Part 28 (2/2)

”'Thank you, my friend, for coming so soon. I am in deep trouble, and need a counselor as well as a comforter. I can trust you for both.'

”I drew my arm around her, so that by act I could give more than the a.s.surance of words, and walked from the door with her to a lounge between the windows, where we sat down. Her face had a shrunken aspect, like the face of one who had been sick; and it showed also the marks of great suffering.

”'You may trust me as your own sister, Delia,' said I, 'and if in my power to counsel or to comfort, both will be freely accorded.'

”I called her Delia, instead of Mrs. Dewey; not from design, but because the old name by which I had known her was first on my lips.

”I thought there was a sudden lifting of her eyes as I p.r.o.nounced this name. The effect, if any followed, was not to repel, but to draw her closer.

”'I am standing,' she said, speaking slowly and solemnly, 'at the edge of a deep abyss, my way hedged up on both sides, and enemies coming on behind. I have not strength to spring over; and to fall is destruction.

In my weakness and despair, I turn to you for help. If there is help in any mortal arm, something tells me it is in yours.'

”She did not weep, nor show strong emotion. But her face was almost colorless, and presented an image of woe such as never met my eyes, except in pictures.

”'You have heard, no doubt,' she went on, 'some of the stories to my discredit which have been circulated in S----. That I was gay and imprudent at Saratoga, cannot be denied--gay and imprudent as are too many fas.h.i.+onable women, under the exciting allurements of the place.

Little fond flirtations with gentlemen made up a part of our pastime there. But as for sin--it was not in my thoughts!' She said this with an emphasis that a.s.sured me of its truth. 'A mere life of fas.h.i.+onable pleasure is a great exhauster of resources. One tires of this excitement and of that, pus.h.i.+ng them aside, as a child does an old or broken toy, to grasp after something new. It is not surprising, therefore, that mere pleasure-seeking women forget at times the just proprieties of life, and, before they are aware of danger, find themselves in very equivocal positions. This was simply my case. Nothing more--nothing less.'

”She paused and looked earnestly into my face, to see if I credited this a.s.sertion.

”'I have never believed any thing else,' said I.

”A faint, sad smile flitted across her wan face.

”'The consequences of this error on my part,' she went on, 'threaten to be of the most disastrous kind. My husband has ever since conducted himself towards me as if I were a guilty and disgraced thing. We occupy separate apartments; and though we sit together at the same table, words rarely pa.s.s between us. Occasionally he comes home under the influence of wine, and then his abuse of me is fearful to think of. If any thing could waken a thoughtless creature sleeping on enchanted ground, it was this.'

”'There has never been anything more than the semblance of love between us,' she continued. 'The more intimately I came to know him, after our marriage, the more did my soul separate itself from him, until the antipodes were not farther apart than we. So we lived on; I seeking a poor compensation in fas.h.i.+onable emulations and social triumphs; and he in grand business enterprises--castles in the air perhaps. Living thus, we have come to this point in our journey; and now the crisis has arrived!'

”She paused.

”' What crisis?' I asked.

”'He demands a separation.' Her voice choked--'a divorce--'

”'On what ground?'

”'On legal ground.' She bent down, covered her face, and uttered a groan so full of mental anguish, that I almost shuddered as the sound penetrated my ears.

”'I am to remain pa.s.sive,' she resumed, while he charges me before the proper court, with infidelity, and gains a divorce through failure on my part to stand forth and defend myself. This, or a public trial of the case, at which he pledges himself to have witnesses who will prove me criminal, is my dreadful alternative. If he gains a divorce quietly on the charge of infidelity, I am wronged and disgraced; and if successful in a public trial, through perjured witnesses, the wrong and disgrace will be more terrible. Oh, my friend! pity and counsel me.'

”'There is one,' said I, 'better able to stand your friend in a crisis like this than I am.'

”'Who?' She looked up anxiously.

”'Your father.'

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