He looked down at the bottom of the last page, to learn who his correspondent was, and saw, with surprise, and not a little annoyance, that it was signed "Anonymous."
He was about to crush it in his hand and toss it into the waste-paper basket, when it occurred to him that he might as well learn its contents.
There were but two pages, and they read as follows:
"To DOCTOR JAY GARDINER, ESQ., Ocean House, Newport.
"_Dear Sir_--I know the utter contempt in which any warning given by an anonymous writer is held, but, notwithstanding this, I feel compelled to communicate by this means, that which has become the gossip of Newport--though you appear to be strangely deaf and blind to it.
"To be as brief as possible, I refer to the conduct of your wife"s flirtations, flagrant and above board, with Victor Lamont, the English lord, or duke, or count, or whatever he is. I warn you to open your eyes and look about, and listen a bit, too.
"When your wife, in defiance of all the proprieties, is seen riding alone with this Lamont at midnight, when you are known to be away, it is time for a stranger to attempt to inform the husband.
"Yours with respect,
"AN ANONYMOUS FRIEND."
For some moments after he had finished reading that letter, Jay Gardiner sat like one stunned; then slowly he read it again, as though to take in more clearly its awful meaning.
"Great G.o.d!" he cried out; "can this indeed be true?"
If it was, he wondered that he had not noticed it. Then he recollected, with a start of dismay, that since they had been domiciled at the Ocean House he had not spent one hour of his time with Sally that could be spent elsewhere. He had scarcely noticed her; he had not spoken to her more than half a dozen times. He had not only shut her out from his heart, but from himself.
He had told himself over and over again that he would have to shun his wife or he would hate her.
She had seemed satisfied with this so long as she was supplied with money, horses and carriages, laces and diamonds.
Was there any truth in what this anonymous letter stated--that she had so far forgotten the proprieties as to ride with this stranger.
He springs from his seat and paces furiously up and down the length of the room, the veins standing out on his forehead like whip-cords. He forgets that it is almost morning, forgets that he is tired.
He goes straight to his wife"s room. He turns the k.n.o.b, but he can not enter for the door is locked. He knocks, but receives no answer, and turning away, he enters his own apartment again, to wait another hour.
Up and down the floor he walks.
Can what he has read be true? Has the girl whom he has married, against his will, as it were, made a laughing-stock of him in the eyes of every man and woman in Newport? _Dared_ she do it?
He goes out into the hall once more, and is just in time to see his wife"s French maid returning from breakfast. He pushes past the girl, and strides into the inner apartment.
Sally is sitting by the window in a pale-blue silk wrapper wonderfully trimmed with billows of rare lace, baby blue ribbons and jeweled buckles, her yellow hair falling down over her shoulders in a rippling ma.s.s of tangled curls.
Jay Gardiner does not stop to admire the pretty picture she makes, but steps across the floor to where she sits.
"Mrs. Gardiner," he cries, hoa.r.s.ely, "if you have the time to listen to me, I should like a few words with you here and now."
Sally"s guilty heart leaps up into her throat.
How much has he discovered of what happened last night? Does he know all?
He is standing before her with flushed face and flashing eyes. She cowers from him, and if guilt was ever stamped on a woman"s face, it is stamped on hers at that instant. If her life had depended upon it, she could not have uttered a word.
"Read that!" he cried, thrusting the open letter into her hand--"read that, and answer me, are those charges false or true?"
For an instant her face had blanched white as death, but in the next she had recovered something of her usual bravado and daring. That heavy hand upon her shoulder seemed to give her new life.
She took in the contents of the letter at a single glance, and then she sprung from her seat and faced him defiantly. Oh, how terribly white and stern his face had grown since he had entered that room.
"Did you hear the question I put to you, Mrs. Gardiner?" he cried, hoa.r.s.ely, his temper and his suspicions fairly aroused at Sally"s expression.
The truth of the words in the anonymous letter is slowly forcing itself upon him.
If ever a woman looked guilty, _she_ did at that moment. She stands trembling before him, her eyes fixed upon the floor, her figure drooping, her hands tightly clasped.
"Well?" he says, sharply; and she realizes that there is no mercy in that tone; he will be pitiless, hard as marble.
"It ought never to have been," she said, as if speaking to herself. "I wish I could undo it."
"You wish you could undo what?" asked her husband, sternly.
"Our marriage. It was all a mistake--all a mistake," she faltered.
She must say something, and those are the first words that come across her mind. While he is answering them, she will have an instant of time to think what she will say about the contents of the letter.
Deny it she will with her latest breath. Let him _prove_ that she went riding with Victor Lamont--_if he can!_
Jay Gardiner"s face turns livid, and in a voice which he in vain tries to make steady, he says:
"How long have you thought so?"
"Since yesterday," she answered, her eyes still fixed on the floor.
"Since yesterday"--Jay Gardiner is almost choking with anger as he repeats her words--"since you, another man"s wife, took that midnight ride which this letter refers to?"
The sarcasm which pervades the last words makes her flush to the roots of her yellow hair.
"But that I am too much amused, I should be tempted to be angry with you for believing a story from such a ridiculous source," she declared, raising her face defiantly to his.
"Then you deny it?" he cried, grasping her white arm. "You say there is no truth in the report?"
"Not one word," she answered. "I left the ball-room early, because it was lonely for me there _without you_, and came directly to my room.
Antoinette could have told you that had you taken the pains to inquire of her."
"It would ill become me to make such an inquiry of a servant in my employ," he replied. "You are the one to answer me."
"If the ridiculous story _had_ been true, you could not have wondered at it much," she declared, with a hard glitter in her eye, and a still harder laugh on her red lips. "When a man neglects his wife, is it any wonder that she turns to some one else for amus.e.m.e.nt and--and comfort?"
"Call your maid at once to pack up your trunks. We leave the Ocean House within an hour."
With these words, he strode out of the room, banging the door after him.