He showed this letter to his brother, and David only smiled. "Let me see your manager"s letter, Robert," he asked, and when he had read it, he smiled still more significantly.
"I do not think your letters need give you any anxiety, Robert," he said. "The letter from Andrew Starkie, your manager, is dated two days later than mother"s, and he does not even name a strike among your workers. He seems troubled only because the orders are so large he is afraid that the cash left at his command will not be sufficient to carry them out. We can send more money to-day. I see no necessity for you to hurry. I want you to take a sail up to Vancouver, and another sail down to the Isthmus. You have given me no time yet. And what about your position with Theodora?"
"I must find that out immediately. The day after I came, I gave her a ring she valued highly--a ring that her pupils presented to her. It had been stolen, and I recovered it, and she was delighted when I put it on her finger. But when I offered her the wedding ring she returned it to me, she shook her head, closed her eyes, and would not look at it."
"Try her again. She has changed since then. I am sure she loves you now."
"I am just going to her," and he turned away with such a mournful look that his brother called him back.
"Look here, Robert," he said, "faint heart never won fair lady, or anything else for that matter. Your face is enough to frighten any woman. Women do not fancy despairers."
"David, you don"t know what a hopeless task it is to court your wife.
She knows all your weak points, and just how most cruelly to snub you."
"That is not Theodora"s way! Speak to her kindly, but bravely. Be straight in all you say, for I declare to you she _feels_ a lie."
"Great heavens! I should think I know that, David. I was often forced to break my promises to her, or in the stress of business I forgot them; and at last, she never noticed any promise I made. It used to make me angry."
"What made you angry?"
"O, the change in her face, when I said I would do anything. She never contradicted me in words, but I knew she was mentally throwing my promise over her shoulder. It was not pleasant."
"Very unpleasant--to her."
"I meant to myself."
"Well, Robert, when you are going to ask a woman to do you a miraculous favor, do not think of yourself, think of her. Forget yourself, this morning."
"O, I think constantly of Theodora."
David looked queerly at his brother, and seemed on the point of asking him a question, but he likely thought it useless. Robert went off trying to look hopeful and brave, but inwardly in a muddle of anxious uncertainty, because of his mother"s letter. He found Theodora in a shady corner of the piazza; she was reclining in a Morris chair, and thinking of him. Her loving smile, her happy leisure, her morning freshness and beauty, her outstretched hand, made an entrancing picture.
He placed a chair at her side, and sat down, and Theodora after a glance into his face asked:
"O, knight of the rueful countenance, what troubles you this beautiful morning?"
"I have had letters from home," he answered; "not pleasant letters."
"From your mother, then?"
"One of them is from mother."
"She could not write a pleasant letter, and if she could, she would not."
"Will you read it?"
"I would not cast my eyes upon anything her eyes have looked on."
"She says enough to make it necessary for me to go home."
"Home?"
"It is the only home I have. You----"
"Do not include me, in any remark about your home."
"Once you made my home your home."
"Never! There was no such thing as home, in Traquair House."
"But, my darling Dora--my darling wife----"
"I am not your wife. When I sent you the wedding ring back--that you said was yours, not mine--I divorced myself from all a wife"s duties, pains, and penalties."
"You are my wife, and nothing but my death can make you free."
"Oh, but you are mistaken! You made a solemn contract with me, and you broke every condition of that contract."
"Suppose I did, that----"
"Your faithlessness made the contract null and void----"
"The law of England----"
"I care nothing about the law of England. I am now an American citizen."
"But, Dora, my dear, dear love, you will surely go back to Glasgow with me?"
"Not for all creation! I would rather die."
"Am I to go back alone? That is too cruel."
"Why do you wish to go back?"
"Have you considered my business, Dora?"
"No, I have thought only of you."
"But you must think of my business. How can you expect me to give it up?
Why, the "Campbell Iron Works" are almost historic. They were founded by my great-grandfather. They are making more money under my management than ever they did before."
"If you put your historic iron works before me, you are not worthy of me."
"My mother"s, and my sister"s livelihoods are in the works. They look to me to protect them."
"If you put your mother, and your sisters before me, you are not worthy of me."
"They love me, Dora."
"Your mother has many investments. She is rich. Your sisters are well married. Neither of them would put you before their husbands, why should you put them before your wife and son? If they had loved you, they would not have broken up your home, and driven your wife and child away from you. You were a provider of cash, a giver of social prestige to them--no more."