“Why can’t we stay married?” she asked plaintively, sounding almost like a child. “It’s no different than it was before.”

“Yes, it is. You know the truth now, and so do I. I need to free you, Annabelle. I owe you at least that. I’ve wasted two years of your life.” Worse than that, he had destroyed it. She had nothing now, except her inheritance. She no longer even had a house in town. She’d have to stay in a hotel. She couldn’t even stay at his apartment if they were divorcing. But he had thought of it as well. “You can stay at the apartment until you get your bearings, until you decide what you want to do. I’ll be gone in a few days.” He and Henry had already made their plans.

“I wish I hadn’t sold the house,” she said weakly, but they both knew it had been the right thing to do. It was too much house for her, and she couldn’t stay there all alone, particularly not as an unmarried woman. She needed a more manageable establishment of her own. And he felt certain that she would remarry in a short time. She was a beautiful girl and only twenty-two years old. And she had all the innocence and freshness of youth. At least he hadn’t spoiled that, although she felt as though she had aged a dozen years in the past hour. He stood up then and put his arms around her. He hugged her, but did not kiss her. The fraud he had perpetrated on her was over. He no longer belonged to her, and never had. He had been Henry’s all along, and they were about to pay a high price for his trying to be something he wasn’t. He loved her but not in the ways he needed to in order to be her husband. It had been a sad discovery for him too. And even worse now for her. He held out no hope. He was relieved now that he had never made love to her. He would never have forgiven himself if he had infected her as well. What he had done was bad enough. He felt terrible about lying to her for all this time. Worse than that, he had lied to himself. He loved her, but his wedding vows had been empty and meant nothing.

He walked her up to her room, but refused to stay with her that night. He said it was no longer proper. He slept in the guest room downstairs, and she lay in her bed and sobbed all night. Eventually, she crept downstairs and tried to get into bed with him, just so they could hold each other, but he wouldn’t let her. He sent her back upstairs to her own room, feeling like a monster, and after she was gone, he lay in his own bed and cried. He truly loved her and it broke his heart to leave her, but he felt he had no other choice. He knew how troubled she had been by what had never happened between them, and he didn’t want her with him now as he deteriorated slowly or rapidly, and ultimately died. He had no right to do that to her, and he planned to stay away until the end. The disease was already advancing at a rapid rate, and Henry was starting to show signs of it as well. They had both taken arsenic treatments, and it hadn’t helped at all. They wanted to be away from New York now, and all those they knew, for what came next. It was time to leave Annabelle and let her begin a new life. He knew that in time, when she adjusted to it, she would understand that it was right.

She stood sobbing on the front steps when he left the next day. She was wearing black for her mother, and looked tragic as he drove away. Leaving her was the hardest thing he had ever done, and he felt ill and cried intermittently all the way back to New York. If he had killed her with his bare hands, it would have been no harder than this, and he wouldn’t have felt worse.





Chapter 12




Annabelle saw no one after Josiah left. Blanche knew something terrible had happened, but she didn’t dare ask what. Annabelle stayed in her room, and took meals on a tray, which she hardly touched. Once a day, she went out for a walk along the sea, but she saw no one and spoke to nobody. Hortie came by one afternoon, and Annabelle refused to see her. She had Blanche tell her that she was ill. Annabelle was too heartbroken to see even her best friend, and too ashamed to tell her she was getting divorced, even if through no fault of her own, and she couldn’t tell her why. The truth was unthinkable and she wanted to protect Josiah. She panicked every time she thought of never seeing him again.

She knew that once people heard of the divorce, no one would believe her, and that everyone in New York and Newport would be shocked. She wondered how long it would take for news of it to get around. In mourning for her mother, she wasn’t expected to go out, but people would find it strange that they never saw Josiah. Blanche already suspected what had happened, although she thought it was a lovers’ quarrel, and had no idea it would end in divorce. She and the butler whispered that he must be having an affair, but no one could possibly have suspected it was with Henry, or that his and Annabelle’s marriage was over. Blanche tried to tell her that everything would be all right, and all Annabelle could do was cry and shake her head. Nothing would ever be all right again.

Josiah’s attorney came up to see her in July. Josiah had resigned his position at the bank and left for Mexico by then. Two weeks before, Henry had claimed illness in his family and resigned as well. It had never occurred to anyone to link the two events, but the departures of both men were a loss to the bank.

Josiah had sent her a letter before he left, apologizing to her again for his terrible perfidy and betrayal. He said he would bear the guilt of it all his life, and assured her that his love for her had been sincere. The divorce had already been filed in New York, and the attorney brought her a copy of the papers. The only grounds that he had been able to file them under was infidelity, which rocked her to the core when she read it. She had known it, but seeing it was worse. She had told Josiah she wouldn’t file a divorce, so Josiah had no choice but to do it himself.

“Everyone will think I cheated on him,” she said with an anguished look at the attorney, and he shook his head. She had hoped Josiah wouldn’t file it, but he had, on the only grounds that existed.

“No one will ever see these papers,” the attorney assured her. “There was no other choice, since you wouldn’t agree to file a divorce.” She would have died first. She loved him.

As it turned out, Josiah and his attorney’s confidence in the system was gravely misplaced. A clerk at the court sold a copy of the divorce papers to the newspapers, and in August it was published that Josiah had filed for divorce for adultery. In a single stroke, Annabelle’s life and reputation were ruined. Overnight, she became a pariah.

She was still in Newport when she heard of it from her father’s bank, and news of it spread like wildfire. Everyone in Newport was talking about Josiah and Annabelle’s divorce. It took her a full two weeks to have the courage to visit Hortie to talk to her about it, and when she did, she was in for another shock. Instead of allowing her to run straight upstairs to Hortie’s room, where she was languishing on her bed as usual, the butler ushered her into the drawing room, as Hortie’s mother swept out of the room and brushed past her with a disapproving scowl. She said not a word to Annabelle, and it was another ten minutes before Hortie appeared, looking considerably larger than the last time Annabelle had seen her. She looked extremely nervous and didn’t sit down. Instead, she stood looking at Annabelle uncomfortably as tears rushed to Annabelle’s eyes, and Hortie turned away and pretended not to see it.

“I suppose you’ve heard the news. Everybody has,” Annabelle said miserably, and blew her nose discreetly on a lace handkerchief that had been her mother’s. She was carrying her parasol too, as she had walked over from the house on an unusually hot day.

“I had no idea that there was someone else,” Hortie said in a choked voice, and she made no move toward her friend, nor said anything to comfort her. She stood like a statue across the room from Annabelle, her arms firmly at her sides.

“There isn’t, and never was,” Annabelle said clearly. “Adultery was the only grounds they allowed. Josiah wanted the divorce, I didn’t. He thought it was best … he couldn’t … he didn’t want …” Her words trailed into a choked sob. She had no idea how to explain it, because none of what had really happened made sense, and she couldn’t say it, even to her best friend. She didn’t want to betray him, no matter how great his betrayal of her had been. She couldn’t do that to him. He would be ruined forever if she said he had left her for a man, and she didn’t have the courage to tell Hortie she was still a virgin, so she just sat in the chair and cried. And there was no way she could tell her of his shocking illness. “I don’t know what to do,” Annabelle said miserably. “I want to die.” Hortie mistook her agony for guilt. Her mother had said that she deserved everything Josiah did to her now, that a man of Josiah’s moral stature would never divorce a woman for no reason, and that Hortie could rest assured that whatever Annabelle had done had been unforgivable. Otherwise he’d have stayed married to her. And if he had divorced her as an adulteress, then she was. She said she felt extremely sorry for Josiah, and not at all for Annabelle, who got just what she deserved. And James had told Hortie in no uncertain terms that she was strictly forbidden to ever see Annabelle again. He didn’t want her evil influence on his wife.

“I’m very sorry this happened,” Hortie said uncomfortably. “You must have made a terrible mistake.” She tried to be charitable with her, but she actually thought her mother was right. Josiah was too kind a man to do this lightly. For him to divorce Annabelle, quit his job, and leave town, she must have behaved abominably. She had never thought Annabelle capable of it before, but it only proved that you never knew even your best friends. She was severely disappointed in her, and from the flood of tears Annabelle was shedding, she could see just how guilty she felt. Her mother and James were right.