for years scarcely held up his head. But lately he had seemed different, and had been more favorable to a divorce, as advised by his friends. This, however, was after he met Miss Sallie Morton, whose father was a millionaire in Chicago, and whose pretty face had captivated the grave governor. To get the divorce was a very easy matter there in the West, and the governor was now free to marry again. As Miss Morton preferred Davenport to any other place in Iowa, he had built him a magnificent house upon a bluff, finishing it elegantly, and taking untold pains with the suite of rooms intended for his bride. As Miss Sallie objected to marrying him while he was so much of an invalid, he had come to Clifton, hoping to reestablish his health so as to bring home his wife in the autumn, for which event great preparations were making in the family of Miss Sallie.
This was the story as told by Mrs. Pry, and considering that it had only come to her through eight or ten different persons, she repeated the substance of it pretty accurately, and then stopped for Ethie's comment. But Ethie had nothing to say, and when, surprised at her silence, Mrs. Pry asked if she believed it at all, there was still no reply, for Ethelyn had fainted. The reaction was too great from the bright anticipations of the hour before, to the crushing blow which had fallen so suddenly upon her hopes. That a patient at Clifton should faint was not an uncommon thing. Mrs. Pry had often felt like it herself when just out of a pack, or a hot sulphur bath, and so Ethie's faint excited no suspicion in her mind. She was fearful, though, that Miss Bigelow had not heard all the story, but Ethie assured her that she had, and then added that if left to herself she might possibly sleep, as that was what she needed. So Mrs. Pry departed, and Ethie was alone with the terrible calamity which had come upon her. She had been at the Water Cure long enough to know that not more than half of what she heard was true, and this story she knew was false in the parts pertaining to herself and her desertion of her husband. She had never heard before that she was suspected of having had an associate in the flight, and her cheeks crimsoned at the idea, while she wondered if Richard had ever thought that of her. Not at first, she knew, else he had never sought for her so zealously as Aunt Barbara had intimated; but latterly, as he had heard no tidings from her, he might have surmised something of the kind, and that was the secret of the divorce.