“Jacqueline had been burning letters. Do you blame me for picking out those scraps and hastening with them to another room, when I tell you they were written in a marked and characteristic hand that bore little or no resemblance to that of her accepted lover, and that the words which flashed first upon my eye were those ominous ones of my wife !
“They were three in number, and while more or less discolored and irregular, were still legible. Think child with what a thrill of horror and sharp motherly anguish, I read such words as ‘Love you! I would press you in my arms if you were plague-stricken! The least turn of your head makes my blood cringe, as if a flame had touched me. I would follow you on my knees, if you led me round the world. Let me see Robert take your hand again and I will—’
“ ‘Forget you! Do we forget the dagger that has struck us? I am another man since—’
“ ‘I will have you if Robert goes mad and your father kills me. That I am burdened with a wife, is nothing. What is a wife that I do not—’ ‘You shall be my true wife, my—’
“ ‘Tonight then, be ready; I will wait for you at the gate. A little resolution on your part, and then—’
“I could read no further. The living, burning truth had forced itself upon me, that Jacqueline, our darling, our pride, the soul of our life, stood tottering upon the brink of a gulf horrible as the mouth of hell. For I never doubted for an instant what her answer would be to this entreaty. In all her past life, God pity us, there had been no tokens of that immovable hold on virtue, that would save her in such an extremity as this. Nevertheless, to make all sure, I flew back to her room, and tearing open bureau drawers and closet doors, discovered that her prettiest things had been sent away. She was going, then, and on that very night! and her father did not even know she was untrue to her betrothed lover.