"Left him?"

"Yes. I have obtained a divorce. He was unfaithful to me."

"I see"--said Littleton with a sort of gasp--"I see. I did not know. You never wrote to me."

"I did not feel like writing to any body. There was nothing to be done but that."

Littleton regarded her with a perturbed, restless air.

"Then you live no longer at 25 Onslow Avenue?"

"Oh, no. I left there more than six months ago. I live in lodgings. I am supporting myself by literary work. I am Mrs. Selma White now, and my divorce has been absolute more than a month."

She spoke gravely and quietly, with less than her usual a.s.surance, for she felt the spell of his keen, eager scrutiny and was not averse to yield at the moment to the propensity of her s.e.x. She wondered what he was thinking about. Did he blame her? Did he sympathize with her?

"Where are you going when you leave here?" he asked.

"Home--to my new home. Will you walk along with me?"

"That is what I should like. I am astonished by what you have told me, and am anxious to hear more about it, if to speak of it would not wound you. Divorced! How you must have suffered! And I did not have the chance to offer you my help--my sympathy."

"Yes, I have suffered. But that is all over now. I am a free woman. I am beginning my life over again."

It was a beautiful afternoon, and by mutual consent, which neither put into words, they diverged from the exact route to Selma's lodging house and turned their steps to the open country beyond the city limits--the picturesque dell which has since become the site of Benham's public park. There they seated themselves where they would not be interrupted.

Selma told him on the way the few vital facts in her painful story, to which he listened in a tense silence, broken chiefly by an occasional e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n expressive of his contempt for the man who had brought such unhappiness upon her. She let him understand, too, that her married life, from the first, had been far less happy than he had imagined--wretched makeshift for the true relation of husband and wife.

She spoke of her future buoyantly, yet with a touch of sadness, as though to indicate that she was aware that the triumphs of intelligence and individuality could not entirely be a subst.i.tute for a happy home.

"And what do you expect to do?" he inquired in a bewildered fashion, as though her delineation of her hopes had been lost on him.

"Do? Support myself by my own exertions, as I have told you. By writing I expect. I am doing very well already. Do you question my ability to continue?"

"Oh, no; not that. Only--"

"Only what? Surely you are not one of the men who grudge women the chance to prove what is in them--who would treat us like china dolls and circ.u.mscribe us by conventions? I know you are not, because I have heard you inveigh against that very sort of narrow mindedness. Only what?"

"I can't make up my mind to it. And I suppose the reason is that it means so much to me--that you mean so much to me. What is the use of my dodging the truth, Selma--seeking to conceal it because such a short time has elapsed since you ceased to be a wife? Forgive me if I hurt you, if it seem indelicate to speak of love at the very moment when you are happy in your liberty. I can't help it; it's my nature to speak openly. And there's no bar now. The fact that you are free makes clear to me what I have not dared to countenance before, that you are the one woman in the world for me--the woman I have dreamed of--and longed to meet--the woman whose influence has blessed me already, and without whom I shall lack the greatest happiness which life can give. Selma, I love you--I adore you."

Selma listened with greedy ears, which she could scarcely believe. It seemed to her that she was in dream-land, so unexpected, yet entrancing, was his avowal. She had been vaguely aware that he admired her more than he had allowed himself to disclose, and conscious, too, that his presence was agreeable to her; but in an instant now she recognized that this was love--the love she had sought, the love she had yearned to inspire and to feel. Compared with it, Babc.o.c.k's clumsy ecstasy and her own sufferance of it had been a sham and a delusion. Of so much she was conscious in a twinkling, and yet what she deemed proper self-respect restrained her from casting herself into his arms. It was, indeed, soon, and she had been happy in her liberty. At least, she had supposed herself so; and she owed it to her own plans and hopes not to act hastily, though she knew what she intended to do. She had been lonely, yes starving, for lack of true companionship, and here was the soul which would be a true mate to hers.

They were sitting on a gra.s.sy bank. He was bending toward her with clasped hands, a picture of fervor. She could see him out of the corner of her glance, though she looked into s.p.a.ce with her gaze of seraphic worry. Yet her lips were ready to lend themselves to a smile of blissful satisfaction and her eyes to fill with the melting mood of the thought that at last happiness had come to her.

The silence was very brief, but Littleton, as would have seemed fitting to her, feared lest she were shocked.

"I distress you," he said. "Forgive me. Listen--will you listen?" Selma was glad to listen. The words of love, such love as this, were delicious, and she felt she owed it to herself not to be won too easily.

"I am listening," she answered softly with the voice of one face to face with an array of doubts.

"Before I met you, Selma, woman but was a name to me. My life brought me little into contact with them, except my dear sister, and I had no temptation to regret that I could not support a wife. Yet I dreamed of woman and of love and of a joy which might some day come to me if I could meet one who fulfilled my ideal of what a true woman should be. So I dreamed until I met you. The first time I saw you, Selma, I knew in my heart that you were a woman whom I could love. Perhaps I should have recognized more clearly as time went on that you were more to me even then than I had a right to allow; yet I call heaven to witness that I did not, by word or sign, do a wrong to him who has done such a cruel wrong to you."

"Never by word or sign," echoed Selma solemnly. The bare suggestion that Babc.o.c.k had cause to complain of either of them seemed to her preposterous. Yet she was saying to herself that it was easy to perceive that he had loved her from the first.

"And since I love you with all my soul must I--should I in justice to myself--to my own hopes of happiness, refrain from speaking merely because you have so recently been divorced? I must speak--I am speaking.

It is too soon, I dare say, for you to be willing to think of marriage again--but I offer you the love and protection of a husband. My means are small, but I am able now to support a wife in decent comfort. Selma, give me some hope. Tell me, that in time you may be willing to trust yourself to my love. You wish to work--to distinguish yourself. Would I be a hindrance to that? Indeed, you must know that I would do every thing in my power to promote your desire to be of service to the world."

The time for her smile and her tears had come. He had argued his case and her own, and it was clear to her mind that delay would be futile.

Since happiness was at hand, why not grasp it? As for her work, he need not interfere with that. And, after all, now that she had tried it, was she so sure that newspaper work--hack work, such as she was pursuing, was what she wished? As a wife, re-established in the security of a home, she could pick and choose her method of expression. Perhaps, indeed, it would not be writing, except occasionally. Was not New York a wide, fruitful field, for a reforming social influence? She saw herself in her mind's eye a leader of movements and of progress. And that with a man she loved--yes, adored even as he adored her.

So she turned to Littleton with her smile and in tears--the image of bewitching but pathetic self-justification and surrender. Her mind was made up; hence why procrastinate and coyly postpone the desirable, and the inevitable? That was what she had the shrewdness to formulate in the ecstasy of her transport; and so eloquent was the mute revelation of her love that Littleton, diffident reverencer of the modesty of woman as he was, without a word from her clasped her to his breast, a victor in a breath. As, regardless of the possible invasion of interlopers, he took her in his embrace, she felt with satisfaction once more the grasp of masculine arms. She let her head fall on his shoulder in delighted contentment. While he murmured in succession inarticulate terms of endearment, she revelled in the thrill of her nerves and approved her own sagacious and commendable behavior.

"Dearest," she whispered, "you are right. We are right. Since we love each other, why should we not say so? I love you--I love you. The ugly hateful past shall not keep us apart longer. You say you loved me from the first; so did I love you, though I did not know it then. We were meant for each other--G.o.d meant us--did he not? It is right, and we shall be so happy, Wilbur."

"Yes, Selma." Words seemed to him an inadequate means for expressing his emotions. He pressed his lips upon hers with the adoring respect of a worshipper touching his G.o.d, yet with the energy of a man. She sighed and compared him in her thought with Babc.o.c.k. How gentle this new lover!

How refined and sensitive and appreciative! How intelligent and gentlemanly!

"If I had my wish, darling," he said, "we should be married to-night and I would carry you away from here forever."

She remembered that Babc.o.c.k had uttered the same wish on the occasion when he had offered himself. To grant it then had been out of the question. To do so now would be convenient--a prompt and satisfactory blotting out of her past and present life--a happy method of solving many minor problems of ways and means connected with waiting to be married. Besides it would be romantic, and a delicious, fitting crowning of her present blissful mood.

He mistook her silence for womanly scruples, and he recounted with a little laugh the predicament in which he should find himself on his own account were they to be so precipitate. "What would my sister think if she were to get a telegram--'Married to-night. Expect us to-morrow?' She would think I had lost my senses. So I have, darling; and you are the cause. She knows about you. I have talked to her about you."

"But she thinks I am Mrs. Babc.o.c.k."

"Oh yes. Ha! ha! It would never do to state to whom I was married, unless I sent a telegram as long as my arm. Dear Pauline! She will be radiant. It is all arranged that she is to stay where she is in the old quarters, and I am to take you to a new house. We've decided on that, time and again, when we've chanced to talk of what might happen--of 'the fair, the chaste and unexpressive she'--my she. Dearest, I wondered if I should ever find her. Pauline has always said that she would never run the risk of spoiling everything by living with us."

"It would be very nice--and very simple," responded Selma, slowly. "You wouldn't think any the worse of me, Wilbur, if I were to marry you to-night?"

"The worse of you? It is what I would like of all things. Whom does it concern but us? Why should we wait in order to make a public spectacle of ourselves?"

"I shouldn't wish that. I should insist on being married very quietly.

Under all the circ.u.mstances there is really no reason--it seems to me it would be easier if we were to be married as soon as possible. It would avoid explanations and talk, wouldn't it? That is, if you are perfectly sure."

"Sure? That I love you? Oh Selma!"

She shut her eyes under the thrill which his kiss gave her. "Then we will be married whenever you wish," she said.

It was already late in the afternoon, so that the prospects of obtaining a license did not seem favorable. Still it happened that Littleton knew a clergyman of his own faith--Unitarian--in Benham, a college cla.s.smate, whom he suggested as soon as he understood that Selma preferred not to be married by Mr. Glynn. They found him at home, and by diligent personal effort on his part the necessary legal forms were complied with and they were made husband and wife three hours before the departure of the evening train for New York. After the ceremony they stepped buoyantly, arm in arm in the dusk, along the street to send the telegram to Miss Littleton, and to s.n.a.t.c.h a hasty meal before Selma went to her lodgings to pack. There were others in the restaurant, so having discovered that they were not hungry, they bought sandwiches and bananas, and resumed their travels. The suddenness and surprise of it all made Selma feel as if on wings. It seemed to her to be of the essence of new and exquisite romance to be walking at the side of her fond, clever lover in the democratic simplicity of two paper bags of provender and an open, yet almost headlong marriage. She felt that at last she was yoked to a spirit who comprehended her and who would stimulate instead of repress the fire of originality within her. She had found love and she was happy. Meanwhile she had decided to leave Benham without a word to anyone, even Mrs. Earle. She would write and explain what had happened.

BOOK II.

THE STRUGGLE

CHAPTER I.

Littleton had not expected that Selma would accede to his request to be married at once, but he was delighted at her decision. He had uttered his wish in sincerity, for there was really no reason for waiting, and by an immediate marriage they would escape the tedium of an engagement during which they could hope to see each other but rarely. He was able to support a wife provided they were to live simply and economically. He felt sure that Selma understood his circ.u.mstances and was no less ready than he to forego luxuries in order that they might be all in all to each other spiritually as husband and wife. Besides he had hopes that his clientage would continue to grow so that he would be able to provide all reasonable comforts for his new home. Consequently he drove up from the station in New York with a light heart, fondly pointing out to his wife this and that building and other objects of interest. He mistook her pensive silence for diffidence at the idea of descending suddenly on another woman's home--a matter which in this instance gave him no concern, for he had unlimited confidence in Pauline's executive ability and her tendency not to get ruffled. She had been his good angel, domestically speaking, and, indeed, in every way, since they had first begun to keep house together, and it had rather amused him to let fall such a bombsh.e.l.l as the contents of his telegram upon the regularity of her daily life.