He was almost generous to his wife about
money matters, and that, for him, was a concession. Still Mrs. Schreiderling
was not happy. They married her when she was this side of twenty and had given
all her poor little heart to another man. I have forgotten his name, but we
will call him the Other Man. He had no money and no prospects.
He was not even good-looking; and I think he was in the Commissariat or
Transport. But, in spite of all these things, she loved him very madly; and
there was some sort of an engagement between the two when Schreiderling
appeared and told Mrs. Gaurey that he wished to marry her daughter. Then the
other engagement was broken off--washed away by Mrs. Gaurey's tears, for that
lady governed her house by weeping over disobedience to her authority and the
lack of reverence she received in her old age. The daughter did not take after
her mother. She never cried. Not even at the wedding.
The Other Man bore his loss quietly, and was transferred to as bad a station
as he could find. Perhaps the climate consoled him. He suffered from
intermittent fever, and that may have distracted him from his other trouble.
He was weak about the heart also. Both ways. One of the valves was affected,
and the fever made it worse.
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