Belding's unhappiness could hardly be laid to material loss. He
had been rich and was now poor, but change of fortune such as that
could not have made him unhappy. Something more somber and
mysterious and sad than the loss of Dick Gale and their friends had
come into the lives of his wife and Nell. He dated the time of
this change back to a certain day when Mrs. Belding recognized in
the elder Chase an old schoolmate and a rejected suitor. It took
time for slow-thinking Belding to discover anything wrong in his
household, especially as the fact of the Gales lingering there
made Mrs. Belding and Nell, for the most part, hide their real
and deeper feelings. Gradually, however, Belding had forced on
him the fact of some secret cause for grief other than Gale's loss.
He was sure of it when his wife signified her desire to make a
visit to her old home back in Peoria. She did not give many reasons,
but she did show him a letter that had found its way from
old friends. This letter contained news that may or may not have
been authentic; but it was enough, Belding thought, to interest
his wife. An old prospector had returned to Peoria, and he had told
relatives of meeting Robert Burton at the Sonoyta Oasis fifteen
years before, and that Burton had gone into the desert never to
return. To Belding this was no surprise, for he had heard that
before his marriage. There appeared to have been no doubts as to
the death of his wife's first husband.
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