Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-70.djvu/381

Rh a man as the Apostle occasionally errs in his estimate of it, and this error proved the sunken road that lost him his Waterloo.

As I have said, the Apostle laid his plans astutely. It required some cleverness to pick a quarrel with Mother Evelyn. He selected a suitable time when visitors were not likely to intrude, when the children were all at school; but the affair went off lamely from the start. Mother Evelyn had little to say, and when he mustered up courage to raise his arm for a blow, gave him a look that made it fall powerless to his side. Strange he could not forget those ten happy years when the word wife was sacred.

His angry tones had attracted Christine, who was not too fastidious to peep in at the keyhole, and who, when she saw his upraised arm, sped swiftly away with a terrified face to carry the news. Joan could scarcely believe her ears, but when she did realize the truth the blood suddenly left her face, only to rush back again in a swift tide, while her lithe form trembled with rage.

A moment later she snatched a small riding-whip from the wall and, followed by Sarah Mary and Christine, rushed to Mother Evelyn's room. The tableau there confirmed her worst fears, for the tears were streaming down Mother Evelyn's faded cheeks, and the Apostle stood hanging his head like a whipped dog.

Joanna waited not for explanations, but, exclaiming hotly, "I'll teach you how to whip a woman!" gave him five stinging blows with the whip, nor would have paused then had not Mother Evelyn flung herself between them. A marvellous thing is a woman's heart, and Evelyn Jones, who a moment before had believed the bitterest hour of her life was upon her, suffered a still more poignant anguish when she beheld her husband cower under Joanna's blows.

We will draw a veil over the scenes which followed. But a few months later Mother Evelyn, at the Apostle's special request, moved into a pretty home of which she was sole mistress, and while he held but little communication with her save through his banker, her declining years were attended by every comfort.

He took unto himself no more wives. Did he become reconciled to Joanna? Joanna was young, bright-eyed, round-limbed,—and the Apostle was a man.