When he had gone, she closed the window and bolted it, and, going to the chimney-piece, placed the letters, one by one, in the flame of the candle until they were consumed. I would not have the reader think, that, during this painful operation, she was unmoved. Her hand trembled, and--not being a brute--for some minutes (perhaps longer) she felt very badly, and the corners of her sensitive mouth were depressed. When her husband arrived, it was with a genuine joy that she ran to him, and nestled against his broad breast with a feeling of security that thrilled the honest fellow to the core.
“But I've heard dreadful news to-night, Elsie,” said Mr. Decker, after a few endearments were exchanged.
“Don't tell me any thing dreadful, dear: I'm not well to-night,” she pleaded sweetly.
“But it's about Mr. Oakhurst and Hamilton.”
“Please!” Mr. Decker could not resist the petitionary grace of those white hands and that sensitive mouth, and took her to his arms. Suddenly he said, “What's that?”
He was pointing to the bosom of her white dress. Where Mr. Oakhurst had touched her, there was a spot of blood.
It was nothing: she had slightly cut her hand in closing the window; it shut so hard! If Mr. Decker had remembered to close and bolt the shutter before he went out, he might have saved her this. There was such a genuine irritability and force in this remark, that Mr. Decker was quite overcome by remorse. But Mrs. Decker forgave him with that graciousness which I have before pointed out in these pages. And with the halo of that forgiveness and marital confidence still lingering above the pair, with the reader's permission we will leave them, and return to Mr. Oakhurst.
But not for two weeks. At the end of that time, he walked into his rooms in Sacramento, and in his old manner took his seat at the faro-table.
“How's your arm, Jack?” asked an incautious player.
There was a smile followed the question, which, however, ceased as Jack looked up quietly at the speaker.
“It bothers my dealing a little; but I can shoot as well with my left.”
The game was continued in that decorous silence which usually distinguished the table at which Mr. John Oakhurst presided.
As I opened Hop Sing's letter, there fluttered to the ground a square strip of yellow paper covered with hieroglyphics, which, at first glance, I innocently took to be the label from a pack of Chinese fire-crackers. But the same envelope also contained a smaller strip of rice-paper, with two Chinese characters traced in India ink, that I at once knew to be Hop Sing's visiting-card. The whole, as afterwards literally translated, ran as follows:--