He
had anticipated sullen temper, renewed quarrels, and then perhaps
a separation, but he was startled to find her actually gone. The
servant gave him the cold farewell letter, written without tears,
without sorrow. He tore it into shreds and flung it from him.
"The last act in the farce," he said, bitterly. "If I had not
been mad, I should have foreseen this."
The silent, deserted rooms did not remind him of the loving young
wife parted from him forever. He was too angry, too annoyed, for
any gentle thoughts to influence him. She had left him--so much
the better; there could never again be peace between them. He
thought with regret of the little ones--they were too young for
him to undertake charge of them, so that they were best left with
their mother for a time. He said to himself that he must make
the best use he could of his life; everything seemed at an end.
He felt very lonely and unhappy as he sat in his solitary home;
and the more sorrow present upon him, the more bitter his
thoughts grew, the deeper became his dislike to this unhappy
young wife.
Ronald wrote to his mother, but said no word to her of the cause
of their quarrel.
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