The next morning there was not the turn of an eyelid that could be construed into penitence.  A brawling woman is but little less endurable than a perfectly silent one.  You may almost as well “flee to the house-top” from one as the other.  What few words were spoken by Mr. Eldred at the breakfast table received no replies.

In the course of the forenoon he went to fulfil an engagement a few miles in the country, where he was detained till late in the day.  He sat in his study in the gathering twilight longing for, but not expecting, a word from his wife of contrition and conciliation.  He was summoned to tea, but no wife appeared.  After a little he went in search of her.  She was not in the house.  It was growing dark.  He was perplexed and anxious.  Again he went to their room, hoping to find some explanation of the strange absence.  On the mantel lay a note addressed to him.  As he read he gazed about to assure himself that it was not a horrible dream, half expecting his wife to gleefully spring into his arms from some hiding-place; but all was silent save his own moans of pain.

Vida had gone!  Had “fled to her mother for protection from a tyrant.”  So the letter ran; it was in her own graceful hand; her name was affixed.  It was no cruel joke.  She said, moreover, that it was evident that their tastes were not congenial; it was out of the question for her to be tied down to the sort of life he expected of her; that she had borne reflections on her conduct that she had not tolerated from any other being!  Tyranny was of all things most hateful to her; the climax was now reached when he ventured “to command.”

“She recognised no such right.  She never would; she would not be called to account every time she stepped over a forbidden imaginary line; it was plain they had been mistaken in each other, and disappointed; they did not add to each other’s happiness, as appeared from the gloom enveloping him day and night; the last months were months of discord; she felt neglected; he was poring over books or seeking other society in an interminable round of calls; plainly what he needed in a wife was a sort of co-pastor; it was not too late to secure such a person, since the law granted divorce for wilful desertion.”

With this last sentence the letter closed.  Not a word betrayed the faintest regret at severing so solemn a bond.  He searched it over and over to see if in some corner he could not find one tender word for him, a word that would reveal down deep in her heart the light of her great love for him, even such love as he had for her—­a faint glimmer through the clouds of anger and recrimination.  It was not there, not one syllable to show that the heart of the writer had not turned to ice.  Yes, there was another sentence, more cruel and hopeless still:  “Do not try to change my resolution, as though it were made in a pet; it is final—­unalterable.”

It could not be true.  He looked wildly about as if to have the terrible truth dispelled.  He opened her closet door and her bureau drawers, but the pretty, festive robes were all gone; the dainty garments were not in their places.  A little pair of half-worn slippers, and the blue ribbon that had tied her hair were all he found.  He seized them convulsively, as a part of Vida when she was sweet and simple—­as she could be.