CHAPTER XXXV THE BEGINNING OF THE END Editha Dalton and her father went to Newport—he to get all the pleasure out of life that he could by mingling in the sports of the gay world and spending his daughter’s money, she to bear with what submission she could the weary routine in which she had no heart, and which was but a mockery to her. Earle had, faithful to his word, made over the long disputed ten thousand dollars to Mr. Dalton, and this, together with Editha’s handsome income which she tacitly yielded up to him, enabled him to live like a prince. But people wondered to see how the brightness had faded from the fair girl’s life. She took no interest in the pleasure and frivolities of the fashionable watering-place. She would not attend their parties and social gatherings, but wandered alone by the sea, or sat in seclusion of her own room, pale, sad, and silent, thinking ever of the one so dear, who at her bidding had put the ocean between them. Her rebellious heart had refused to banish him from the place so long his own, or yield up one tithe of the love which she had lavished upon him. The very name of brother, applied to him, made her shudder with repulsion, and the thought of being his sister made her cry out with despair, and grow sick and faint with horror. Mr. Dalton, to his credit be it said, after Earle was well out of the way, changed his course and treated her with great gentleness and kindness. Perhaps he felt a thrill of remorse as he saw her day by day growing so frail and slight, and bearing with such sad patience the sorrow which he had brought upon her. Perhaps, since we cannot conscientiously attribute really unselfish motives to him, he only realized that she was the goose who brought him the golden eggs, and considered it a matter of policy to conciliate her favor. Be this as it may, he improved his advantage to the fullest extent. Money slipped through his fingers like water; he had never seemed so gay, reckless, and intent upon his pleasure before, and more than one old associate remarked that “Mr. Dalton grew fast as he grew old.” But a Nemesis was on his track. A relentless fate was pursuing him, crying, “No quarter until the mighty one is fallen.” His days of unholy living and revenge, of treachery and wrong, were numbered, though he knew it not, and no spirit of warning whispered that for every evil deed he had done he must soon give an account. It was a matter of some surprise to Paul Tressalia that Earle should return to England alone.