Chapter XXXVII: The Storm Breaks

Colonel Falconer opened his fresh paper, and the first thing that caught his eyes were these words, in staring headlines:

A VIRGINIA TRAGEDY,

INVOLVING SOME OF THE F. F. V.’S WITH THE WORKING CLASSES, AND BEING
THE CLIMAX TO A ROMANCE OF LOVE AND SORROW EQUAL TO ANY EVER EVOLVED
FROM THE BRAIN OF A NOVELIST.

He uttered an exclamation of interest, and Pansy looked around.

“What is it, dear?” she asked languidly.

“Nothing--that is---- Well, you shall have the paper presently,” he answered, and read on:

Something more than three years ago there was a ripple of excitement
in the fashionable society of Richmond over the fact that an
engagement of marriage between two prominent people had been
dissolved, owing to a sudden infatuation on the young man’s part for
a beautiful, charming young girl, an employee at Arnell & Grey’s
tobacco factory.

The girl, though of poor parentage, and compelled to labor for
her own support, was said to be wonderfully lovely, fairly well
educated, and of so fair a character that it had never been sullied
by a breath of scandal. But parents on either side proved unkind.
The young man was forbidden to marry the little beauty, and she on
her part had stern orders from a widowed mother never to hold any
communication with her lover.

In a few months afterward, the young man was sent on a mission
to Europe, and it was supposed that all was at an end with the
unfortunate love affair. But nine months later there was a scandalous
story circulated about the young girl, to which a color of truth
was lent by her suicide by drowning in the James River. At last,
some of her clothing was found in the river, but her body was never
recovered. At the same time a beautiful, newborn boy baby was left
on the steps of the young man’s father, and adopted by the old
housekeeper.

Two years later the hero of that long-past love affair returned, and
seeing the adopted child, conceived the idea that it was his own. He
sought the mother of his dead love in order to ascertain the truth,
but could not find her, she having married a second time and removed
to another part of the city. Lately, in desperation, he placed a
detective on the woman’s track, with the result that she was soon
found, and a story of sorrow laid bare that maddened the hero of the
story.

He told the mother that her daughter had been his wife by a secret
marriage in Washington, and by this declaration was laid bare the
perfidy of a wicked stepfather and a slighted love, who for revenge
had bribed the man to lie about the marriage. This man, Finley by
name, was sent to Washington to verify Pansy Laurens’ declaration
that she was the wife of Norman Wylde. He was bribed by a fair and
slighted lady to declare that there had been no marriage, thus
breaking the heart of the poor girl, who had never received a line
from her young husband during his absence.

When Norman Wylde learned of this horrible perfidy that had made
of his beloved young wife a suicide, and of his legitimate child a
foundling, he went wild with rage against the villain who had made
these things possible, and struck him with all the fierce strength of
an outraged arm. He fell heavily, and striking his head against the
counter in his store was rendered unconscious by concussion of the
brain.

He is lying now in a state of coma, never having returned to
consciousness since his fall. Norman Wylde is under heavy bonds
pending the result of Finley’s injuries, but it is believed that a
chivalrous Virginia jury will acquit him of blame in the vengeance he
took against the destroyer of his domestic happiness.

Pansy turned her head at hearing a strange, choking sound, and saw her husband with his head fallen backward, and his face convulsed with pain, as it had been on the night when she made her confession to him.