Belden grew very shaky after this. Fear is a terribly wearing thing. With prostration of his morale, physical feebleness began also to come. He felt the consequences of his exhausting life. His hand trembled. You would not have bet upon his snuffing a candle with the pistol he carried. In fact, you would have thought it quite unsafe that he should have a pistol. He might shoot a bystander or himself, as well as an assailant. He played too much with that weapon with his nervous, trembling fingers. It was very soon discovered between him and his partner that their flight was not a necessity of passion. Each had made a convenience of the other, and it was not long before they knew it with mutual disgust. The _intriguante_, to give her the benefit of all euphemism, found out what a ruined villain she had hired for an escort: and she, in revenge, made him understand her own good reasons for absence before exposure. No very pleasant feeling, then, between this pair--certainly not love--passion exhausted--contempt, disgust, hatred growing--only between them the cohesion of guilt, and now of common terror. Chasing him was the punishment of his last and of his first villainy and most he dreaded the older vengeance of the younger man--that had a black, looming weight of long accumulation, and if it fell upon him, would fall with the vigorous force of youth. Chasing her was love changed, as she thought, to hate; trust to contempt; faith outraged; pride shattered; a man bitterly pursuing a woman who had been false to him; a worthy husband, an unworthy wife: and besides this, the companion of this pursuit was the person whom she would least wish to encounter as the representative of that public scorn she had desperately fled to escape. All this stole the bloom and freshness from the cheeks of the late wife of Mr. Budlong; her flourishing days were past; her withering days had come; and, alas! for her there would be no second spring to follow winter. Flight is fleet by night and day. Ways of dashing speed traverse half the continent. Flight is independent and baffling with labyrinthine choices. Pursuit must slowly seize its clew and follow cautiously. In the early confidences of their departure, Belden had learnt the extent of his partner’s resources--the twenty-three thousand dollars, profits of Mr. Budlong’s summer toils. “A neat capital,” thought Belden, “for a new country. When I get hold of it, I’ll let her slide, and after this blows over, I can buy back into society.” So he made for the West, hiding his trail and covering his campfires. But a coward dread permanently overcame him, and he often felt with trembling fingers for his pistol and started when coachmen pointed at him with threatening whips of would-be invitation, or hotel clerks asked his name.