The night did not promise to be a good one. The clouds were scudding wildly from east to west. The air was moist and chill. There was no light from moon or stars, and I strode with difficulty, though still rapidly, through the unpaved streets. I was singularly and painfully excited by the conversation with Kingsley. My own experience before, had prepared me to become so, with the slightest additional provocation. Facts were rapidly accumulating to confirm my fears, and lessen my doubts. That dark, meaning letter of Mrs. Delaney! The adventure in the streamlet.—The scream—the look—the secrecy! What a history seemed to be compressed in these few topics.
I hurried forward—I was now among the trees. I had almost to grope my way, it was so dark. I was helped forward by some governing instincts. My fiend was busy all the while. I fancied, now, that there was something exulting in his tone. But he drove me forward without forbearance. I felt that these clouds in the sky—this gloom and excitement in my heart—were not for nothing. Every gust of wind brought to me some whisper of fear; and there seemed a constant murmur among the trees—one burden—whose incessant utterance was only shame and wo. How completely the agony of one's spirit sheds its tone of horror upon the surrounding world. How the flowers wither as our hearts wither—how sickly grows sunlight and moonlight, in our despair—how lonely and utter sad is the breath of winds, when our bosoms are about to be laid bare of hope and sustenance by the brooding tempest of our sorrows.
I had a terrible prescience of some dreadful experience which awaited me as I drove forward. Obstructions of tree and shrub, and tangled vines, encountered me, but did not long arrest, and I really felt them not. I put them aside without a consciousness.
At length a glimmering light informed me I was near the cottage. I could see the heavy dark masses of foliage that crowded before the entrance. The light was in the parlor. There was also one in the room of Mrs. Porterfield. Ours, which was on the same floor with hers, was in darkness. I never experienced sensations more like those of a drunken man than when, working my way cautiously among the trees, I approached the window. The glasses were down, possibly in consequence of the violence of the gust. But there was one thing unusual. The curtains were also down at both windows. These curtains were half-curtains only. They fell from the upper edge of the lower sash, and were simply meant to protect the inmates from the casual glance of persons in front. The house was on an elevation of two or three feet from the ground. It was impossible to see into the apartment unless I could raise myself at least that much above my own stature. I looked around me for a stump, bench, block—anything; but there was nothing, or in the darkness I failed to find it. To clamber up against the side of the house would have disturbed the inmates. I ascended a tree, and buried within its leaves, looked directly into the apartment.
They were together! alone!—at the eternal chess! Julia sat upon the sofa. Edgerton in front of her. A small table stood between them. I had arrived at an opportune moment. Julia's hand was extended to the board. I saw the very piece it rested upon. It was the white queen; but, just at that moment—nothing could be more clearly visible—the hand of Edgerton was laid upon hers. She instantly withdrew it, and looked upward. Her face was the color of carnation—flushed—so said my demon, with the overwhelming passions in her breast. The next moment the table was thrust aside—the chess-men tumbled upon the floor, and Edgerton kneeling before my wife had grasped her about the waist, and was dragging her to his knee.
I saw no more. A sudden darkness passed over my eyes. A keen, quick, thrilling pang went through my whole frame, and I fell from the tree, upon the earth below, in utter unconsciousness.
Strange and cruel destiny! When everything depended upon my firmness, I was overwhelmed by feebleness. It seemed as if I had not before believed that this terrible moment of confirmation would come. And yet, if anybody could have been prepared for such a discovery, I should have been. I had brooded over it for months. A thousand times had my imagination pictured it to me in the most vivid and fearful aspect. I fancied that I should have been steeled by conviction against every other feeling but that of vengeance. But in reality, my hope was so sanguine, my love for Julia so fervent, I did not, amidst all my fears, really believe that such a thing could ever prove true. All my boasted planning and preparation, and espionage, had only deceived myself. I believed, at worst, that Julia might be brought to love William Edgerton,—but that he would presume to give utterance to his love, and that she would submit to listen, was not truly within my belief. I had not been prepared for this, however much, in my last interview with Kingsley, I had professed myself to be.
But had she submitted? That was still a question. I had seen nothing beyond what I have stated. His audacious hand had rested upon hers—his impious arm had encircled her waist, and then my blindness and darkness followed. I was struck as completely senseless, and fell from the tree with as little seeming life, as if a sudden bullet had traversed my heart.
In this state I lay. How long I know not—it must have been for several hours. I was brought to consciousness by a sense of cold. I was benumbed—a steady rain was falling, and from the condition of my clothes, which were completely saturated, must have been falling for some time previous. I rose with pain and difficulty to my feet. I was still as one stunned and stupified, by one of those extremes of suffering for which the overcharged heart can find no sufficient or sufficiently rapid method of relief. When I rose, the light was no longer in the parlor. The parties were withdrawn.
Horrible thought! That I should have failed at that trying moment. I knew everything—I knew nothing. It was still possible that Julia had repulsed him. I had seen HIS audacity only—was it followed by HER guilt? How shall that be known? I could answer this question as Kingsley would have answered it.
“If your wife be honest, she must now reveal the truth. She can no longer forbear. The proceeding of Edgerton has been too decided, and she shares his guilt if she longer keeps it secret. The wife who submits to this form of insult, without seeking protection where alone it may be found, clearly shows that the offence is grateful to her—that she deems it no insult.”
That, then, shall be the test! So I determined. Edgerton must be punished. There is no escape. But for her—if she does not seek the earliest occasion to reveal the truth, she is guilty beyond doubt—doomed beyond redemption.
I entered the house with difficulty. I was as feeble as if I had been under the hands of the physician for weeks. A light was burning on the staircase. I took it and went into the parlor, which I narrowly examined. There were no remaining proofs of the late disorder. The table was set against the wall. The chess-men were all gathered up, and neatly put away in the box, which stood upon the mantel.
“There is proof of coolness and deliberation here!” I muttered to myself, as I took my way up-stairs. When I entered my chamber, I felt a pang, the fore-runner of a spasm. I had been for several years afflicted with these spasms, in great or small degree. They marked every singular mental excitement under which I labored. It was no doubt one of these spasms which had seized and overpowered me while I sat within the tree. Never before had I suffered from one so severe; but the violence of this was naturally due to the extreme of agony—as sudden as it was terrible—which seized upon my soul. My physician had provided me with a remedy against these attacks to which I was accustomed to resort. This, though a potent remedy, was also a potent poison. It was a medicine called the hydrocyanic or prussic acid. Five minims was a dose, but two drops were death. I went to the medicine-case which stood beneath the head of the bed, with the view to getting out the vial; but my wife started up eagerly as I approached, and with trembling accents, demanded what was the matter. She saw me covered with mud and soaking with water. I told her that I had got wet coming homeward and had slipped down the hill.
“Why did you stay so late—why not come home sooner, dear husband?”
“Hypocrite!” I muttered while stooping down for the chest.
“You are sick—you have your spasms!” she now said, rising from the bed and offering to measure the medicine. This she had repeatedly done before; but I was not now willing to trust her. Doubts of her fidelity led to other doubts.
“If she is prepared to dishonor, she is prepared to destroy you!” said my familiar.
This suggestion seized upon my brain, and while I measured out the minims, the busy fiend reminded me that I grasped the bane as well as the antidote in my hand. A stern, a terrible image of retributive justice presented itself before my thoughts. The feeling of an awful necessity grew strong within me. “Shall the adulterer alone perish? Shall the adultress escape?” The fiend answered with tremulous but stern passion—“She shall surely die!”
“If she reveals not the truth in season,” I said in my secret soul; “if she claims not protection at my hands against the adulterer, she shall share his fate!” and with this resolve, even at the moment when I was measuring the antidote for myself, I resolved that the same vial should furnish the bane for her!
The medicine relieved me, though not with the same promptness as usual. I looked at the watch and found it two o'clock. My wife begged me to come to bed, but that was impossible. I proceeded to change my garments. By the time that I had finished, the rain ceased, the stars came out, the morning promised to be clear. I determined to set forth from my office. I had no particular purpose; but I felt that I could not meditate where she was. She continually spoke to me—always tenderly and with great earnestness. I pleaded my spasms as a reason for not lying down. But I lingered. I was as unwilling to go as to stay. I longed to hear her narrative; and, once or twice, I fancied that she wished to tell me something. But she did not. I waited till near daylight, in order that she should have every opportunity, but she said little beyond making professions of love, and imploring me to come to bed.
In sheer despair, at last, I went out, taking my pistol-case, unperceived by her, under my arm. I went to my office where I locked it up. There I seated myself, brooding in a very whirlwind of thought, until after daylight.
When the sun had risen, I went to a man in the neighborhood who hired out vehicles. I ordered a close carriage to be at my door by a certain hour, immediately after breakfast. I then despatched a note to Kingsley, saying briefly that Edgerton and myself would call for him at nine. I then returned home. My wife had arisen, but had not left the chamber. She pleaded headache and indisposition, and declined coming out to breakfast. She seemed very sad and unhappy, not to say greatly disquieted—appearances which I naturally attributed to guilt. For—still she said nothing. I lingered near her on various small pretences in the hope to hear her speak. I even made several approaches which, I fancied, might tend to provoke the wished-for revelation. Indeed, it was wished for as ardently as ever soul wished for the permission to live—prayed for as sincerely as the dying man prays for respite, and the temporary remission of his doom.
In vain! My wife said little, and nothing to the purpose. The moments became seriously short. Could she have anything to say? Was it possible that, being innocent, she should still lock up the guilty secret in her bosom? She could not be innocent to do so! This conclusion seemed inevitable. In order that she should have no plea of discouragement, I spoke to her with great tenderness of manner, with a more than usual display of feeling. It was no mere show. I felt all that I said and looked. I knew that a trying and terrible event was at hand—an event painful to us both—and all my love for her revived with tenfold earnestness. Oh! how I longed to take her into my arms, and warn her tenderly of the consequences of her error; but this, of course, was impossible. But, short of this, I did everything that I thought likely to induce her confidence. I talked familiarly to her, and fondly, with an effort at childlike simplicity and earnestness, in the hope that, by thus renewing the dearest relations of ease and happiness between us, she should be beguiled into her former trusting readiness of speech. She met my fondnesses with equal fondness. It seemed to give her particular pleasure that I should be thus fond. In her embrace, requiting mine, she clung to me; and her tears dropping warm upon my hands, were yet attended by smiles of the most hearty delight. A thousand times she renewed the assurances of her love and attachment—nay, she even went so far as tenderly to upbraid me that our moments of endearment were so few;—yet, in spite of all this, she still forbore the one only subject. She still said nothing; and as I knew how much she COULD say and ought to say, which she did not say, I could not resist the conviction that her tears were those of the crocodile, and her assurances of love the glozing commonplaces of the harlot.
In silence she suffered me to leave her for the breakfast-table. She looked, it is true—but what had I to do with looks, however earnest and devoted? I went from her slowly. When on the stairs, fancying I had heard her voice, I returned, but she had not called me. She was still silent. Full of sadness I left her, counting slowly and sadly every step which I took from her presence.
Edgerton was already at table. He looked very wretched I observed him closely. His eye shrunk from the encounter of mine. His looks answered sufficiently for his guilt. I said to him:—
“I have to ride out a little ways in the country this morning, and count upon your company. I trust you feel well enough to go with me? Indeed, it will do you good.”
Of course, my language and manner were stripped of everything that might alarm his fears. He hesitated, but complied. The carriage was at the door before we had finished breakfast; and with no other object than simply to afford her another opportunity for the desired revelation, I once more went up to my wife's chamber. Here I lingered fully ten minutes, affecting to search for a paper in trunks where I knew it could not be found. While thus engaged I spoke to her frequently and fondly. She did not need the impulse to make her revelation, except in her own heart. The occasion was unemployed. She suffered me once more to depart in silence; and this time I felt as if the word of utter and inevitable wo had been spoken. The hour had gone by for ever. I could no longer resist the conviction of her shameless guilt. All her sighs and tears, professions of love and devotion, the fond tenacity of her embrace, the deep-seated earnestness and significance in her looks—all went for nothing in her failure to utter the one only, and all-important communication.
Let no woman, on any pretext, however specious, deceive herself with the fatal error, that she can safely harbor, unspoken to her husband, the secret of any insult, or base approach, of another to herself!
Edgerton announced himself to be in readiness, and, at the same time, declared his intention to withdraw at once from our hospitality and return to his old lodging-house. He had already given instructions to his servant for the removal of his things.
“What!” I said with a feeling of irony, which did not make itself apparent in my speech—“you are tired of our hospitality, Edgerton? We have not treated you well, I am afraid.”
“Yes,” he muttered faintly, “too well. I have every reason to be gratified and grateful. No reason to complain.”
He forced himself to say something more by way of acknowledgment; but to this I gave little heed. We drove first to Kingsley's, and took him up; then, to my office, where I got out, and, entering the office, wrapped up my pistol-case carefully in a newspaper, so that the contents might not be conjectured, and bringing it forth, thrust it into the boot of the carriage.
“What have you got there?” demanded Kingsley. “Something for digestion,” was my reply. “We may be kept late.”
“You are wise enough to be a traveller,” said Kingsley; and without further words we drove on. I fancied that when I put the case into the vehicle, Edgerton looked somewhat suspicious. That he was uneasy was evident enough. He could not well be otherwise. The consciousness of guilt was enough to make him so; and then there was but little present sympathy between himself and Kingsley.
I had already given the driver instructions. He carried us into the loneliest spot of woods some four miles from M——, and in a direction very far from the beaten track.
“What brings you into this quarter?” demanded Kingsley. “What business have you here?”
“We stop here,” I said as the carriage drove up. “I have some land to choose and measure here. Shall we alight, gentlemen?”
I took the pistol-case in my hands and led the way. They followed me. The carriage remained. We went on together several hundred yards until I fancied we should be quite safe from interruption. We were in a dense forest. At a little distance was a small stretch of tolerably open pine land, which seemed to answer the usual purposes. Here I paused and confronted them.
“Mr. Kingsley,” I said without further preliminaries, “I have taken the liberty of bringing you here, as the most honorable man I know, in order that you should witness the adjustment of an affair of honor between Mr. Edgerton and myself.”
As I spoke I unrolled the pistol-case. Edgerton grew pale as death, but remained silent. Kingsley was evidently astonished, but not so much so as to forbear the obvious answer.
“How! an affair of honor? Is this inevitable—necessary, Clifford?”
“Absolutely!”
“In no way to be adjusted?”
“In but one! This man has dishonored me in the dearest relations of my household.”
“Ha! can it be?”
“Too true! There is no help for it now. I am dealing with him still as a man of honor. I should have been justified in shooting him down like a dog—as one shoots down the reptile that crawls to the cradle of his children. I give him an equal chance for life.”
“It is only what I feared!” said Kingsley, looking at Edgerton as he spoke.
The latter had staggered back against a tree. Big drops of sweat stood upon his brows. His head hung down. Still he was silent. I gave the weapons to Kingsley, who proceeded to charge them.
“I will not fight you, Clifford!” exclaimed the criminal with husky accents.
“You must!”
“I can not—I dare not—I will not! You may shoot me down where I stand. I have wronged you. I dare not lift weapon at your breast.”
“Wretch! say not this!” I answered. “You must make the atonement.”
“Be it so! Shoot me! You are right! I am ready to die.”
“No, William Edgerton, no! You must not refuse me the only atonement you can make. You must not couple that atonement with a sting. Hear me! You have violated the rites of hospitality, the laws of honor and of manhood, and grossly abused all the obligations of friendship. These offences would amply justify me in taking your life without scruple, and without exposing my own to any hazard. But my soul revolts at this. I remember the past—our boyhood together—and the parental kindness of your venerated parent. These deprive me of a portion of that bitterness which would otherwise have moved me to destroy you. Take the pistol. If life is nothing to you, it is as little to me now. Use the privilege which I give you, and I shall be satisfied with the event.”
He shook his head while he repeated:—
“No! I can not. Say no more, Clifford. I deserve death!”
I clapped the pistol to his head. He folded his arms, lifted his eyes, and regarded me more steadily than he had done for months before. Kingsley struck up nay arm, as I was cocking the weapon.
“He must die!” I exclaimed fiercely.
“Yes, that is certain!” replied the other. “But I am not willing that I should be brought here as the witness to a murder. If he will fight you, I will see you through. If he will not fight you, there needs no witness to your shooting him. You have no right, Clifford, to require this of me.”
“You are not a coward, William Edgerton?”
“Coward!” he exclaimed, and his form rose to its fullest height, and his eye flashed out the fires of a manhood, which of late he had not often shown.
“Coward! No! Do I not tell you shoot? I do not fear death. Nay, let me say to you, Clifford, I long for it. Life has been a long torture to me—is still a torture. It can not now be otherwise. Take it—you will see me smile in the death agony.”
“Hear me William Edgerton, and submit to my will. You know not half your wrong. You drove me from my home—my birthplace. When I was about to sacrifice you for your previous invasion of my peace in C—, I looked on your old father, I heard the story of his disappointment—his sorrows—and you were the cause. I determined to spare you—to banish myself rather, in order to avoid the necessity of taking your life. You were not satisfied with having wrought this result. You have pursued me to the woods, where my cottage once more began to blossom with the fruits of peace and love. You trample upon its peace—you renew your indignities and perfidies here. You drive me to desperation and fill my habitation with disgrace. Will you deny me then what I ask? Will you refuse me the atonement—any atonement—which I may demand?”
“No, Clifford!” he replied, after a pause in which he seemed subdued with shame and remorse. “You shall have it as you wish. I will fight you. I am all that you declare. I am guilty of the wrong you urge against me. I knew not, till now, that I had been the cause of your flight from C—. Had I known that!”
Kingsley offered him the pistol.
“No!” he said, putting it aside. “Not now! I will give you this atonement this afternoon. At this moment I can not. I must write. I must make another atonement. Your claim for justice, Clifford, must not preclude my settlement of the claims of others.”
“Mine must have preference!”
“It shall! The atonement which I propose to make shall be, one of repentance. You would not deny me the melancholy privilege of saying a few last words to my wretched parents?”
“No! no! no!”
“I thank you, Clifford. Come for me at four to my lodgings—bring Mr. Kingsley with you. You will find me ready to atone, and to save you every unnecessary pang in doing so.”
This ended our conference. Kingsley rode home with him, while, throwing myself upon the ground, I surrendered myself to such meditations as were natural to the moods which governed me. They were dark and dismal enough. Edgerton had avowed his guilt. Could there be any doubt on the subject of my wife's? He had made no sort of qualification in his avowal of guilt, which might acquit her. He had evidently made his confession with the belief that I was already in possession of the whole truth. One hope alone remained—that my wife's voluntary declaration would still be forthcoming. To that I clung as the drowning man to his last plank. When Kingsley and Edgerton first left me, I had resolved to waste the hours in the woods and not to return home until after my final meeting in the afternoon with the latter. It might be that I should not return home then, and in such an event I was not unwilling that my wife should still live, the miserable thing which she had made herself. But, with the still fond hope that she might speak, and speak in season, I now resolved to return at the usual dinner hour; and, timing myself accordingly, I prolonged my wanderings through the woods until noon. I then set forward, and reached the cottage a little sooner than I had expected.
I found Julia in bed. She complained of headache and fever. She had already taken medicine—I sat beside her. I spoke to her in the tenderest language. I felt, at the moment when I feared to lose her for ever, that I could love nothing half so well. I spoke to her with as much freedom as fondness; and, momently expecting her to make the necessary revelation, I hung upon her slightest words, and hung upon them only to be disappointed.
The dinner hour came. The meal was finished. I returned to the chamber, and once more resumed my place beside her on the couch. I strove to inspire her with confidence—to awaken her sensibilities—to beguile her to the desired utterance, but in vain. Of course I could give no hint whatsoever of the knowledge which I had obtained. After that, her confession would have been no longer voluntary, and could no longer have been credited.
Time sped—too rapidly as I thought. Though anxious for vengeance, I loved her too fondly not to desire to delay the minutes in the earnest expectation that she would speak at last. She did not. The hour approached of my meeting with Edgerton; and then I felt that Edgerton was not the only criminal.
Mrs. Porterfield just then brought in some warm tea and placed it on the table at the bed head. After a few moments delay, she left us alone together. The eyes of my wife were averted. The vial of prussic acid stood on the same table with the tea. I rose from the couch, interposed my person between it and the table—and, taking up the poison, deliberately poured three drops into the beverage. I never did anything more firmly. Yet I was not the less miserable, because I was most firm. My nerve was that of the executioner who carries out a just judgment. This done, I put the vial into my pocket. Julia then spoke to me. I turned to her with eagerness. I was prepared to cast the vessel of tea from the window. It was my hope that she was about to speak, though late, the necessary truths. But she only called to me to know if I had been to my office during the morning.
“Not since nine o'clock,” was my answer. “Why?”
“Nothing. But are you going to your office now, dear husband?”
“Not directly. I shall possibly be there in the course of the afternoon. What do you wish? Why do you ask?”
“Oh, nothing,” she replied; “but I will tell you to-morrow why I ask.”
“To-morrow!—tell me now, if it be anything of moment. Now! now is the appointed time!” The serious language of Scripture, became natural to me in the agonizing situation in which I stood.
“No! no! to-morrow will do. I will not gratify your curiosity. You are too curious, husband” and she turned from me, smiling, upon the couch.
I felt that what she might tell me to-morrow could have nothing to do with the affair between herself and Edgerton. THAT could be no object for jest and merriment. I turned from her slowly, with a feeling at my heart which was not exactly madness—for I knew then what I was doing—but it was just the feeling to make me doubtful how long I should be secure from madness.
“To-morrow will not do” I muttered to myself as I descended the stairs. “Too late!—too late!”
From the cottage I proceeded to Kingsley's. He was in readiness, and waiting me. We drove directly to Edgerton's lodging-house, the appointed hour of four being at hand. Kingsley only alighted from the carriage, and entered the dwelling. He was absent several minutes. When he returned, he returned alone.
“Edgerton is either asleep or has gone out. His room-door is locked. The landlord called and knocked, but received no answer. He lacks manliness, and I suspect has fled. The steamboat went at two.”
“Impossible!” I exclaimed, leaping from the carriage. “I know Edgerton better. I can not think he would fly, after the solemn pledge he gave me.”
“You have only thought too well of him always,” said the other, as we entered the house.
“Let us go to the room together,” I said to the landlord. “I fear something wrong.”
“Well, so do I,” responded the publican. “The poor gentleman has been looking very badly, and sometimes gets into a strange wild taking, and then he goes along seeing nobody. Only last Saturday I said to my old woman, as how I thought everything warn't altogether right HERE,”—and the licensed sinner touched his head with his fore-finger, himself looking the very picture of well-satisfied sagacity. We said nothing, but leaving the eloquence to him, followed him up to Edgerton's chamber. I struck the door thrice with the butt end of my whip, then called his name, but without receiving any answer. Endeavoring to look through the key-hole, I discovered the key on the inside, and within the lock. I then immediately conjectured the truth. William Edgerton had committed suicide.
And so it was. We burst the door, and found him suspended by a silk handkerchief to a beam that traversed the apartment. He had raised himself upon a chair, which he had kicked over after the knot had been adjusted. Such a proceeding evinced the most determined resolution.
We took him down with all despatch, but life had already been long extinct. He must have been hanging two hours. His face was perfectly livid—his eyeballs dilated—his mouth distorted—but the neck remained unbroken. He had died by suffocation. I pass over the ordinary proceedings—the consternation, the clamor, the attendance of the grave-looking gentlemen with lancet and lotion. They did a great deal, of course, in doing nothing. Nothing could be done. Then followed the “crowner's” inquest. A paper, addressed to the landlord, was submitted to them, and formed the burden of their report.
“I die by my own hands,” said this document, “that I may lose the sense of pain, bodily and mental. I die at peace with the world. It has never wronged me. I am the source of my own sorrows, as I am the cause of my own death. I will not say that I die sane. I am doubtful on that head. I am sure that I have been the victim of a sort of madness for a very long time. This has led me to do wrong, and to meditate wrong—has made me guilty of many things, which, in my better moments of mind and body, I should have shrunk from in horror. I write this that nobody may be suspected of sharing in a deed the blame of which must rest on my head only.”
Then followed certain apologies to the landlord for having made his house the scene of an event so shocking. The same paper also conveyed certain presents of personal stuff to the same person, with thanks for his courtesy and attention. An adequate sum of money, paying his bill, and the expenses of his funeral, was left in his purse, upon the paper.
Kingsley assumed the final direction of these affairs; and having seen everything in a fair way for the funeral, which was appointed to take place the next morning, he hurried me away to his lodging-house.
When within his chamber, he carefully fastened the door and placed a packet in my hands.
“This is addressed to you,” he said. “I found it on the table with other papers, and seeing the address, and fearing that if the jury laid eyes on it, they might insist on knowing its contents, I thrust it into my pocket and said nothing about it there. Read it at your leisure, while I smoke a cigar below.”
He left me, and I opened the seal with a sense of misgiving and apprehension for which I could not easily account. The outer packet was addressed to myself. But the envelope contained several other papers, one of which was addressed to his father; another—a small billet, unsealed—bore the name of my wife upon it.
“That,” I inly (sic) muttered, “she shall never read!”
An instant after, I trembled with a convulsive horror, as the demon who had whispered in my ears so long, seemed to say, in mocking accents:—
“Shall not! Ha! ha! She can not! can not!” and then the fiend seemed to chuckle, and I remembered the insuppressible anguish of Othello's apostrophe, to make all its eloquence my own. I murmured audibly:—
My eyes were blinded. My face sunk down upon the table, and a cold shiver shook my frame as if I had an ague. But I recovered myself when I remembered the wrongs I had endured—her guilt and the guilt of Edgerton. I clutched the papers—brushed the big drops from my forehead, and read.
“Clifford, I save you guiltless of my death. You would be less happy were my blood upon your hands, for, though I deserve to die by them, I know your nature too well—to believe that you would enjoy any malignant satisfaction at the performance of so sad a duty. Still, I know that this is no atonement. I have simply ceased from persecuting you and the angelic woman, your wife. But how shall I atone for the tortures and annoyances of the past, inflicted upon you both? Never! never! I perish without hope of forgiveness, though, here, alone with God, in the extreme of mortal humility, I pray for it!
“Perhaps, you know all. From what escaped you this morning, it would seem so. You knew of my madness when in C——; you know that it pursued you here. Nothing then remains for me to tell. I might simply say all is true; but that, in the confession of my guilt and folly, each particular act of sin demands its own avowal, as it must be followed by its own bitter agony and groan.
“My passion for your wife began soon after your marriage. Until then I had never known her. You will acquit me of any deliberate design to win her affections. I strove, as well as I could, to suppress my own. But my education did not fit me for such a struggle. The indulgence of fond parents had gratified all my wishes, and taught me to expect their gratification. I could not subdue my passions even when they were unaccompanied by any hopes. Without knowing my own feelings, I approached your wife. Our tastes were similar, and these furnished the legitimate excuse for frequently bringing us together. The friendly liberality of your disposition enlarged the privileges of the acquaintance, and, without meaning it at first, I abused them. I sought your dwelling at unsuitable periods. Unconsciously, I did so, just at those periods when you were most likely to be absent. I first knew that my course was wrong, by discovering the unwillingness which I felt to encounter you. This taught me to know the true nature of my sentiments, but without enforcing the necessity of subduing them. I did not seek to subdue them long. I yielded myself up, with the recklessness of insanity, to a passion whose very sweetness had the effect to madden.
“My fondness for your wife was increased by pity. You neglected her. I was at first indignant and hated you accordingly. But I became glad of your neglect for two reasons. It gave me the opportunities for seeing her which I desired, and I felt persuaded with a vain folly, that nothing could be more natural than that she would make a comparison, favorable of course to myself, between my constant solicitude and attention and your ungenerous abandonment. But I was mistaken. The steady virtue of the wife revenged the wrong which, without deliberately intending it, I practised against the husband. When my attentions became apparent, she received me with marked coolness and reserve; and finally ceased to frequent the atelier, which, while art alone was my object, yielded, I think, an equal and legitimate pleasure to us both.
“I saw and felt the change, but had not the courage to discontinue my persecutions. My passion, and the tenacity with which it enforced its claims, seemed to increase with every difficulty and denial. The strangeness of your habits facilitated mine. Almost nightly I visited your house, and though I could not but see that the reserve of your wife now rose into something like hauteur, yet my infatuation was so great that I began to fancy this appearance to be merely such a disguise as Prudence assumes in order to conceal its weaknesses, and discourage the invader whom it can no longer baffle. With this impression, I hurried on to the commission of an offence, the results of which, though they did not quell my desires, had the effect of terrifying them, for some, time at least, into partial submission.” Would to God, for all our sakes, that their submission had been final!
“You remember the ball at Mrs. Delaney's marriage? I waltzed once with your wife that evening. She refused to waltz a second time. The privileges of this intoxicating dance are such as could be afforded by no other practice in social communion—the lady still preserving the reputation of virtue. I need not say with what delight I employed these privileges. The pressure of her arm and waist maddened me; and when the hour grew late, and you did not appear, Mrs. Delaney counselled me to tender my carriage for the purpose of conveying her home. I did so;—it was refused: but, through the urgent suggestions of her mother, it was finally accepted. I assisted her to the carriage, immediately followed, and took my place beside her. She was evidently annoyed, and drew herself up with a degree of lofty reserve, which, under other circumstances, and had I been less excited than I was, by the events of the evening, would have discouraged my presumption. It did not. I proceeded to renew those liberties which I had taken during the dance. I passed my arm about her waist. She repulsed me with indignation, and insisted upon my setting her down where we were, in the unfrequented street, at midnight. This I refused. She threatened me with your anger; and when, still deceiving myself on the subject of her real feelings, I proceeded to other liberties, she dashed her hand through the windows of the coach, and cried aloud for succor. This alarmed me. I promised her forbearance, and finally set her down, very much agitated, at the entrance of your dwelling. She refused my assistance to the house, but fell to the ground before reaching it. That night her miscarriage ensued, and my passions for a season were awed into inactivity, if not silence.
“Still I could not account for her forbearance to reveal everything to you. You were still kind and affectionate to me as ever. I very well knew that had she disclosed the secret, you were not the man to submit to such an indignity as that of which I had been guilty. It seems—so I infer from what you said this morning—that you knew it all. If you did, your forbearance was equally unexpected and merciful. Believing that she had kept my secret, my next conclusion was inevitable. 'She is not altogether insensible to the passion she inspires. Her strength is in her virtues alone. Her sympathies are clearly mine!' These conclusions emboldened me. I haunted your house nightly with music. Sheltered beneath your trees, I poured forth the most plaintive strains which I could extort from my flute. Passion increased the effect of art. I strove at no regular tunes; I played as the mood prompted; and felt myself, not unfrequently, weeping over my own strange irregular melodies.
“Your sudden determination to remove prevented the renewal of my persecutions. I need not say how miserable I was made, and how much I was confounded by such a determination. Explained by yourself this morning, it is now easily understood; but, ignorant then of the discoveries you had made—ignorant of your merciful forbearance toward my unhappy parents—for I can regard your forbearance with respect to myself as arising only from your consideration of them—it was unaccountable that you should give up the prospect of fortune and honors, which success, in every department of your business, seemed certainly to secure you.
“The last night—the eve of your departure from C—-, I resumed my place among the trees before your dwelling. Here I played and wandered with an eye ever fixed upon your windows. While I gazed, I caught the glimpse of a figure that buried itself hurriedly behind the folds of a curtain. I could suppose it to be one person only. I never thought of you. Urged by a feeling of desperation, which took little heed of consequences, I clambered up into the branches of a pride of India, which brought me within twenty feet of the window. I distinctly beheld the curtain ruffled by the sudden motion of some one behind it. I was about to speak—to say—no matter what. The act would have been madness, and such, doubtless, would have been the language. I fortunately did not speak. A few moments only had elapsed after this, when I heard a few brief words, spoken in HER voice, from the same window. The words were few, and spoken in tones which denoted the great agitation of the speaker. These apprized me of my danger.
“'Fly, madman, for your life! My husband is on the stairs.'
“Her person was apparent. Her words could not be mistaken though spoken in faint, feeble accents. At the same moment I heard the lower door of the dwelling unclose, and without knowing what I did or designed, I dropped from the tree to the ground. To my great relief, you did not perceive me. I was fortunately close to the fence, and in the deepest shadow of the tree. You hurried by, within five steps of me, and jumped the fence, evidently thinking to find me in the next enclosure. Breathing freely and thankfully after this escape, I fled immediately to the little boat in which I usually made my approaches to your habitation on such occasions; and was in the middle of the lake, and out of sight, long before you had given over your fruitless pursuit. The next day you left the city and I remained, the wasted and wasting monument of pas sions which had been as profitlessly as they were criminally exercised.
“You were gone;—you had borne with you the object of my devotion; but the passion remained and burnt with no less frenzy than before. You were not blind to the effect of this frenzy upon my health and constitution. You saw that I was consuming with a nameless disease. Perhaps you knew the cause and the name, and your departure may have been prompted by a sentiment of pity for myself, in addition to that which you felt for my unhappy parents. If this be so—and it seems probable—it adds something to the agony of life—it will assist me in the work of atonement—it will better reconcile me to the momentary struggle of death.
“My ill health increased with the absence of the only object for whom health was now desirable. To see her again—to the last—for I now knew that that last could not be very remote—was the great desire of my mind. Besides, strange to say, a latent hope was continually rising and trembling in my soul. I still fancied that I had a place in the affections of your wife. You will naturally ask on what this hope was founded. I answer, on the supposition that she had concealed from you the truth on the subject of my presumptuous assault upon her; and on those words of warning by which she had counselled me to fly from your pursuit on that last night before you left the city. These may not be very good reasons for such a hope, but the faith of the devotee needs but slight supply of aliment; and the fanaticism of a flame like mine needs even less. A whisper, a look, a smile—nay, even a frown—has many a time prompted stronger convictions than this, in wiser heads, and firmer hearts than mine.
“My father counselled me to travel, and I was only too glad to obey his suggestions. He prescribed the route, but I deceived him. Once on the road, I knew but one route that could do me good, or at least afford me pleasure. I pursued the object of my long devotion. Here your conduct again led me astray. I found you still neglectful of your wife. Still, you received me as if I had been a brother, and thus convinced me that Julia had kept my secret. In keeping it thus long I now fancied it had become hers. I renewed my devotions, but with as little profit as before. She maintained the most rigid distance, and I grew nervous and feeble in consequence of the protracted homage which I paid, and the excitement which followed from this homage. You had a proof of this nervousness and excitement in the incident which occurred while crossing the stream let. I extended her my hand to assist her over, and scarcely had her fingers touched mine, when I felt a convulsion, and sunk, fainting and hopelessly into the stream. {Footnote: An incident somewhat similar to this occurs in the Life of Petrarch, as given by Mrs. Dobson, but the precise facts are not remembered, and I have not the volume by me} Conscious of nothing besides, I was yet conscious of her screams. This tender interest in my fate increased my madness. It led to a subsequent exhibition of it which at length fully opened my eyes to the enormity of my offence.
“You blindly as I then thought, took me to your dwelling as if I had been a brother. Ah! why? If I was mad, Clifford, your madness was not less than mine. It was the blindest madness if not the worst. The progress of my insanity was now more rapid than ever. I fancied that I perceived signs of something more than coldness between yourself and wife. I fancied that you frowned upon her; and in the grave, sad, speaking looks which she addressed to you, I thought I read the language of dislike and defiance. My own attentions to her were redoubled whenever an opportunity was afforded me; but this was not often. I saw as little of her while living in your cottage as I had seen before, and, but for the good old lady, Mrs. Porterfield, I should probably have been even less blessed by her presence. She perceived my dullness, and feeble health, and dreaming no ill, insisted that your wife should assist in beguiling me of my weariness. She set us down frequently at chess, and loved to look on and watch the progress of the game.
“She did not always watch, and last night, while we played together, in a paroxysm of madness, I proceeded to those liberties which I suppose provoked her to make the revelation which she had so long forborne. My impious hands put aside the board, my arms encircled her waist; while, kneeling beside her, I endeavored to drag her into my embrace. She repulsed me; smote me to her feet with her open palm; and spurning me where I lay grovelling, retired to her chamber. I know not what I said—I know not what she answered—yet the tones of her voice, sharp with Horror and indignation, are even now ringing in my ears!
“Clifford, I have finished this painful narration. I have cursed your home with bitterness, yet I pray you not to curse me! Let me implore you to ask for merciful forbearance from her, to whom I feel I have been such a sore annoyance—too happy if I have not been also a curse to her. What I have written is the truth—sadly felt—solemnly spoken—God alone being present while I write, while death lingers upon the threshold impatient till I shall end. I leave a brief sentence, which you may or may not, deliver to your wife. You will send the letter to my father. You will see me buried in some holy inclosure; and if you can, you will bury with my unconscious form, the long strifes of feeling which I have made you endure, and the just anger which I have awakened in your bosom. Farewell!—and may the presiding spirit of your home hereafter, be peace and love!”