Guy Thornton was not a fool, and Daisy was not a fool, though they have
thus far appeared to great disadvantage. Beth had made a mistake; Guy in
marrying a child whose mind was unformed; and Daisy in marrying at all,
when her whole nature was in revolt against matrimony. But the mistake
was made, and Guy had failed and Daisy was going home, and the New
Year's morning when she was to have received Guy's gift of the phaeton
and ponies, found her at the little cottage in Indianapolis, where she
at once resumed all the old indolent habits of her girlhood, and was
happier than she had been since leaving home as a bride.
On Mr. McDonald, the news of his son-in-law's failure fell like a
thunderbolt and affected him more than it did Daisy. Shrewd, ambitious
and scheming, he had for years planned for his daughter a moneyed
marriage, and now she was returned upon his hands for an indefinite
time, with her naturally luxurious tastes intensified by recent
indulgence, and her husband a ruined man. It was not a pleasant picture
to contemplate, and Mr. McDonald's face was cloudy and thoughtful for
many days, until a letter from Tom turned his thoughts into a new
channel and sent him with fresh avidity to certain points of law with
which he had of late years been familiar. If there was one part of his
profession in which he excelled more than another it was in the divorce
cases which had made Indiana so notorious. Squire McDonald, as he was
called, was well known to that class of people who, utterly ignoring
God's command, seek to free themselves from the bonds which once were so
pleasant to wear, and as he sat alone in his office with Tom's letter in
his hand, and read how rapidly that young man was getting rich, there
came into his mind a plan, the very thought of which would have made Guy
Thornton shudder with horror and disgust.
Daisy had not been altogether satisfied with her brief married life, and
it would be very easy to make her more dissatisfied, especially as the
home to which she would return must necessarily be very different from
Elmwood. Tom was destined to be a millionaire. There was no doubt of
that, and he could be moulded and managed as Mr. McDonald had never been
able to mould or manage Guy. But everything pertaining to Tom must be
kept carefully out of sight, for the man knew his daughter would never
lend herself to such a diabolical scheme as that which he was revolving,
and which he at once put in progress, managing so adroitly that before
Daisy was at all aware of what she was doing, she found herself the
heroine of a divorce suit, founded really upon nothing but a general
dissatisfaction with married life, and a wish to be free from it.
Something there was about incompatibility of temperament and
uncongeniality and all that kind of thing which wicked men and women
parade before the world when weary of the tie which God has said shall
not be torn asunder.
It is not our intention to follow the suit through any of its details,
and we shall only say that it progressed rapidly, while poor
unsuspicious Guy was working hard to retrieve in some way his lost
fortune, and to fit up a pleasant home for the childish wife who was
drifting away from him. He had missed her so much at first, even while
he felt it a relief to have her gone when his business matters needed
all his time and thought. It was some comfort to write to her, but not
much to receive her letters, for Daisy did not excel in epistolary
composition, and after a few weeks her letters were short and far apart,
and, as Guy thought, constrained and studied in their tone, and when,
after she had been absent from him for three months or more his longing
to see her was so great that he decided upon a visit of a few days to
the West, and apprized her of his intention, asking if she would be glad
to see him, he received in reply a telegram from Mr. McDonald telling
him to defer his journey as Daisy was visiting some friends and would be
absent for an indefinite length of time. There was but one more letter
from her, and that was dated at Vincennes, and merely said that she was
well, and Guy must not feel anxious about her or take the trouble to
come to see her, as she knew how valuable his time must be, and would
far rather he should devote himself to his business than bother about
her. The letter was signed, "Hastily, Daisy," and Guy read it over many
times with a pang in his heart he could not define.
But he had no suspicion of the terrible blow in store for him, and went
on planning for her comfort just the same; and when at last Elmwood was
sold and he could no longer stay there, he hired a more expensive house
than he could afford, because he thought Daisy would like it better, and
then, with his sister Frances, set himself to the pleasant task of
fitting it up for Daisy. There was a blue room with a bay window just as
there had been in Elmwood, only it was not so pretentious and large. But
it was very pleasant, and had a door opening out upon what Guy meant
should be a flower garden in the summer, and though he missed his little
wife sadly, and longed so much at times for a sight of her beautiful
face and the sound of her sweet voice, he put all thought of himself
aside and said he would not bring her back until the May flowers were in
blossom and the young grass bright and green by the blue room door.
"She will have a better impression of her new home then," he said to his
sister, "and I want her to be happy here and not feel the change too
keenly."
Julia Hamilton chanced to be in town staying at the Towers, and as she
was very intimate with Miss Thornton the two were a great deal together,
and it thus came about that Julia was often at the brown cottage and
helped to settle the blue room for Daisy.
"If it were only you who was to occupy it," Frances said to her one
morning when they had been reading together for an hour or more in the
room they both thought so pretty. "I like Daisy, but somehow she seems
so far from me. Why, there's not a sentiment in common between us."
Then, as if sorry for having said so much, she spoke of Daisy's
marvelous beauty and winning ways, and hoped Julia would know and love
her ere long, and possibly do her good.
It so happened that Guy was sometimes present at these readings and
enjoyed them so much that there insensibly crept into his heart a wish
that Daisy was more like the Boston girl whom he had mentally termed
strong-minded and stiff.
"And in time, perhaps, she maybe," he thought. "I mean to have Julia
here a great deal next summer, and with two such women for companions as
Julia and Fan, Daisy cannot help but improve."
And so at last when the house was settled and the early spring flowers
were in bloom Guy started westward for his wife. He had not seen her now
for months, and it was more than two weeks since he had heard from her,
and his heart beat high with joyful anticipation as he thought just how
she would look when she came to him, shyly and coyly, as she always did,
with that droop in her eye-lids and that pink flush in her cheeks. He
would chide her a little at first, he said, for having been so poor a
correspondent, especially of late, and after that he would love her so
much, and shield her so tenderly from every want or care that she should
never feel the difference in his fortune.
Poor Guy,--he little dreamed what was in store for him just inside the
door where he stood ringing one morning in May, and which, when at last
it was opened, shut in a very different man from the one who who went
through it three hours later, benumbed and half-crazed with bewilderment
and surprise.