When the spring weather came, he was able to go out again, and he spent
most of his time in the open air, feeling every day a fresh accession of
strength. At the end of one long April afternoon, he walked home with
a light heart, whose right to rejoice he would not let his conscience
question. He had met Marcia in the Public Garden, where they sat down on a
bench and talked, while her father and the little girl wandered away in the
restlessness of age and the restlessness of childhood.
“We are going home to Equity this summer,” she said, “and perhaps we shall
not come back. No, we shall not come back. _I have given up_. I have
waited, hoping--hoping. But now I know that it is no use waiting any
longer: _he is dead_.” She spoke in tearless resignation, and the peace of
accepted widowhood seemed to diffuse itself around her.
Her words repeated themselves to Halleck, as he walked homeward. He found
the postman at the door with a newspaper, which he took from him with a
smile at its veteran appearance, and its probable adventures in reaching
him. The wrapper seemed to have been several times slipped off, and then
slit up; it was tied with a string, now, and was scribbled with rejections
in the hands of various Hallocks and Halletts, one of whom had finally
indorsed upon it, “Try 97 Rumford Street.” It was originally addressed, as
he made out, to “Mr. B. Halleck, Boston, Mass.,” and he carried it to his
room before he opened it, with a careless surmise as to its interest for
him. It proved to be a flimsy, shabbily printed country newspaper, with an
advertisement marked in one corner.
State of Indiana, Tecumseh County
In Tecumseh Circuit Court, April Term, 1879.
BARTLEY J. HUBBARD
vs.
MARCIA G. HUBBARD.
Divorce. No. 5793.
It appearing by affidavit this day filed in the office of the Clerk of
the Tecumseh Circuit Court, that Marcia G. Hubbard, defendant in the
above entitled action for divorce on account of abandonment and gross
neglect of duty, is a non-resident of the State of Indiana, notice of
the pendency of such action is therefore hereby given said defendant
above named, and that the same will be called for answer on the 11th
day of April, 1879, the same being the 3d judicial day of the April
term of said court, for said year, which said term of said court will
begin on the first Monday in April, 1879, and will be held at the Court
House, in the town of Tecumseh, in said County and State, said 11th day
of April, 1879, being the time fixed by said plaintiff by indorsement
on his complaint, at which said time said defendant is required to
answer herein.
Witness my hand and the seal of the said Court, this 4th day of March,
1879.
AUGUSTUS H. HAWKINS,
Clerk.
SEAL
Milikin & Ayres, Att'ys for Plff.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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