No suspicion had ever crossed the generous mind of Miller, although there were times when he felt that his friend was in the way, and wished that his visits might be less frequent and shorter. But such feelings were of rare occurrence. One day, about three years after his marriage, a friend said to him, half in jest, and half in earnest--
"Miller, a"n"t you jealous of Westfield?"
"Oh yes--very jealous," he returned, in mock seriousness.
"I don"t think I would like my wife"s old flame to be quite as intimate with her as Westfield is with your wife."
"Perhaps I would be a little jealous if I believed him to be an old flame."
"Don"t you know it?"
The tone and look that accompanied this question, more than the question itself, produced an instant revulsion in Miller"s feelings.
"No, I do not know it!" he replied, emphatically--"Do _you_ know it?"
Conscious that he had gone too far, the friend hesitated, and appeared confused.
"Why have you spoken to me in the way that you have done? Are you jesting or in earnest?"
Miller"s face was pale, and his lip quivered as he said this.
"Seriously, my friend," replied the other, "if you do not know that Westfield was a suitor to your wife, and only made known his love to her after you had offered her your hand, it is time that you did know it. I thought you were aware of this."
"No, I never dreamed of such a thing. Surely it cannot be true."
"I know it to be true, for I was in correspondence with Westfield, and was fully aware of his sentiments. Your marriage almost set him beside himself."
As soon as Miller could get away from the individual who gave him this startling information, he turned his steps homeward. He did not ask himself why he did so. In fact, there was no purpose in his mind. He felt wretched beyond description. The information just conveyed, awakened the most dreadful suspicions, that would not yield to any effort his generous feelings made to banish them.
On arriving at home, (it was five o"clock in the afternoon,) he found that his wife had gone out; and further learned that Westfield had called for her in a carriage, and that they had ridden out together. This information did not, in the least, tend to quiet the uneasiness he felt.
Going up into the chambers, he noticed many evidences of Anna"s having dressed, herself to go out, in haste. The door of the wardrobe stood open, and also one of her drawers, with her bunch of keys lying upon the bureau. The dress she had on when he left her at dinner-time, had been changed for another, and, instead of being hung up, was thrown across a chair.
The drawer that stood open was her private drawer, in which she kept all her trinkets, and little matters particularly her own. Its contents her husband had never seen, and had never desired to see.
Now, however, something more than mere curiosity prompted him to look somewhat narrowly into its contents. In one corner of this drawer he found a small casket, beautifully inlaid, that had never before come under his notice. Its workmanship was costly and exquisite. He lifted it and examined it carefully, and then taking the bunch of keys that lay before him, tried the smallest in the lock. The lid flew open. A few letters, and a small braid of hair, were its only contents. These letters were addressed to her under her maiden name. The husband was about unfolding one of them, when he let it fall suddenly into the casket, saying, as he did so--
"No, no! I have no right to read these letters. They were not addressed to my wife." With an effort he closed the drawer and forced himself from the room. But the fact that Westfield had been a suitor for the hand of Anna, and was now on terms of the closest intimacy with her, coming up vividly in his mind, he came, after some reflection, to the firm conclusion that he ought to know the contents of letters treasured so carefully--letters that he had every reason now to believe were from Westfield. Their post-mark he had noticed. They were from New Orleans.
After again hesitating and debating the question for some time, he finally determined to know their contents. He read them over and over again, each sentence almost maddening him. They were from Westfield. The reader already knows their contents. From their appearance, it was evident that they had been read over very many times; one of them bore traces of tears. For some time the feelings of Miller were in a state of wild excitement. While this continued, had his wife or Westfield appeared, he would have been tempted to commit some desperate act. But this state gradually gave way to a more sober one. The letters were replaced carefully, the casket locked, and every thing restored to its former appearance. The husband then sat down to reflect, as calmly as was in his power, upon the aspect of affairs. The more he thought, the more closely he compared the sentiments of the letters so carefully treasured with the subsequent familiarity of his wife with Westfield, the more satisfied was he that he had been deeply and irreparably wronged--wronged in a way for which there was no atonement.
As this conviction fully formed itself in his mind, the question of what he should do came up for immediate decision. He had one child, about eighteen months old, around whom his tenderest affections had entwined themselves; but when he remembered that his friend"s intimacy with his wife had run almost parallel with their marriage, a harrowing suspicion crossed his mind, and made his heart turn from the form of beauty and innocence it had loved so purely.
The final conclusion of the agonized husband was to abandon his wife at once, taking with him the corroborating evidence of her unfaithfulness. He returned to her private drawer, and taking from it the letters of Westfield and the braid of hair, placed them in his pocket. He then packed his clothes and private papers in a trunk, which he ordered to be sent to Gadsby"s Hotel. Half an hour, before his wife"s return, he had abandoned her for ever.
When Mrs. Miller came home, it was as late as tea-time. She was accompanied by Westfield, who came into the house with his usual familiarity, intending to share with the family in their evening meal, and enjoy a social hour afterward.
Finding that her husband was not in the parlour--it was past the usual hour of his return--nor anywhere in the house, Mrs. Miller inquired if he had not been home.
"Oh yes, ma"am," said the servant to whom she spoke, "he came home more than two hours ago."
"Did he go out again?" she asked, without suspicion of any thing being wrong.
"Yes, ma"am. He went up-stairs and stayed a good while, and then came down and told Ben to take his trunk to Gadsby"s."
The face of Mrs. Miller blanched in an instant. She turned quickly away and ran up to her chamber. Her drawer, which she had not noticed before, stood open. She eagerly seized her precious casket; this, too, was open, and the contents gone! Strength and consciousness remained long enough for her to reach the bed, upon which she fell, fainting.
When the life-blood once more flowed through her veins, and she was sufficiently restored to see what was pa.s.sing around her, she found the servants and Westfield standing by her bedside. The latter looked anxiously into her face. She motioned him to come near. As he bent his ear low toward her face, she whispered--
"Leave me. You must never again visit this house, nor appear to be on terms of intimacy with me."
"Why?"
"Go, Mr. Westfield. Let what I have said suffice. Neither of us have acted with the prudence that should have governed our conduct, all things considered. Go at once! In time you will know enough, and more than enough."
Westfield still hesitated, but Mrs. Miller motioned him away with an imperative manner; he then withdrew, looking earnestly back at every step.
A gla.s.s of wine and water was ordered by Anna, after drinking which, she arose from the bed, and desired all her domestics to leave the room.
Meantime, her husband was suffering the most poignant anguish of mind. On retiring to a hotel, he sent for the brother of his wife, and to him submitted the letters he had taken from Anna"s casket.
After they had been hurriedly perused, he said--
"You know the intimacy of Westfield with Anna. Put that fact alongside of these letters and their careful preservation, and what is your conclusion?"
"Accursed villain!" exclaimed W----, grinding his teeth and stamping upon the floor, his anger completely overmastering him. "His life shall pay the price of my sister"s dishonour. Madness!"
"You think, then, as I do," said the husband, with forced calmness, "that confidence, nay, every thing sacred and holy, has been violated?"
"Can I doubt? If these were his sentiments," (holding up the letters of Westfield,) "before my sister"s marriage, can they have changed immediately afterward. No, no; our confidence has been basely betrayed. But the wretch shall pay for this dearly."
On the next day W---- called upon Westfield in company with a friend who had possession of the letters, and who read them as a preliminary explanation of the cause of the visit.
"Did you write those letters?" W---- asked, with a stern aspect.
"I certainly did," was the firm reply. "Do you question my right to do so?"
"No: not your right to make known to my sister your sentiments before marriage, but your right to abuse her husband"s confidence after marriage."
"Who dares say that I did?"
"I dare say it," returned the brother, pa.s.sionately.
"You! Bring your proof."
"I want no better proof than the fact that, entertaining sentiments such as are here avowed, you have visited her at all times, and under nearly all circ.u.mstances. You have abused a husband"s and a brother"s confidence. You have lain like a stinging viper in the bosom of friendship."
"It is false!" replied Westfield, emphatically.
W----"s feelings were chafed to the utmost already. This remark destroyed entirely the little self-control that remained. He sprang toward Westfield, and would have grappled his throat, had not his friend, who had feared some such result, been perfectly on his guard, and stepped between the two men in time to prevent a collision.