AN EXPLANATION DEMANDED.
Miss Winthrop did not delay even long enough to make her purchases, but
turned about and went home to report her news to her mother.
She found madam in her own room, and learned that Salome had returned
about half an hour before, and gone directly to her own boudoir.
“Well, mamma, I have learned something this morning that will astonish
you,” Evelyn remarked, as she threw off her wraps and sank upon a chair,
quivering to her finger-tips with excitement over the precious morsel of
scandal she believed she had secured.
“Ah!” madam remarked placidly, but looking up interested, nevertheless.
“Is anybody married, or going to be?—or maybe it is a bit of scandal.”
“It may prove to be more than a bit, if we are not careful,” Evelyn
excitedly returned. “It’s about Salome.”
“Ha!” exclaimed her mother, now all on the alert, “what about her?”
“There is some deep mystery connected with the girl, just as we have
thought, and there is doubtless some good reason why she has been so
anxious to keep her history from us all,” said Evelyn impressively.
“What do you mean?” demanded madam eagerly.
“I have learned this morning, by a lucky circumstance, that she is a
runaway from her home and family, and has been sailing about under an
assumed name—perhaps she even married True under a false one.”
“What!” exclaimed Madame Winthrop sternly, and growing pale; “how do you
know? who has told you this?”
Evelyn then related her adventures of the morning, enlarging upon the
circumstances to suit herself, vividly portraying Salome’s agitated
demeanor and her sudden flight, and assuming as facts what she had
guessed at from her observation, and what she had inferred from the
strange man’s conversation.
Madame Winthrop listened to all this with a white, set face, her heart
growing harder than ever toward the girl whom her son had married.
When her daughter concluded she said, in a low, icy voice:
“Well, Evelyn, this is a matter that must be cleared up. I am going to
know whom my son has married and brought into a family upon whose name
there has never been even the shadow of a stain. I am going to make that
girl tell me her history this very hour.”
“She has a good deal of spirit, mamma, and perhaps she will refuse to
say anything about herself,” Evelyn suggested, but secretly delighted at
her mother’s determination.
“She shall tell me—she shall no longer insult us with her companionship
and by enshrouding herself in such mystery,” was the resolute retort.
“Well, but suppose she will not, what can you do? This is her home; she
is mistress here. True has made her such, and we cannot compel her to go
away. Likely as not, she will tell us, if we object to associating with
her, that we can take ourselves out of her way,” Miss Winthrop
suggested.
“She would not dare,” replied her mother sternly; “and if I find your
suspicions regarding her confirmed we must manage to get rid of her by
strategy if no other means will avail. My son’s brilliant career shall
not be ruined at the outset by a scheming adventuress. I never would
have believed,” she continued, with a groan, “that Truman would become
so infatuated as to marry any girl without investigating her family
history.”
“But, mamma, True would never forgive you if you should do anything to
compromise his wife,” said Evelyn.
“She isn’t his wife if she has married him under false pretences—under a
false name,” retorted madam, almost savagely. “I don’t believe such a
marriage would be legal,” she added with a fierce gleam in her eyes. “I
am determined to make her believe so, if I can; then, perhaps, she will
run away from him, as she did from her own home, and that will give him
a chance to get a divorce. The thought that he knows absolutely nothing
about her drives me nearly wild,” she despairingly concluded.
“Well, but you must remember they had only been married about a
fortnight when we returned, and her health was such he would not allow
her to get excited over anything; you know he said he would not have her
annoyed, and forbade us to question her,” remarked the younger lady.
“He had no right to compromise us in any such rash way, even if he had
no pride on his own account. I am only thankful that no one in our set
appears to know anything about the marriage as yet. Oh, if we could only
find some way to get rid of her!” and the dark look upon the woman’s
face augured ill for the fair young bride.
“You can take my word for it, mamma, Salome is not one to be easily
managed. Where she imagines herself to be in the right she will not be
turned from her point,” said Evelyn.
“How do you know? What makes you say that?”
“Why, by the way she has managed ever since we returned, for one thing.
She has ruled in everything where any serious question has arisen, only,
I admit, she has done it in a very quiet, adroit manner. True told her
she was to be mistress here, and she has made us recognize the fact from
the very first. She has very cleverly managed to ascertain our wishes
and preferences, and has tried to defer to them; she has often
supplemented her commands to please us, when we have objected to certain
things at times, but she never countermanded previous orders.”
“That is true,” madam assented with firmly compressed lips.
“And about those ponies the other day,” Miss Winthrop resumed; “I knew
that they had been purchased expressly for her, but I did not mean that
she should think I did, and I had been aching to use them, only I
wouldn’t drive with her—you remember how obstinate she was, mamma!”
“But you made a mistake, Evelyn,” her mother answered. “They would have
been ruined if they had dragged that heavy barouche around, and Truman
would have been very angry with you. You should have ordered them put
into his buggy if you were bound to use them and would not go in the
coupé.”
“I did not think of that; but the affair proves that she will not give
up her point—the tone she used to the coachman settled the matter at
once,” said Miss Winthrop, flushing at the remembrance of her defeat.
“Well, I will find a way to manage her,” retorted her mother sharply.
Meanwhile Salome in her own room was trying to compose her quivering
nerves and recover from the terrible shock she had received.
She had been very much unstrung, and when she at last reached the
seclusion of her own room and knew that she had escaped all immediate
danger, she was still pallid and panting from nervous excitement.
“My poor heart is not right even yet,” she murmured, as she pressed her
hand upon her throbbing side and realized how it was fluttering, “and I
must not allow myself to become so excited. Oh! what an unfortunate
meeting! I never imagined that I could meet him, of all persons, here in
New York. I shall hardly dare go out again while True is away, for fear
of meeting him again, and yet I promised that I would ride every day. I
wish I had insisted upon telling True everything before he went away,
but there was no time, he had to go in such a hurry. Oh! if he were only
back and we could be alone together again!”
She fell to sobbing nervously in her exceeding loneliness.
It was so hard to have to live as she was living—to receive no sympathy
nor love from her husband’s mother and sister, and to have to pull all
the time against an opposing current.
“Still,” she went on, after a moment, while she resolutely wiped her
tears, “I have nothing to really fear—that wretch can only annoy me—even
if he should discover where I live. I need only keep out of his sight
until my dear one comes back, when I shall tell him everything, and he
will manage all that is disagreeable for me. I will not grieve. I will
not get ill. I will just throw off this load that oppresses me
and—trust.”
She turned to her table, and taking up some work tried to interest
herself in it, and to forget the occurrences of the morning.
She had been engaged thus only a few moments when there came a knock
upon her door.
Thinking it must be Nellie, for no one else came to her rooms, she said
“Come in,” when Evelyn put her head inside the door.
Salome regarded her with some surprise, though a bright smile instantly
chased the sadness from her face.
“Oh, have you come to make me a visit?” she cried, greatly pleased by
what she considered a wonderful concession on the part of her proud
sister-in-law. “Come in, do, and have this cozy chair; it will be very
pleasant, and I was feeling a little lonely.”
She looked so pretty and appealing, her sweetness was so charming, that
for an instant the haughty girl’s heart was touched, and she half
regretted the errand that had brought her there. But the next moment her
proud spirit rebelled against accepting the slightest hospitality, and
she coldly responded:
“No, I am not coming in; I merely came to tell you that mamma would like
to see you. She wished me to ask you to step into her room for a few
moments.”
Salome’s face expressed surprise at such an unusual request; but she
obligingly laid down her work and rose to follow. Evelyn was already
half way down the hall, but she waited at the door of her mother’s room
until Salome entered, when she closed it and locked it. She had no
intention of having this interview interrupted until the battle should
be fought out to the end.
Salome wondered at such a strange proceeding, and her heart failed her
somewhat as she caught the cold, relentless look upon Madame Winthrop’s
face.
Then a sudden fear almost paralyzed her.
Had they received bad news from abroad?
Mr. Winthrop was improving when last they had heard of him, though she
had had no letter by the last two steamers. Could any ill have befallen
her husband? Oh, if anything should happen to him, there could be
nothing left for her to live for!
“Sit down, Salome,” said Madame Winthrop, in her iciest tones; “I have
something that I wish to say to you.”
Salome obeyed and mechanically seated herself in the chair that Evelyn
pushed toward her, but with a strange feeling of numbness creeping over
her.
“Oh!” she gasped, “has anything happened? is there anything the matter
with—True?”
Madam’s lips curled scornfully over the girl’s excitability. She was
never thrown out of her equilibrium by any tidings, good or ill.
“No, there is nothing the matter with Dr. Winthrop that I am aware of,”
she said coldly; then added, with a furtive glance at her victim; “you
had the last letter from him, and you surely ought to be better posted
than I.”
“Oh, but I have not heard from him by either of the last two steamers,
and you looked so grave, so strange, I feared——” faltered Salome.
“Well, I feel that I have reason to look grave; I have felt so ever
since my return,” said madam, with a severely injured air; “and I have
finally come to the conclusion that I can no longer endure the suspense
that I have suffered. I have determined to have my doubts and fears
either confirmed or removed, and so have sent for you to tell me what I
wish to know.”
“I do not understand you,” Salome replied, beginning to regain her
composure, now that her fears regarding her husband were allayed, and
regarding the woman wonderingly.
“I suppose you are aware of the cause of my sudden return from abroad?”
observed madam.
“No, I am not,” said the young wife.
“What! did not your hus—did not my son inform you why we came home in
such hot haste?”
“No; how could he when he was summoned away so suddenly himself?”
“Well, then, it was because of the unexpected news of his marriage; it
came in the form of a cable message to us, and like a thunderbolt out of
a clear sky, for we had not the remotest suspicion that he intended to
be married so soon.”
“So soon!” These two words somehow struck a sudden chill to the young
wife’s heart. They seemed to imply that he entertained thoughts of
marriage before meeting her. But she put the thought away from her, and
replied, deprecatingly:
“It was very sudden to—to us, as well as to you, and there was no time
to send word to any one until it was over.”
“Doesn’t it strike you that it was a very strange marriage?” demanded
Madame Winthrop.
“Yes, the circumstances attending it were very peculiar, and I was very
much surprised when True asked me to be his wife,” Salome answered,
flushing.
“It seems that it was not so much a surprise as to prevent your ready
acceptance of his quixotic proposal,” sneered Evelyn vindictively.
Salome flushed crimson again at this thrust, then she grew white to her
lips over the cowardly attack.
All at once she seemed to become strangely calm and self-possessed,
although she did not regain her color.
“Allow me to ask,” she said, addressing Madame Winthrop, and not
deigning to notice Evelyn’s insulting remark, “if Dr. Winthrop made you
acquainted with all the circumstances leading up to our union?”
“Yes, he did,” curtly responded the woman, a frown upon her brow.
Salome’s face had cleared somewhat. If her husband had told his mother
and sister of the romantic story of his wooing, they knew that he alone
was responsible for their marriage, and they had no right to thus call
her to account for having become his wife.
“Then,” she said quietly, “since you know all that occurred in the City
Hospital of Boston, you know just why he asked me to become his wife,
and why I consented to do so, notwithstanding I had known him so short a
time, and I cannot feel that you have any right to arraign me in such a
manner during his absence for having married him.”
Madam and Evelyn both opened their eyes in astonishment at this
dignified, yet spirited response to their attack. It told them that they
had a stronger and wiser spirit to cope with than they had anticipated.
There was a moment of silence, then madam broke forth with more heat
than she had yet manifested:
“I should have supposed that any girl possessing proper self-respect
would have hesitated to accept a proposal that must have been prompted
by a feeling of gratitude. You saved my son’s life—there can be no doubt
about that—he was grateful; you were ill, you had no home, no friends;
your physician said you must not remain under the depressing influences
of a public hospital, and so a sense of honor and of the great debt he
owed you prompted Dr. Winthrop to ask you to be his wife, that he might
try to save your life in return for the one you had given back to him.”
Salome’s heart leaped with sudden pain at this cruel speech.
As we know, she had been exceedingly sensitive upon this very point, and
she had only just begun to have these fears allayed by his increasing
tenderness, when these two women came so rudely in upon them and he was
called away to his father.
What wonder that all her former doubts began to be aroused by his
mother’s cruel and unprincipled assertion?
“Did Dr. Winthrop tell you that he was actuated by gratitude when he
asked me to marry him?” she gravely inquired.
“He did,” briefly responded Madame Winthrop, and Salome felt herself
growing dizzy, and there was a ringing sound in her ears; but
controlling herself by a mighty effort, she demanded:
“Did he tell you that he was prompted solely by gratitude?”
“Let me tell you what he did say,” said madam, evading a direct reply to
this searching question. “I charged him with having simply a feeling of
pity for your forlorn condition and of gratitude for what you had done;
I asked him just what you have asked me. ‘Can you honestly say,’ I
asked, ‘that gratitude did not prompt you to make her your wife?’”
“And his answer?” breathed Salome, with a wild look in her eyes, a spot
of fire on each cheek.
“‘No, I cannot,’ he replied, ‘for it was a feeling of profound gratitude
for the girl’s noble sacrifice of her life-blood to save me’—those were
his very words, were they not, Evelyn?” madam interposed, pausing to
look at her daughter.
“Yes, mamma, you have repeated them exactly as I remember them,” was the
unfeeling reply.
Salome felt as if the blood was turning to ice in her veins at this
blighting statement.
She had begun to be so happy, so secure in her husband’s love, before
these people came into her home with their cold looks and unfeeling
hearts, and even since his departure she had trusted him fully; but
these terrible words burned themselves into her brain and stabbed her to
the heart like a poisoned dagger.
“He also said,” Madame Winthrop went on ruthlessly, “that the head
physician told him he believed that you were not going to get well—that
you ought to be removed to some pleasant home where you would be
tenderly cared for, where you would feel no anxiety about yourself. My
son believed that you had conceived a sudden passion for him—he said
some word, look, or gesture that escaped you one day led him to believe
that you loved him; and so—can’t you see?—everything goes to prove that
he married you from pity and gratitude.”
Salome’s head had gradually drooped during these garbled and shameless
statements, and now she covered her burning face with her trembling
hands to conceal the shame and agony that were crushing her at this last
terrible charge.
Oh, it was dreadful! Could it be possible that she had betrayed all her
wild love for Dr. Winthrop before he asked her to be his wife? Had she,
in her weakness, been so lost to all maidenly delicacy and modesty? She
tried to think—to remember when and how; but the bitter humiliation of
the moment confused her utterly, and she could recall nothing.
It did not seem possible that Dr. Winthrop could be so devoid of respect
and consideration as to speak of these things to another, and yet, how
otherwise would his mother have known of them?
“You can imagine something of our trouble and consternation when we
learned all this,” madam relentlessly resumed, “when, too, we learned
that he had married a woman concerning whose history and family he knew
absolutely nothing, and about whom there seemed to be some strange
mystery. When I demanded why he had not insisted upon having everything
explained, his answer was that you were easily excited, and he feared
the effect upon your health. But he promised that he would inform me
regarding your history as soon as he learned it himself. He was,
however, called so unexpectedly abroad that the matter was not cleared
up. I had intended to be patient until his return—to trust that all
would come out right in the end, and leave the matter with him to
settle. But to-day I learned something which made me resolve to sift the
subject to the bottom, and to demand an open confession from you. And
now I ask you, Salome, who you are, what your real name is—for I have
reason to doubt that Howland is such—why you have so persistently kept
your husband in the dark regarding your past, and what the mystery is
that surrounds you.”