Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-10
ANOTHER MANS WIFE.
BEING A STRANGE STORY WITH
AN UNANSWERABLE MORAL.
Found In O Bundle of London Legends
bu f. ". Robinson.


putting it, / set it down here just as if I
was not writing of myself, just as if, God
help me, it was not possible could have
been at any time of my career so weak, so
desperate and so despicable a villain.
So weak-because the woman was pretty
and romantic, and thought she loved me
until it was too late to love anybody else.
So desperate-because mine was a name
looked up to; was one in whom people
believed, and I was clever enough in my
way to have made my mark, to be talked
of, to be fattered. What I was does not
matter to the purport of this confession
what came to does, and in its proper
place will be related here. So despicable-
because the woman's husband was a good
man, and l hardened him to stone; a hap
py, trustful man, and I wrecked his hap
piness and trust; father, and L took
away the mother of his children.
was a sentimentaIist and fool. If /
have one excuse that is worth recording it
is that loved the woman; that [ believed
her life would be brighter with me than
with him, and that l resolved all my life
to try to make it so. There was no thought
of u fleeing passion.
All delusion, all very commonplace
and miserable and cruel, and-my God!
the waking TO the fact that it was so!-the
stern truth that name and fame, and good
mems thoughts of us, had wholly passed
from our sphere, and we WERE even in our
own hearts, contemplate things
If could have been-if she could have
been-aS callouS as are some folk; if we
could have forgotten the past wherein
people thought 50 well with us, if the
present could have been everything with
out thought of what had been, or of
what might come to u.s. Of the horror and
the disgrace to grow upon us when the
glamour of the sin had vanished, and we
were simply everyday sinners, without a
single excused To me the life has been
ever unbearable, and yet have borne it.
To hes it has been a reproach which she
has been unable to hide from me, a sting
which has struck into her heart and poi
soned its life current and turned her
brain at times And we each disguised
from the other for a while what a mockeTy
our lives together were, what an ordeal Of
mental anguish what failure
Sometimes / found her in tears, in an
utter prostration of grief, and she would
not tell me why she wept, and why it was
beyond my power to console her. have
been always left to wonder what it was
that would suddenly crush and abase her,
and yet to know that it was Trafford she
was thinking of, and of Trafford's chill
dren-not her, for she had abandoned
them! who rose up like accusing angels,
and looked towards her, and even talked
of her as dear mamma who was dead"
and whom she could ever take again to
her heart.
And l? | had rvp long ago. My
I ifa 81
sense of duty to this victim, a feeling that
must atone for wrecking her life by try
ing to make it endurable to her, and the
awful consciousness that [ was not sue
ceeding, that l could not render it any
thing but one prOfitless series of re-
proaches, which were not spoken to me,
but which every action and every look be-
trayed.
could have reproached her, had had
the cruel courage to do so, but in all our
life together did not say word | could
have told her of her own folly, of her great
and little vanities, her recklessness, her
resentments, her futile reasonings with
the clear-headed, strong hearted surgeon
who had married her five years ago, and
would have had her as good and staid and
homelike as were other wives about his
sphere. | could have scoffed at her desire
for absolute admiration and power, her
foolish resistance to control, and self-will
which at last cast her into my arms and
away from the better mans.
Ten years afterwards it might have been
thought that we had settled down, but we
never did. She was 35 years of age then
and as pretty and graceful a woman as
she had ever been; the only change in her
was in the depth of grave, strange thought
which in repose her features always show
ed. That long look ahead was very sad
to watch, and one need not wonder of
what she was thinking or of the figures in
the distance that fitted before her yearn-
ing gaze
And she did not know herself how long
she would look thus, or how completely
she had drifted from the life about her.
and from the home that had never seemed
to be hers. On the contrary, she would
reproach me with my long brooding fits,
my forgetfulness of her, and there would
come the terrible fear that will come to
women like her, that had grown weary
of it all, and would be quit of it soon,
without much thought for her. There
were times when she would tell me this
as the deep conviction which she had, and
had to deny its truth to keep her sane,
knowing in my heart how true it was, and
that the life was one which / continually
deplored
And yet there had never come to me
resolution to escape it-mine had been a
career deliberately adopted, and it must
go on TO the end. 1t could not be altered
without my being a greater villain than l
was already.
We had lost sight of Trafford all these
ten years. We had tried to forget him; we
had been abroad, moving from place to
place; we had left him to his practice in a
large city, so far as we knew, and he had
not endeavOred in any way to find US out.
He had let us go from his sight. He had
not sought to obtain a divorce, for he had
not thought of taking to himself second
wife, and he was content with the two
children-one boy, one girl-which she
had left with him. We did not even know
that he had became famous in those ten
wasted years of ours, and that men spoke
of him with admiration and with graft
tude, the gift of healing being a Gods
gift with him which had worked great
ends
People sick unto death seemed to cry
aloud for Sir Edward Trafford; he had
been plain Ned Trafford when l stole his
wife away, a man of strong opinions and
firm will, but one whom / thought would
never rise to honors such as he had gained
tried at first to keep the newspaper
from her. but she was fond of news The
theatrical world interested her, the con
cert world, the world of art and htera
ture, and she would have guessed my mo
tive had l made any marked effort to con
ceal news from her. She must have seen