There was another knock at her door, and a servant handed in a card
bearing Frank Van Buren's name. He was in the office, the waiter said.
Should he show the gentleman up?
Ethie hesitated a moment, and then taking her pencil wrote upon the back
of the card, "I am too busy to see you to-day."
The servant left the room, and Ethelyn went back to where her clothes
were scattered about and the great trunk was standing open. She did not
care to see Frank Van Buren now. He was the direct cause of every sorrow
she had known, and bitter feelings were swelling in her heart in place
of the softer emotions she had once experienced toward him. He was
nothing to her now. Slowly but gradually the flame had been dying out,
until Richard had nothing to dread from him, and he was never nearer to
winning his wife's entire devotion than on that fatal night when, by his
jealousy and rashness, he built so broad a gulf between them.
"It is impossible that we should ever live together again, after all
that has transpired," Ethelyn said, as she stood beside her trunk and
involuntarily folded up a garment and laid it on the bottom.
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