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Updated: June 18, 2025
"Come!" she says, taking her lover by the hand as a teacher might take a child. But George Harpwood is not at his wits' end. "Get into my carriage, Esther," he suggests softly. "No," she says sternly. "We will walk thither." The pair go round the corner into a mist made azure by a vast building which is lighted at every window to the seventh story.
MY DEARLY BELOVED WIFE AND WIDOW: It may be barely possible that I have lived these years of shame and degradation to some good purpose, and for the following reasons: The man whom you now love so well the man whom you are about to marry George Harpwood is an adventurer and a criminal.
Tarpion was rapidly overcoming a prejudice against Harpwood. "Really, the man has been invaluable to me," the administrator now vows. "No one could deliberately and selfishly enter the grief-life of such a widow." For Harpwood, smarting with a double defeat, in the loss of Esther and the election of Lockwin, has at once devoted himself to the saddest offices.
A man is escorted to the stage. He is cheered by those who see him. Most of the leading delegates are bargaining for places on the central committee. The Harpwood men are to be taken care of. The speech goes on. "It is," says the orator, "the proudest day of my life, I assure you." "Do you suppose he's gone broke?" inquire the committee men.
This popular idolatry must be kept awake, because Harpwood has opened head-quarters and is visited by the same touching committees. He has been up and down State street, and has drunk more red liquor than was seen to go down Lockwin's throat. In more ways than one, Harpwood shows the timber out of which popular idols are made. The doctor is alarmed. He makes a personal canvass of all his patients.
Often has the beautiful Esther Wandrell smiled upon the young men upon rich and poor alike. Why is she, at twenty-seven years of age, rich, magnificent and unmarried? Ask her mother, who married at fifteen. Ask the father, who for ten years worried to think his only child might go away from him at any day. "I tell you," says Dr. Tarpion, "Harpwood will get her, and get her to-night.
"Emerson declares that all men honor love because it looks up, not down; aspires, not despairs," says Harpwood. The friend of Esther's widowhood has quoted to her nearly every consolatory remark of the philosophers. "Shall we live here?" she asks, willing to go to Sahara. "Certainly. Here I have the best future. You are a helpful soul, Esther. I shall rely upon you."
Good-bye." The next day comes Lockwin. There are no "me-boys" now. Here is the candidate. He must be put in irons. "Lockwin, what makes you want to go to Congress?" "I don't believe I do want to go, but I was told you wished to see me up here, privately." "Well, you ought to know whether or not you want to go. Nobody wants you there if it isn't yourself. Harpwood will go if you don't."
A week from Thursday night Harpwood is to marry Mrs. Lockwin. It isn't no good. I want you to see Lockwin, and tell him for me that if his story gets out it wasn't me, and I want you to tell him for me that he mustn't let that poor widow commit no bigamy. It's an awful hole, that's what it is! It is tough on him!" He has worked on the problem for years. The man groans. There is a rap on the door.
It is not too late after all, and the groom will turn out of a faultless equipage at the very moment. Ladies of experience, like Mrs. Lockwin, notice all such things. "In fact," says George Harpwood, "there is no other man in town whom she could marry, even if she loved him. Might as well expect her to marry Corkey. Poor dead Corkey!"
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