Burn the House Down

Nick Caldwell was thirty and Cecilia Voss was twenty when he began pursuing her, and he kept at it through ninety-nine refusals. He told her she was his whole life, and that if she agreed to marry him he would make her the happiest bride in the world. Cecilia believed the heat of it and handed over everything she felt. On the day of the wedding he did not appear at the altar. He had gone to a different wedding, where he pushed through the guests and kissed the bride in front of everyone. Cecilia learned then that she had been standing in for a woman he had never stopped loving, and that the tenderness had been assembled for that purpose. She struck back through his money and his standing and took both away from him. "Lie to me and you pay for it," she told him, and she said she had no use for a man who had been soiled, and that hating him would be more effort than he was worth. She put her time into her studies and then into building a career. People appeared around her who valued her for her own work. Nick's business fell apart under the weight of what he had done.