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The Purple Parasol
by
“He has gone. She still here. What shall I do?
“Got this answer:
“Stay there and watch. They suspect you. Don’t let her get away.
“But how the devil am I to watch day and night?”
The next week was rather an uneventful one for Rossiter. There was no sign of Havens and no effort on her part to leave Eagle Nest.
As the days went by he became more and more vigilant. In fact, his watch was incessant and very much of a personal one. He walked and drove with her, and he invented all sorts of excuses to avoid Mrs. Van Haltford and Miss Crozier. The purple parasol and he had become almost inseparable friends. The fear that Havens might return at any time kept him in a fever of anxiety and dread. Now that he was beginning to know her for himself he could not endure the thought that she cared for another man. Strange to say, he did not think of her husband. Old Wharton had completely faded from his mind; it was Havens that he envied. He saw himself sinking into her net, falling before her wiles, but he did not rebel.
He went to bed each night apprehensive that the next morning should find him alone and desolate at Eagle Nest, the bird flown. It hurt him to think that she would laugh over her feat of outwitting him. He was not guarding her for old Wharton now; he was in his own employ. All this time he knew it was wrong, and that she was trifling with him while the other was away. Yet he had eyes, ears, and a heart like all men, and they were for none save the pretty wife of Godfrey Wharton.
He spoke to her on several occasions of Dudley and gnashed his teeth when he saw a look of sadness, even longing, come into her dark eyes. At such times he was tempted to tell her that he knew all, to confound her by charging her with guilt. But he could not collect the courage. For some unaccountable reason he held his bitter tongue. And so it was that handsome Sam Rossiter, spy and good fellow, fell in love with a woman who had a very dark page in her history.
She received mail, of course, daily, but he was not sneak enough to pry into its secrets, even had the chance presented itself. Sometimes she tossed the letters away carelessly, but he observed that there were some which she guarded jealously.
Once he heard her tell Aunt Josephine that she had a letter from “Jim.” He began to discover that “Jim” was a forbidden subject and that he was not discussed; at least, not in his presence. Many times he saw the two women in earnest, rather cautious conversation, and instinctively felt that Havens was the subject. Mrs. Wharton appeared piqued and discontented after these little talks. He made this entry in his diary one night, a week after Havens went away:
“I almost wish he’d come back and end the suspense. This thing is wearing on me. I was weighed to-day and I’ve lost ten pounds. Mrs. Van Haltford says I look hungry and advises me to try salt-water air. I’m hanged if I don’t give up the job this week. I don’t like it, anyhow. It doesn’t seem square to be down here enjoying her society, taking her walking and all that, and all the time hunting up something with which to ruin her forever. I’ll stick the week out, but I’m not decided whether I’ll produce any evidence against her if the Wharton vs. Wharton case ever does come to trial. I don’t believe I could. I don’t want to be a sneak.”
One day Rossiter and the purple parasol escorted the pretty trifler over the valley to Bald Top, half a mile from the hotel. Mrs. Van Haltford and Miss Crozier were to join them later and were to bring with them Colonel Deming and Mr. Vincent, two friends who had lately arrived. The hotel was rapidly filling with fashionable guests, and Mrs. Wharton had petulantly observed, a day or two before, that the place was getting crowded and she believed she would go away soon. On the way over she said to him: