THE FINAL RUPTURE.
John Hungerford was stricken with astonishment and dismay by the
foregoing outburst of passion from his child. As a rule, she had ever
been gentle and tractable, rarely defying his authority, and never
before had he seen her manifest such temper as she had just given way
to. He had always believed that she loved him, although he had long
been conscious of a growing barrier between them--that she invariably
sought her mother's companionship when she was in the house, and held
aloof from him. But he had been so absorbed in his own pursuits that
he had not given much serious thought to the matter; consequently it
had now come like a bolt from a clear sky, when she had openly declared
that she did not love him, while he was at no loss for words to
complete the scathing, unfinished sentence to which she had given
utterance just before she had fled from his presence.
It had taken him unawares, and, indifferent as he had become to his
responsibilities as a husband and father; determined as he was to cut
loose from them to gratify his pleasure-loving and vacillating
disposition, his heart was now bruised and lacerated, his proud spirit
humiliated as it never before had been, by Dorothy's passionate
arraignment and bitter repudiation of him.
His wife, greatly to his surprise, had received him with her accustomed
courtesy, had quietly acceded to his wishes when he informed her that
he contemplated seeking a divorce, and had calmly told him that she had
no intention of contesting his application for a legal separation. He
had not believed he would be able to secure his freedom so easily, and
secretly congratulated himself that the matter had been so quickly
adjusted, and had terminated without a scene, even though he had been
not a little chagrined by his wife's dignified bearing and a certain
conscious superiority throughout the interview; also by the absence of
all excitement or sentiment, except as, now and then, a flash of scorn
or pity for him leaped from her eyes or rang in her tones.
But it had been quite another thing to have Dorothy, whom he had always
fondly loved, in his selfish way, so openly denounce him for his
faithlessness to her mother, and impeach him for the humiliation to
which he was about to subject them both. As his anger subsided, as he
began to realize something of what it meant, he was cut to the quick,
and a sickening sense of loss and desolation suddenly swept over him,
causing his throat to swell with painful tension and his eyes to sting
with a rush of hot tears.
His only child--his pet and little playmate for fifteen years--had
practically told him that she would not care if she never saw him
again. It seemed almost as if she had suddenly died and were lost to
him forever. He wondered if he ever would see her again, hear her
fresh young voice calling "papa," or feel her soft lips caressing his
cheek.
He stood for several minutes staring miserably at the door through
which she had disappeared, a long, quivering sigh heaving his broad
chest. Then his eyes swept the familiar, tastefully arranged room,
which showed the graceful touch of his wife's deft hands in every
detail, and finally rested upon the great bow of blue ribbon which had
become loosened from Dorothy's hair and fallen to the floor almost at
his feet.
He stooped, picked it up, and thrust it into his bosom; then
mechanically took his hat, and quietly left the house.
But, as the outer door closed behind him, and the latch clicked sharply
into its socket, there shot through all his nerves a thrill of keen
pain which for many years repeated itself whenever the same sound fell
upon his ears.
There seemed to be an ominous knell of finality in it, and, mingling
with it, a sinister jeer at his supreme folly in thus turning his back
forever upon this attractive, though comparatively simple, home, with
its atmosphere of purity and sweet, refining influences; in discarding
the beautiful and loyal woman whom he had once believed he adored; in
abandoning and forfeiting the affection and respect of a lovely
daughter, who also gave promise of becoming, in the near future, a
brilliant and cultured woman, and--for what?
More than an hour elapsed after Dorothy fled from her father's presence
before she could control herself sufficiently to seek her mother, who
also had been fighting a mighty battle in the solitude of her own room.
Even then the girl's eyes were red and swollen from excessive weeping;
neither had she been able to overcome wholly the grief-laden sobs
which, for the time, had utterly prostrated her.
"Mamma, he has told me, and--he has gone," she faltered, almost on the
verge of breaking down again, as she threw herself upon her knees by
her mother's side and searched with anxious eyes the white, set face of
the deserted wife.
"Yes, dear; I heard him go."
"Do you think it will be forever?"
"That is what a divorce--a legal separation--means, Dorothy."
The girl dropped her head upon her mother's shoulder, with a moan of
pain, and Helen slipped a compassionate arm around the trembling form.
"Mamma," Dorothy began again, after a few moments of silence.
"Well, dear?"
"I think it is awful--what he is doing; but don't you think that
we--you and I--can be happy again, by and by, just by ourselves?"
"I am sure we can, dearest," was the brave response, as Helen
Hungerford drew her daughter closer to her in a loving embrace.
Dorothy seized her mother's hand and kissed it passionately, two great,
burning tears dropping upon it as she did so.
"He asked me to go with him--to live with him some of the time," she
presently resumed.
"And you told him----" breathed Helen, almost inaudibly.
"I was very disrespectful, mamma," confessed the girl humbly; "but I
couldn't help it when I thought what it all meant. I said I wouldn't
live with him for anything--I almost told him that I wouldn't care if I
never saw him again. Where will he go now? What will he do? Will--he
marry _that woman_?" she concluded, her voice growing hard and tense
again.
Her mother's lips grew blue and pinched with the effort she made to
stifle a cry of agony at the shameful suggestion. But she finally
forced herself to reply, with some semblance of composure:
"I do not know, Dorothy, and we will try not to worry over anything
that he may do. However, when he secures the necessary decree from the
court he will have the legal right to do as he pleases."
"The _legal_ right," repeated Dorothy reflectively.
"Yes, the law will give him the right to marry again if he wishes to do
so."
"What an abominable law! And what a shameful thing for any man to want
to do, when he already has a family! What will people think of us if
he does?" queried the girl, with a shiver of repulsion.
"My dear, ask rather what people will think of _him_," said her mother
tenderly, as she laid her lips in a gentle caress against the child's
forehead.
"Of course, I know that nice people will not respect him; but I can't
help feeling that the shame of it will touch us, too," opposed
sensitive Dorothy.
"No, dear; what he has done, or may do, cannot harm either you or me in
the estimation of our real friends," replied Helen, throwing a note of
cheer she was far from feeling into her tones. "It can only bring
condemnation upon himself, and you are not to feel any sense of
degradation because of your father's wrongdoing. We are simply the
innocent victims of circumstances over which we have no control; and,
Dorrie, you and I will so live that all who know us will be compelled
to respect us for ourselves."
Dorothy heaved a deep sigh of relief as her mother concluded, and her
somber eyes brightened perceptibly. She sat silently thinking for f
several minutes; then a cloud again darkened her face.
"Mamma," she began hesitatingly, "you said the law would give p--him
the right to do as he pleases--to marry that woman. Can you do as you
please? Could you----"
"Oh, hush, Dorothy!" gasped the tortured wife, in a shocked tone, and
laying an icy hand over the girl's lips. "When I married your father,"
she went on more calmly after a little, "I promised to be true to him
while we both lived, and you must never think of anything like that for
me--never--_never_! He may choose another, but I---- Oh, God, my
burden is heavier than I can bear!"
Helen Hungerford buried her agonized face in her hands, cowering and
shrinking from the repulsive suggestion as if she had been smitten with
a lash.
Dorothy was shocked by the effect of her thoughtless question. She had
never seen her mother so unnerved before.
"Oh, mamma, don't!" she cried wildly. "I love you dearly--dearly--I
did not mean to hurt you so, and I _hate_ him for making you so
wretched--for putting this dreadful disgrace upon us both. I will
never forgive him--I never want to see him again. I know it is wicked
to hate, but I can't help it--I don't care! I do--I do----"
These incoherent utterances ended in a piercing shriek as the
overwrought girl threw herself prone upon the floor at her mother's
feet, in a violent paroxysm of hysteria.
She was a sensitively organized child, proud as a young princess, and
possessed of a high sense of honor; and grief over the threatened break
in the family, together with fear of the opprobrium which she believed
it would entail upon her idolized mother, as well as upon herself, had
been preying upon her mind for several weeks; and now the climax had
come, the cloud had burst, and, with the strenuous excitement and
experiences of the day, had resulted in this nervous collapse.
Hours elapsed before Helen succeeded in soothing her into any degree of
calmness, and when at last she fell into a deep sleep, from utter
exhaustion, the forsaken wife found something very like hatred surging
within her own heart toward the faithless man who had ruthlessly
wrecked their happiness.
"Neither will I forgive him for imposing this lifelong sorrow and taint
upon my child," she secretly vowed as she sat through the long, lonely
hours of the night, and watched beside the couch of her daughter.
In due time, she received formal announcement that her husband had
secured his divorce, and that she also was free, by the decree of the
court; and, following close upon this verdict, came the news that John
Hungerford, the artist, had gone abroad again to resume his studies in
Paris.
It was significant, too, at least to Helen, that the same papers
stating this fact also mentioned that the Wells Opera Company, which
had just finished a most successful season in San Francisco, was booked
for a long engagement, with Madam Marie Duncan as leading soprano, in
the same city; the opening performance was set for a date in the near
future.