Armstrong draws a mighty breath, and passes his hand over his brow with a scared helpless gesture. He walks to the window, which he pulls open, thrusts his hot head out into the night, and then comes back to the table, and, leaning over the sick girl, asks, in a choking whisper:
"Why did you do it--why did you do it, Adelaide, my wife? Why did you make me, your brothers and sisters, believe that you--you were worthless--oh, why--in Heaven's name, why?"
"I don't know--I can't remember; it was so long ago! What does it matter now?" she answers wearily, her eyes closing. "I feel so ill, so tired. I can't talk any more."
He drops upon his knees by her side, and brings his head on a level with hers.
"Adelaide, Adelaide, by the love I once bore you, by all the pain, the trouble you brought into my life, I implore you to answer me!"
The quivering earnestness of the appeal rouses her. She rubs her eyes and struggles into an upright position.
"Let me think--let me think--it is so long ago. I did not let them believe anything but the truth. I wrote almost at once--before I went to America--and told them whom I was with and why I was going. I wrote many times to Robert and to Pauline, with letters inclosed for Aunt Jo and the others; but they never answered me."
"They burned them unread. Oh, Heaven forgive them, Heaven forgive them, for I can not!" he mutters hoarsely.
But Addie betrays no indignation, no surprise, no regret.
"Did they?" she murmurs indifferently. "That would explain."
"Addie, Addie, why did you leave me--my love, my love?"
A flush spreads over her face and a sparkle comes to her eye which almost brings back her youth again.
"Why did I leave you? Because you had learned to hate, to despise me, because I--we were all making your life unbearable, and I saw no other means by which I could free your home, give you back peace; and I left you because I loved you--loved you, oh, a thousand times better than you ever loved me!"
"I saw you had learned to hate, to loathe me--I saw it in your eyes when--when--I asked you for that wretched money."
"The money--the money," he says eagerly, "you wanted for your father?"
"Yes; he had forged a check for that amount, hoping to be able to refund the money before his crime should be discovered; but, finding he could not, and seeing ruin staring him in the face, he came to me, having heard that I had married a rich man, and asked me to get it from you. I promised, and for a whole week I tried--tried to ask you; but I found I couldn't; and when at the end of the week I told him so, he held a loaded revolver to his temple and was about to blow his brains out on the spot. But I wrenched the weapon from his hand, ran straight into the house, and got the money from you. I got the money; but--but it cost me home--home, happiness, youth and life. I knew that we two could carry on the farce no longer, that the same roof could not shelter us again. I told my father that you had discarded me forever and that he must keep me with him. We sailed for America, and lived a hand-to-mouth existence there in the lowest haunts of Bohemianism among gamblers, sharpers, reprobates of all nations and classes until two months ago when we came home. What a life--what a life! I--I tried to get away many times, to support myself free from him; but my health was against me from the start, so I had to stay with him or starve, though he tried to shake me off often enough. I--I could have taken a--a husband before my looks went; but I didn't--I didn't because I thought the husband I had left would come to rescue me. I lived on this hope for two years; every morning when I woke I said, 'He will come to-day; he must come to-day!' I longed for you, Tom, I hungered for you, and I hoped--always hoped--for every night you used to whisper to me in my sleep that you were coming to take me home again. But you never came--ah, you never came! And then the great longing for you died in me; disease was wasting me. I became torpid, callous, and I thought no more of you or--Tom, Tom, what is the matter? Why, you are crying! How funny to see a man cry! You are sorry for me? Don't, please, don't--I--I don't like it."