"For God's sake tell the truth and have it over with," he was urged again and again. It seemed to be beyond him. What he had begun only as an amusement, without a thought of harm, had developed into a monster waiting to devour him.
When he finally answered the letter it was to say that he was in the bankruptcy court, utterly penniless, and, in the circumstances, thought it best to drop out of her life.
"Now," he said, "they will not think me worth following up."
After that the letters ceased and he heard nothing more, and it was several years before the dénouement occurred.
On the heels of this episode came a crushing grief. Mrs. Francis Henry Saltus, Mr. Saltus' mother, died, very suddenly. The shock stunned him. It took him into a realm hitherto unknown--even unthought of, and it was long before he could readjust himself to life.
Even in his grief his strong strain of indifference to values, custom or common-sense kept to the fore. From the pot-pourri of his deep love for his mother, lack of attachment to material things, united with oriental atavism--he insisted that the body of his mother be buried with all her large and valuable jewels upon it, as the Egyptians surrounded the Ka with all the trappings and trifles of life.
There is no danger in giving out this fact. The exact spot where Mrs. Saltus is buried (unmarked by a stone, for Mr. Saltus did not believe in such things) is known only to myself and to the cemetery authorities. It is some little distance from the cemetery in which the ashes of her son now rest. Unfortunate it is, that one he loved so deeply could not have been buried in the same plot.
From the shock of this death Mr. Saltus' health went to pieces, and the following spring saw him off to Europe. I was abroad also that year, but in another part of the continent, and it was months before we met again.
On this trip, however, Mr. Saltus made one of the few acquaintances destined to last until the end of his life. Among those at the Captain's table, and seated next to him, was a Miss G----. Young, beautiful, and belonging to one of the best families from whom Ambassadors had been chosen, nimble of tongue and optimistic of spirit, she did much to drag him from the extreme depression into which he had been submerged by his mother's passing.