For a few weeks of one golden summer, they had known the ethereal bliss of seeing each other every day. They met as little children, and so parted. They accepted the law and convention which stood between them, not as a barrier to be crossed or circumvented but with childlike faith as a something absolutely impassable—like the space which separates the earth and the moon.

They remained utterly innocent in thought and deed, merely loved and longed and renounced so very hard that their poor young hearts almost broke.

Not so the "old man."

It happened, in the autumn of that year, that he brought his wife to New York, in whose Wall Street he had intricate interests. He learned that she was by way of seeing more of Arthur than a girl of eighteen married to a man of nearly fifty ought to see. He did not at once burst into coarse abuse of her, but, worldly-wise, set detectives to watch her. He had, you may say, set his heart upon her guilt. To learn that she was utterly innocent enraged him. One day he had the following conversation with a Mr. May, of a private detective bureau:

"You followed them?"

"To the park."

"Well?"

"They bought a bag of peanuts and fed the squirrels."

"Go on."

"Then they rode in a swan-boat. Then they walked up to the reservoir and around it. Then they came back to the hotel."

"Did they separate in the office?"

"On the sidewalk."

"But last night? She said she was dining with her sister and going to the play. What did she do last night?"

"She did what she said. Believe me, sir—if I know anything of men and women, you're paying me to run fool's errands for you. They don't need any watching."

"You have seen them—kiss?"

"Never."

"Hold hands?"

"I haven't seen any physical demonstration. I guess they like each other a lot. And that's all there is to it."

But the "old man" made a scene with her, just such a scene as he would have made if the detective's report had been, in effect, the opposite of what it was. He assumed that she was guilty; but, for dread of scandal, he would not seek a divorce. He exacted a promise that she would not see Arthur, or write to him, or receive letters from him.

Then, having agreed with certain magnates to go out to China upon the question of a great railroad and a great loan, he carried her off with him, then and there. So that when Arthur called at the hotel, he was told that they had gone but that there was a note for him. If it was from the wife, the husband had dictated it:

Don't try to see me ever any more. If you do, it will only make my life a hell on earth.

That had been the tangible end of Arthur's romance. But the intangible ends were infinite and not yet. His whole nature had changed. He had suffered and could no longer bear to inflict pain.