Shadowed by a detective

One evening, in the winter of 1865, a grand ball was given at No. 17 East Twenty-third Street. It was at the house of Miss Ada Ricard, the new star in the great American city, but a star whose brilliancy the profane knew only by reflection, for her life was enveloped in mystery, and she was never seen in any public place.

All that was known of her past was that she had been married to a wealthy merchant in Buffalo, James Gobson, a brutal individual, whose matrimonial yoke she had succeeded in throwing off, but who had left her certain ineffaceable souvenirs of his affection.

Gobson, in fact, who adored his wife, and was very jealous of her, had one day so abused her that after the violent scene she was left with one ear torn and one tooth the less. It is true she concealed the cut on her pretty ear behind a huge diamond, but she had always refused to replace the pearl lacking in the jewel casket of her rosy lips.

“By this,” she said, “I shall never be likely to forget what a husband costs, and if any mad ambition or foolish love is about to make me forget it, it will be sufficient to smile at myself in the glass to recall the past.”

Thus armed against her own weakness, she boldly launched herself into a life of flirtations. Being worth from ten to twelve thousand dollars through her husband, she made her debut by expending them even to the cents in order to establish herself in luxurious surroundings, knowing that men, in their pride, attach as much value to the splendor of the temple as to the charms of the idol.

Having done this, and having her beauty as her only capital, she was careful not to waste it on the first comer; she waited patiently, seldom showing herself abroad, absolutely refusing all homage until a certain Thomas Cornhill, the proprietor of inexhaustible oil wells, seemed worthy of her heart.

Unfortunately, three months after, Thomas Cornhill suddenly died, and Miss Ada, though bereft, was left with one hundred thousand dollars in ready money, and an equal sum in jewels.

Ada mourned him for a few weeks; then, having an essentially practical mind, she changed her retinue of servants before the advent of Willie Saunders, an immensely rich cracker-merchant, who soon succeeded poor Cornhill.

When Willie Saunders found his homage accepted, he was greatly flattered. He was a stout man of about fifty, sensitive, simple and vain. He truly adored Ada, and believed himself tenderly beloved by her. Therefore, ready to listen to all her caprices, he made only a few remarks for form’s sake when she told him about the masquerade ball she wished to give, but he was very jealous. He knew Ada was sought by many adorers, among whom was a certain Edward Forster, a colonel in the Union Army, and one of the most fascinating gentlemen in New York high life.

However convinced the worthy cracker-merchant might be of Ada’s love, he naturally supposed that her adorers, Forster first of all, would profit by this evening to pay her more attention than agreeable to himself, and it troubled him. But the pretty, wicked little creature managed so artfully that Saunders did not long resist.

Besides, she was a wonderful creature, and the upstart-millionaire had high stakes to play for. A blonde, with large, steel-blue eyes and a tall, admirable figure, with the feet and hands of a child; with a laughing mouth, bold-faced, and fearing nothing, Ada Ricard had every attraction to lure the man of the world. The memory of her former husband sometimes disturbed the young woman in her new life. Having retained the recollection of his brutal love and jealousy, she also remembered with terror that he swore to avenge himself for her leaving him. But, since arranging the money settlements, she had not heard of him, and even his friends in Buffalo did not know what had become of him. One fine morning he made a fortune, and went West. He was last heard from at San Francisco, where Saunders told her he was living a fast life, evidently trying to drown recollection.