The Hand But Not the Heart

T >> T.S. Arthur >> The Hand But Not the Heart

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But this could not last. She had formed relations with that world
not to be cast off lightly. She was a wife, violently separated from
her husband; and setting at defiance the laws which had bound them
together.

On the third day Mrs. Dexter received a communication from her
husband. It was imperative, reading thus:

"MRS. DEXTER--I have twice sought to gain an interview, and twice
been repelled with insult. I now write to ask when and where you
will see me. We must meet, Jessie. This rash step, I fear, is going
to involve consequences far more disastrous than you have imagined.
It is no light thing for a woman to throw herself beyond the pale of
her husband's protection.--Something is owed to the world--something
to reputation--something to your good name; and much to your
husband. I may have been hasty, but I was sincere. There are some
things that looked wrong; _they look wrong still_, and will _always
look wrong_ if your present attitude is maintained. I wish to see
you, that we may, together, review these unhappy questions, and out
of a tangled skein bring even threads, if possible. Let me hear from
you immediately.

"YOUR HUSBAND."

Twice Mrs. Dexter read this letter, hurriedly at first, but very
slowly the second time; weighing each word and sentence carefully.
She then laid it aside, and almost crouching down in her chair, fell
into such deep thought that she seemed more like one sleeping than
awake. She did not attempt an answer until the next day. Then she
penned the following:

"To LEON DEXTER--In leaving your house and your protection, I was
not governed by caprice or impulse. For some time I have seen that,
sooner or later, it must come to this; that the cord uniting us was
too severely strained, and must snap. I did not suppose the time so
near at hand--that you would drag upon it now with such a sudden
force. But the deed is done, and we are apart forever. I cannot live
with you again--your presence would suffocate me. There was a mutual
wrong in our marriage; but I was most to blame; for I knew that I
did not and never could love you as I believed a husband should be
loved. But you had extorted from me a promise of marriage, and I
believed it to be my duty to fulfill that promise. Young,
inexperienced, blind to the future, I took up the burdens you laid
at my feet, and believed myself strong enough to carry them all the
days of my life. It was a fatal error. How painfully I have
struggled on--how prayerfully, how patiently, how self-denyingly,
you can never know. Yet, without avail. I have fallen by the way,
and there is not strength enough in me to lift the burdens again. I
know this, and One besides; and I am content to rest the case with
Him. The world will blame--the church censure--the law condemn. Let
it be so. All that is light to the sufferings I have endured, and
from which I have fled.

"I cannot see you, Mr. Dexter--_I will not see you_. Our ways in
this world have parted, and forever. The act was not mine, but
yours. You flung me off with a force that overcame all scruple--all
question of right--all effort to cling to you as my husband. I was
trying, in my feeble way--for not much power remained--to be a
dutiful wife, when you extinguished all hope of success by a charge
as false as the evil spirit who whispered in your too willing ears a
suspicion of infidelity against one who had never permitted a
thought of wrong towards her husband to enter even the outermost
portal of her mind. I had not seen the person to whom you allude
since my accidental meeting with him at Newport, so basely construed
into design; and his passing my window at the moment you returned
home, was as unexpected to me as to you.

"I had hoped that my previous solemn assurances were sufficient to
give you confidence in my integrity. But this was an error. You had
no faith in me; and assailed me with violence when my thoughts were
as true to honor as ever were yours. Did you imagine that I could
lie passive at your feet, so trampled down and degraded? No, sir!
God gave me a higher consciousness--a purer spirit--a nobler
individuality! You should have mated one of a different stamp from
me!

"And yet I pity you, Leon Dexter! This web of trouble, which your
own hands have woven around your life, will fetter and gall you at
every step in your future journey. I have not left you in a spirit
of retaliation; but simply because the natural strain of repulsion
was stronger than all the attractive forces that held us together. I
only obeyed a law against which weak nature strove in vain. Were it
in my power, I would make all your future bright with the warmest
sunshine. But over your future I have no control--yet, sadly enough,
are our destinies linked, and the existence of each will be a thorn
in the other's heart.

"I have not much strength left. The contest has nearly extinguished
my life. This is the last struggle I shall have with you. My first
weak thought was to return your letter without a word in reply. But
that would have been a wrong to both; and so I have made you this
communication, and you must regard it as final. Farewell, unhappy
Leon Dexter! I would have saved you from this calamity, but you
would not let me! May He who has permitted you thus to drag down the
temple of domestic happiness, and bury yourself amid the ruins, give
you, in this direful calamity, a higher than human power of
endurance. May the fierce flames of this great ordeal, find gold in
your character beyond the reach of fire. Farewell, forever! and may
God bless and keep you! The prayer is from a heart yet free from
guile, and the lips that breathe it upward are as pure as when you
laid upon them the marriage kiss! God keep them as guileless and as
pure! Amen!

"JESSIE."

Dexter accepted the decision of his wife as final. What else was
left for him? He would have been the dullest of men not to have seen
the spirit of this answer, shining everywhere through the letter.
Something more than feebly dawned the conviction in his mind, that
he had foully wronged his wife, and that the fearful calamity which
had overtaken him in the morning of his days, was of his own
creating. He did not again attempt to see her; made no further
remonstrance; offered no kind of annoyance. A profound respect for
the suffering woman who had abandoned him, took the place of
indignation against her. In silence he sat down amid his crushed
hopes and broken idols, and waited for light to guide him and
strength to walk onward. Like thousands of other men, he had
discovered that a human soul was not a plaything, nor a piece of
machinery to wind up and set in motion at will; and like thousands
of other men, he had made this discovery too late.

CHAPTER XXII.

WITHOUT a note of warning, the public were startled by the news that
Mrs. Dexter had left her husband. Wisely, sober second thought laid
upon the lips of Mr. Dexter the seal of silence. He gave no reason
for the step his wife had taken, and declined answering all
inquiries, even from his nearest friends. From a man of impulse, he
seemed changed at once into a man of deliberate purpose. His elegant
home was not given up, though he lived in it a kind of half hermit
life. Abroad, he was reserved; while everything about him gave signs
of a painful inward conflict.

Of course, the social air was full of rumors, probable and
improbable, but none of them exactly true. Mrs. Dexter was wholly
silent, except to her wisest and truest friend, Mrs. De Lisle--and
her discretion ever kept her guarded. Mrs. Loring simply alleged
"incompatibility of temper"--that vague allegation which covers with
its broad mantle so wide a range of domestic antagonisms. And so the
public had its appetite piqued, and the nine days' wonder became the
wonder of a season. Hints towards the truth were embellished by
gossips' ready imaginations, and stories of wrong, domestic (sic)
tyrrany, infidelity, and the like, were passed around, and related
with a degree of circumstantiality that gave them wide credence. Yet
in no instance was the name of Hendrickson connected with that of
Mrs. Dexter. So transient had been their intercourse, that no eye
but that of jealousy had noted their meeting as anything beyond the
meeting of indifferent acquaintances.

It was just one week from the day Paul Hendrickson caught an
unexpected glimpse of Mrs. Dexter's face at the window, and passed
on with her image freshened in his heart, that he called in at the
Ardens', after an unusually long absence, to spend an evening. Miss
Arden's countenance lighted with a sudden glow on his appearance,
the rich blood dyeing her cheeks, and giving her face a heightened
charm; and in the visitor's eyes there was something gentler and
softer in her beauty than he had before observed. He probably
guessed the cause; and the thought touched his feelings, and drew
his heart something nearer to her.

"That is a painful story about Mrs. Dexter," said Mrs. Arden, almost
as soon as the young man came in. The recently heard facts were
uppermost in her thoughts.

"What story? I have not heard anything." Hendrickson was on his
guard in a moment; though he betrayed unusual interest.

"It is dreadful to think of!" said Miss Arden. "What a wretched
creature she must be! I always thought her one of the best of women.
Though I must own that at Saratoga last summer, she showed rather
more fondness for the society of other men than she did for that of
her husband."

"I am still in the dark," said Mr. Hendrickson, with suppressed
excitement.

"Then you haven't heard of it? Why, it's the town talk."

"No."

"There's been a separation between Mrs. Dexter and her husband,"
remarked Mrs. Arden. "She left him several days ago, and is now with
her aunt, Mrs. Loring."

"A separation! On what ground?" Hendrickson's breathing oppressed
him.

"Something wrong with Mrs. Dexter, I am told. She had too many
admirers--so the story goes; and, worse still--for admiration she
couldn't help--one lover."

It was Mrs. Arden who said this.

"Who was the lover?" asked Mr. Hendrickson. His voice was so quiet,
and his tones so indifferent, that none suspected the intense
interest with which he was listening.

"I have not heard his name," replied Mrs. Arden.

"Does he live in this city?"

"I believe not. Some new acquaintance, made at Newport, I think. You
remember that she was very ill there last summer?"

"Yes."

"Well, the cause of that illness is now said to have been a
discovery by Mr. Dexter of some indiscretion on her part, followed
by angry remonstrance on his."

"That is the story?"

"Yes."

"And what caused the separation which has just taken place?"

"A renewal of this intimacy," said Mrs. Arden.

"A very serious charge; and, I believe without foundation in truth,"
replied Hendrickson. He spoke slowly, yet not with strong emphasis.
His auditors did not know that he was simply controlling his voice
to hide his agitation.

"Oh, there is no doubt as to its truth," said Mrs. Arden. "The facts
have been substantiated; so Mrs. Anthony told me to-day; and she has
been one of Mrs. Dexter's most intimate friends."

"What facts?" inquired Hendrickson.

"Facts, that if they do not prove crime against Mrs. Dexter, show
her to have been imprudent to the verge of crime."

"Can you particularize?" said the young man.

"Well, no I can't just do that. Mrs. Anthony ran on at such a rate
that I couldn't get the affair adjusted in my mind. But she asserts
positively that Mrs. Dexter has gone considerably beyond the
boundary of prudence; and she is no friend of Dexter's, I can assure
you. As far as I can learn, there have been frequent meetings
between this lover and Mrs. Dexter during the husband's absence. An
earlier return home, a few days ago, led to a surprise and an
exposure. The result you know."

"I must make bold to pronounce this whole story a fabrication," said
Mr. Hendrickson, with rising warmth; "It is too improbable."

"Worse things than that have happened, and are happening every day,"
remarked Mrs. Arden.

"Still I shall disbelieve the story," said Mr. Hendrickson, firmly.

"What else would justify him in sending her home to her aunt?" asked
Mrs. Arden.

"He sent her home, then? That is the report?" remarked Hendrickson.

"Some say one thing and some another."

"And a story loses nothing in the repetition."

"You are very skeptical," said Miss Arden.

"I wish all men and women were more skeptical than they are, in
touching the wrong doings of others," replied the young man. "The
world is not so bad as it seems. Now I am sure that if the truth of
this affair could really be known, we should find scarcely a single
fact in agreement with the report. I have heard that Mr. Dexter is
blindly jealous of his wife."

"Oh, as to that, Mrs. Anthony says that he made himself ridiculous
by his jealousy at Saratoga last summer. And I now remember that he
used to act strangely sometimes," said Mrs. Arden.

"A jealous man," returned Hendrickson, "is a very bad judge of his
wife's conduct; and more likely to see guilt than innocence in any
circumstance that will bear a double explanation. Let us then lean
to the side of charity, and suppose good until the proof of evil
stares us in the very face; as I shall do in this instance. I have
always believed Mrs. Dexter to be the purest of women; and I believe
so still."

Both Mrs. Arden and her daughter seemed annoyed at this defence of a
woman against whom they had so readily accepted the common rumor.
But they said nothing farther. After that an unusual embarrassment
marked their intercourse. As early as he could, with politeness,
retire, Hendrickson went away. He did not err in his own elucidation
of the mystery; for he remembered well the vision of Mrs. Dexter's
face at the window--her instant sign of feeling--his own quick but
not meditated response--and the sudden appearance of her husband,
whose clouded countenance was full of angry suspicion.

"To this!--and so soon!" said Hendrickson to himself, as he left the
house of Mrs. Arden. "Oh, that I could stretch out my hand to save
her!--That I could shield her from the tempests!--That I could
shelter her from the burning heats! But I cannot. There is a great
gulf between us, and I may not pass to her, nor she to me. Oh, my
soul! is this separation to be for all time?"

There was rebellion in the heart of Paul Hendrickson when he reached
his home; and a wild desire to overleap all barriers of separation.

"There will be a divorce in all probability," so he began talking
with himself. "Jessie will never return to him after this violent
separation; and he, after a time, will ask to have the marriage
annulled. He will not be able to bring proof of evil against
her--will, I am sure, not even attempt it; for no evidence exists.
But her steady refusal to live with him as his wife, will enable
him, it may be, to get a divorce. And then!"

There was a tone of exultation in his voice at the closing words.

"And whosoever marrieth her which is put away, committeth adultery."

Hendrickson started to his feet, his face as pale as ashes, and
glanced almost fearfully about the room. The voice seemed spoken in
the air--but it was not so. The warning had reached his sense of
hearing by an inner way.

Then he sat down, and pondered this new question, so suddenly
presented for solution, turning it towards every light--viewing it
now from the side of human feeling and human reason--and now with
the light of Divine Revelation shining upon it. But he was not
satisfied. The letter of the record was against him; but nature
cried out for some different reading. At length he made an effort to
thrust the subject aside.

"What folly is this?" he said, still talking with himself. "Wait!
wait! wait!--the time is not yet. Separation only exists. There is
no divorce. The great, impassable gulf is yet between us. I cannot
go to her. She cannot come to me. I must wait, hopefully, if not
patiently, the issue of events."

The thoughts of Hendrickson had once more been turning themselves
towards Miss Arden, and he had felt the glow of warmer feelings. He
had even begun to think again of marriage.

"Let that illusion go!" he said. "It must no longer tempt me to the
commission of an act that reason and conscience both pronounce
wrong. I do not love Mary Arden; therefore, I will not marry her. I
settle that matter now, and forever."

And the decision was final. He did not visit her again for many
months, and then only after her engagement to another.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THERE were plenty of intrusive friends to give Mr. Dexter advice as
to how he should act towards the unhappy woman who had fled from him
in her despair. He was rich, good-hearted--as the world
goes--honorable, domestic in his feelings and habits; everything, in
fact, that society requires in the composition of a good husband.
The blame, therefore, among the friends of Mr. Dexter, was all on
the side of his wife.

"You will, of course, if she persists in this unwarrantable conduct,
demand a legal separation," said one.

"That is just what she wants," suggested another. "You could not
grant her a higher favor."

"Wait--wait," was the advice of a third.

And so the changes were rung. Dexter listened, pondered, suffered;
but admitted no one into the council chamber of his heart. There
were some things known only to himself and the one he had driven
from him, which he did not care to reveal. The shock of separation
had rent away a few scales from his eyes, and his vision was
clearer; but the clearer vision did not lessen his misery--for
self-upbraidings crowded in with the illustrating light.

For a while, jealous suspicion kept him watchfully alive to the
movements of Paul Hendrickson. In order to gain the most undoubted
information in regard to him, he secured the services of an
intelligent policeman, who, well paid for his work, kept so sharp an
eye upon him, that he was able to report his whereabouts for almost
every hour of the day and evening.

Days, weeks, months even passed, and the policeman's report varied
scarcely a sentence. The range of Hendrickson's movements was from
his place of business to his lodgings. Once a week, perhaps, he went
out in the evening; but never were his steps directed to the
neighborhood in which the object of his waking and dreaming thoughts
resided.

In part, this knowledge of Hendrickson's mode of living relieved the
mind of Dexter; yet, when viewed in certain lights, it proved a
cause of deeper disturbance. His conclusions in the case were near
the truth. Hendrickson's withdrawal of himself from society--his
hermit-like life--his sober face and musing aspect--seemed only so
many evidences of his undying love for Mrs. Dexter. That an
impassable barrier existed (sic) betwen them--that, as things were,
even a friendly intercourse would be next to crime--Hendrickson
felt; and Dexter's clearer perceptions awarded him a just conclusion
in this particular.

So far as Mrs. Dexter was concerned, the heavy curtain that fell so
suddenly between her and the world was not drawn aside--not
uplifted--even for a moment. Her deep seclusion of herself was
nun-like. Gradually new objects of interest--new causes of
excitement--pressed the thought of her aside, and her name grew a
less and less familiar sound in fashionable and family circles. Some
thought of her as a wronged woman--some as a guilty woman--yet all
with a degree of sympathy.

A year Mr. Dexter waited for some sign from his wife. But if the
grave had closed over her, the isolation from him could not have
been more perfect. He then sold his house, removed to a hotel, and
made preparations for an absence in Europe of indefinite
continuance. He went, and was gone for over two years.--Returned,
and almost immediately on his arrival, took legal steps for
procuring a divorce. Mrs. Dexter received due notice of these
proceedings, based simply on her abandonment of her husband, and
refusal to live with him as a wife. But she remained entirely
passive. The proceedings went on, and in due time Mr. Dexter
obtained what he sought, a divorce. Within a month after the decree
in his favor, he returned across the Atlantic.

The publication of this decree awakened a brief interest in Mrs.
Dexter--or rather in plain Jessie Loring, as she was now in legal
aspect. But the curious public were not able to acquire any
satisfactory information in regard to her. The world in which she
lived was a _terra incognita_ to them.

The next exciting news which came in this connection, was the
announcement of Dexter's marriage with an English heiress. He did
not return with her to the United States; but remained in England,
where he established a foreign branch of the mercantile house in
which he was a partner, and took up his permanent residence beyond
the sea.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Six years from the day Jessie Loring laid her bleeding heart on the
marriage altar had passed. For over three years of that time she had
not stepped beyond the threshold of her aunt's dwelling, and only at
rare intervals was she seen by visitors. She had not led an idle
life, however; else would her days long ere this have been numbered.
To her aunt and cousins she had, from the day of her return, devoted
herself, in all things wherein she could aid, counsel, minister, or
sustain; and that with so much of patient cheerfulness, and loving
self-devotion, that she had become endeared to them beyond any
former attachment. There was an odor of goodness about her life that
made her presence an incentive to right action.

Long before this period, Mrs. Loring had ceased all efforts to lead
Jessie out of her self-imposed seclusion.

"Not yet, dear aunt! Not yet," was the invariable answer.

The day on which she received formal notice that her husband had
applied for a divorce, she shut herself up in her room, and did not
leave it, nor hold communion with any one, until the next morning.
Then, with the exception of a wearied look, as if she had not slept
well, and a shade of sadness about her lips, no change was
discernible. When the decree, annulling the marriage between her and
Dexter, was placed in her hands, she seemed bewildered for a time,
as if she found it almost impossible to realize her new position.

"I congratulate you, Jessie Loring!" said her aunt, speaking from
her external view of the case. "You are free again. Free as the
wind!"

"This does not place me where I was," Jessie replied.

"Why not? The law has cancelled your marriage!" said Mrs. Loring.
"You stand in your old relation to the world."

"But not to myself," Jessie answered with a deep sigh; and leaving
her aunt, she went away to her little chamber, there to sit in
solemn debate over this new aspect of affairs in her troubled life.

No--no. She did not stand in her old relation to herself. She was
not a maiden with lips free from the guile of a false marriage
promise; but a divorced wife. A thing questionably recognized, both
in human opinion and divine law. Deeply and solemnly did this
conviction weigh upon her thoughts. View the case in any of the
lights which shone into her mind, she could not discover an aspect
that gave her real comfort. It is true she was free from all legal
obligations to her former husband, and that was something gained.
But what of that husband's position under the literal reading of the
divine law? No doubt he contemplated marriage. But could he marry,
conscience clear? Had not her false vows cursed both their
lives?--imposed on each almost impossible necessities?

Such were the questions that thrust themselves upon her, and
clamored for solution.

She had not solved them when the intelligence came of Mr. Dexter's
marriage in England.

"I have news that will surprise you," said Mrs. Loring, coming into
the sitting-room where Jessie was at work on a piece of embroidery.

"What is it?" she asked, looking up almost with a start, for
something in her aunt's manner told her that she had a personal
interest in the news.

"Mr. Dexter is married!"

Instantly a pallor overspread Jessie's face.

"Married to an English lady," said Mrs. Loring.

Jessie looked at her aunt for a little while, but without a remark.
She then turned her eyes again upon her embroidery, lifting it close
to her face. But her hand trembled so that she could not take a
stitch.

"I hope he's satisfied now," said Mrs. Loring. "He's married an
heiress--so the story goes; and is going to reside with her in
England. I'm glad of that any how. It might not be so pleasant for
you to meet them--sensitive thing that you are! But it wouldn't
trouble _me_. _I_ could look them both in the face and not blink.
Much joy may he have with his English bride! Bless me, child, how
you do tremble!" she added, as she noticed the fingers of her niece
trying in vain to direct the needle she held upon the face of the
embroidery. "It's nothing more than you had to expect. And, besides,
what is Leon Dexter to you now? Only as another man?"

Jessie arose without speaking, and kissing her aunt in token of
love, passed quickly from the room.

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