Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/349

 it out of your hands. I forbid another line or word to this man."

Gaston watched and waited in vain for the letter he was to receive next week. Again his soul sank with doubt and fear. What fiend was striking him with an unseen hand? He felt he should choke with rage as he thought of the infamy of such a warfare.

His mother said to him shortly after McLeod's arrival,

"Charlie, I have some bad news for you."

"It can't be any worse than I have, the misery of an unexplained silence of two weeks."

"I feel that I ought to tell you. It is the explanation of that silence, I fear."

"What is it, Mother?" he asked soberly.

"I hear that Sallie has plunged into frivolous society, is dancing every night at the hotel at Narragansett Pier where they are stopping now, and flirting with a half-dozen young men."

"I don't believe it," growled Gaston.

"I'm afraid it's true, Charlie, and I'm furious with her for treating you like this. I thought she had more character."

"I'll love and trust her to the end!" he declared as he went moodily to his office. But the poison of suspicion rankled in his thoughts. Why had she ceased to write? Was not this mask of society a habit with those who had learned to wear it? Was not habit, after all, life? Could one ever escape it? It seemed to him more than probable that the old habits should re-assert themselves in such a crisis, a thousand miles removed from him or his personal influence. He held a very exaggerated idea of the corruption of modern society. And his heart grew heavier from day to day with the feeling that she was slipping away from him.