The Mayor's Wife by Anna Katharine Green


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Page 2

I bowed; possibly I smiled. I do smile sometimes when a ray of
real sunshine darts across my pathway.

"I should be very glad to try such a situation," I replied.

A look of relief, so vivid that it startled me, altered at once
the whole character of his countenance; and perceiving how
intense was the power and fascination underlying his quiet
exterior, I asked myself who and what this man was; no ordinary
personage, I was sure, but who? Had Miss Davies purposely
withheld his name? I began to think so.

"I have had some experience," I was proceeding--

But he waved this consideration aside, with a change back to his
former gloomy aspect, and a careful glance at the door which did
not escape me.

"It is not experience which is so much needed as discretion."

Again that word.

"The case is not a common one, or, rather,"--he caught himself up
quickly, "the circumstances are not. My wife is well, but--she
is not happy. She is very unhappy, deeply, unaccountably so, and
I do not know why."

Anxious to watch the effect of these words, he paused a moment,
then added fervently:

"Would to God I did! It would make a new man of me."

The meaning, the deep meaning in his tone, if not in the
adjuration itself, was undeniable; but my old habit of
self-control stood me in good stead and I remained silent
and watchful, weighing every look and word.

"A week ago she was the lightest hearted woman in town,--the
happiest wife, the merriest mother. To-day she is a mere wreck
of her former self, pallid, drawn, almost speechless, yet she is
not ill. She will not acknowledge to an ache or a pain; will not
even admit that any change has taken place in her. But you have
only to see her. And I am as ignorant of the cause of it all--as
you are!" he burst out.

Still I remained silent, waiting, watchful.

"I have talked with her physician. He says there is something
serious the matter with her, but he can not help her, as it is
not in any respect physical, and advises me to find out what is
on her mind. As if that had not been my first care! I have also
consulted her most intimate friends, all who know her well, but
they can give me no clue to her distress. They see the
difference in her, but can not tell the cause. And I am obliged
to go away and leave her in this state. For two weeks, three
weeks now, my movements will be very uncertain. I am at the beck
and call of the State Committee. At any other time I would try
change of scene, but she will neither consent to leave home
without me nor to interrupt my plans in order that I may
accompany her."

"Miss Davies has not told me your name," I made bold to
interpolate.

He stared, shook himself together, and quietly, remarked:

"I am Henry Packard."

The city's mayor! and not only that, the running candidate for
governor. I knew him well by name, even if I did not know, or
rather had not recognized his face.

"I beg pardon," I somewhat tremulously began, but he waved the
coming apology aside as easily, as he had my first attempt at
ingratiation. In fact, he appeared to be impatient of every
unnecessary word. This I could, in a dim sort of way,
understand. He was at the crisis of his fate, and so was his
party. For several years a struggle had gone on between the two
nearly matched elements in this western city, which, so far, had
resulted in securing him two terms of office--possibly because
his character appealed to men of all grades and varying
convictions. But the opposite party was strong in the state, and
the question whether he could carry his ticket against such odds,
and thus give hope to his party in the coming presidential
election, was one yet to be tested. Forceful as a speaker, he
was expected to reap hundreds of votes from the mixed elements
that invariably thronged to hear him, and, ignorant as I
necessarily was of the exigencies of such a campaign, I knew that
not only his own ambition, but the hopes of his party, depended
on the speeches he had been booked to make in all parts of the
state. And now, three weeks before election, while every
opposing force was coming to the surface, this trouble had come
upon him. A mystery in his home and threatened death in his
heart! For he loved his wife--that was apparent to me from the
first; loved her to idolatry, as such men sometimes do love,--
often to their own undoing.

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Fri 29th Mar 2024, 10:32