But, just at the moment when I thus thought and felt--when I no longer suffered and no longer inflicted pain--when my wife was not only virtue in my sight, but love, and beauty, and grace, and meekness--all that was good and all that was dear besides;--when my sky was without a cloud, and the evening star shone through the blue sky upon the green tops of our cottage trees, with the serene l.u.s.tre of a May-divinity--just then a thunderbolt fell upon my dwelling, and blackened the scene for ever.

I had now been three months a resident in M----, and never had I been more happy--never less apprehensive on the score of my happiness--when I received a letter from my venerable friend and patron, the father of William Edgerton.

"My son," he wrote, "is no better than when you left us. We have every reason to believe him worse. He has a cough, he is very thin, and there is a flushed spot upon his cheek which seems to his mother and myself the indubitable sign of vital decay. His frame is very feeble, and our physician advises travel. Under this counsel he set off with a favorite servant on Wednesday of last week. He will make easy stages through Tennessee to the Ohio, will descend into Mississippi, and return home by way of Alabama. He contemplates paying you a brief visit. I need not say, dear Clifford, how grateful I shall be for any kindness which you can show to my poor boy. His mother particularly invokes it. I should not have deemed it necessary to say so much, but would have preferred leaving it to William to make his own communication, were it not that she so particularly desires it. It may be well to add, that on one subject we are both very much relieved. We now have reason to believe that our apprehensions on the score of his morals were without foundation. It is our present belief that he neither gamed nor drank.

This is a consolation, dear Clifford, though it brings us no nigher to our wish. It is something to believe that the object of our love is not worthless; though it adds to the pang that we should feel in the event of losing him. Our parting would be less easy. For my own part, I have little hope that his journey will do him any material benefit. It may prolong his days, but can not, I fear, have any more decided influence upon his disease. His mother, however, is more sanguine, and it is perhaps well that she should be so. I know that when William reaches your neighborhood, you will make it as cheerful and pleasant to him as possible. The talent of your young and sweet wife--her endowments in painting and music--have always been a great solace to him. His tastes you know are very much like hers. I trust she will exercise them, and be happy in ministering to the comfort of one, who will not, I fear, trespa.s.s very long upon any earthly ministry. My dear Clifford, I know that you will do your utmost in behalf of your earliest friend, and I will waste no more words in unnecessary solicitation."

Such was the important portion of the letter. In an instant, as I read it, I saw, with the instinct of jealousy, the annihilation of all my hopes of happiness. All my dreams were in the dust--all my fancies scattered--my schemes and temples overthrown. Bitter was the pang I felt on reading this letter. It said more--much more--in the very language of solicitation which the good old father professed to believe unnecessary.

He poured forth the language of a father's grief and entreaty. I felt for the venerable man--the true friend--in spite of my own miserable apprehensions. I felt for him, but what could I do? What would he have me do? I had no house in which to receive his son. He would lodge, perhaps, for a time, in the community. It could not be supposed that he would remain long. The letter of the father spoke only of a brief visit.

Our neighborhood had no repute, as a place of resort, for consumptive patients. I consoled myself with the reflection that William Edgerton could, on no pretence, linger more than a week or two among us. I will treat him kindly--give him the freedom of the house while he remains. A dying man, if so he be, must have reached a due sense of his situation, and will not be likely to trespa.s.s upon the rights of another. His pa.s.sions must be subdued by this time. Ah! but will not his condition be more likely to inspire sympathy?

The fiend of the blind heart prompted that last suggestion. It was the only one that I remembered. When I returned home that day to dinner, I mentioned, as if casually, the letter I had received, and the contents.

My eye narrowly watched that of my wife while I spoke. Hers sunk beneath my glance Her cheeks were suddenly flushed--then, as suddenly, grew pale, and I observed, that, though she appeared to eat, but few morsels of food were carried into her mouth that day. She soon left the table, and, pleading headache declined joining me in our usual evening rambles.

CHAPTER XLI.

TRIAL--THE WOMAN GROWS STRONG.

Thus, then, I was once more at sea, rudderless--not yet companionless--perhaps, soon to be so. My relapse was as sudden as my thought. It seemed as if every past misery of doubt and suspicion were at once revived within me. All my day-dreams vanished in an instant.

William Edgerton would again behold--would again seek--my wife. They must meet; I owed that to the father; and, whatever the condition of the son might be, it was evident that his feelings toward her must be the same as ever; else, why should he seek her out?--why pursue our footsteps and haunt my peace? I must receive him and treat him kindly for the father's sake; but that one bitter thought, that he was pursuing us, the deadly enemy to my peace--and now, evidently, a wilful one--gave venom to the bitter feeling with which I had so long regarded his attentions.

It was evident, too, whatever may have been its occasion, that the knowledge of his coming awakened strange emotions in the bosom of my wife. That blush--that sudden paleness of the cheek--what was their language? I fain would have struggled against the conviction, that it denoted a guilty consciousness of the past--a guilty feeling of the future. But the mocking demon of the blind heart forced the a.s.surance upon me. What was to be done? Ah! what? This was the question, and there was no variation in the reply which my jealous spirit made. There was but one refuge. I must pursue the same insidious policy as before. I must resort to the same subterfuge, meet them with the same smiles, disguise once more the true features of my soul; seem to shut my eyes, and afford them the same opportunities as before, in the torturing hope (fear?) that I should finally detect them in some guilty folly which would be sufficient to justify the final punishment. I must put on the aspect of indifference, the better to pursue the vocation of the spy.

Base necessity, but still, as I then fancied, a necessity not the less.

Ah I was I not a thing to be pitied? Was ever any case more pitiable than mine? I ask not this question with any hope that an answer may be found to justify my conduct. It is not the less pitiable--nay, it is more--that no such answer can be found. My folly is not the less a thing of pity, because it is also a thing of scorn. That was the pity--and yet, I was most severely tried. Deep were my sufferings! Strong was that demon within me--I care not how engendered, whether by the fault and folly of others, or by my own--still it was strong. If I was guilty--base, blind--was I not also suffering? Never did I inflict on the bosom of Julia Clifford, so deep a pang as I daily--nay, hourly, inflicted upon my own. She was a victim, true--but was I less so! But she was innocently a victim, therefore, less a sufferer, whatever her sufferings, than me! Let none condemn or curse me, till they have asked what curse I have already undergone. I live!--they will say. Ah! me!

They must ask what is the value of life, not to themselves, but to a crushed, a blasted heart, like mine! But I hurry forward with my pangs rather than my story.

Instantly, a barrier seemed to rise up between Julia Clifford ind myself. She had her consciousness, evidently, no less than I. What was THAT consciousness? Ah! could I have guessed THAT, there would have been no barrier--all might have been peace again. But a destiny was at work which forbade it all; and we strove ignorantly with one another and against ourselves. There was a barrier between us, which our mutual blindness of heart made daily thicker, and higher, and less liable to overthrow. A coldness overspread my manner. I made it a sort of shelter.

The guise of indifference is one of the most convenient for hiding other and darker feelings. Already we ceased to ramble by river and through wood. Already the pencil was discarded. We could no longer enjoy the things which so lately made us happy, because we no longer entertained the same confidence in one another. Without this confidence there is no communion sweet. And all this had been the work of that letter. The name of William Edgarton had done it all--his name and threatened visit!

But--and I read, the letter again and again--it would be some time before he might be expected. The route, as laid down for him by his father, was a protracted one. "Through Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, then homeward, by way of Alabama." "He can not be here in less than six weeks. He must travel slowly. He must make frequent rests."

And there was a further thought--a hope--which, though it filled my mind, I did not venture to express in words. "He may perish on his route: if he be so feeble, it is by no means improbable!"

At all events, I had six weeks' respite--perhaps more. Such was my small consolation then. But even this was false. In less than a week from that time, William Edgerton stood at the door of our cottage!

Instead of going into Tennessee, he had shot straight forward, through Georgia, into Alabama.

Though surprised, I was not confounded by his presence. Under the policy which I had resolved upon, I received him with the usual professions of kindness, and a manner as nearly warm and natural as the exercise of habitual art could make it. He certainly did look very miserable. His features wore an expression of uniform despair. They brightened up, when he beheld my wife, as the cloud brightens suddenly beneath the moonlight. His eyes were riveted upon her. He was almost speechless, but he advanced and took her hand, which I observed was scarcely extended to him. He sat the evening with us, and a chilly, dull evening it was. He himself spoke little--my wife less; and the conversation, such as it was, was carried on chiefly between old Mrs. Porterfield and myself.

But I could see that Edgerton employed his eyes in a manner which fully compensated for the silence of his tongue. They were seldom withdrawn from the quarter of the apartment in which my wife sat. When withdrawn, it was but for an instant, and they soon again reverted to the spot. He had certainly acquired a degree of boldness, which, in this respect, he had not before possessed. I keenly a.n.a.lyzed his looks without provoking his attention. It was not possible for me to mistake the unreserved admiration that his glance expressed. There was a strange spiritual expression in his eyes, which was painful to the spectator. It was that fearful sign which the soul invariably makes when it begins to exert itself at the expense of the sh.e.l.l which contains it. It was the sign of death already written. But he might linger for months. His cough did not seem to me oppressive. The flush was not so obvious upon his cheek. Perhaps, looking through the medium of my peculiar feelings, his condition was not half so apparent as his designs. At least, I felt my sympathies in his behalf--small as they were before--become feebler with every moment of his stay that night.

"Edgerton does not appear to me to look so badly," I said to Julia, after his departure for the evening.

"I don't know," she answered; "he looks very pale and miserable."

"Quite interesting!" I added, with a smile which might have been a sneer.

"Painfully so. He can not last very long--his cough is very troublesome."

"Indeed! I scarcely heard it. He is certainly a very fine-looking fellow still, consumption or no consumption."

She was silent.

"A very graceful fellow: very generous and with accomplishments such as are possessed by few. I have often envied him his person and accomplishments."

"You!" she exclaimed, with something like an expression of incredulity.

"Yes!--that is to say, when I was a youth, and when I thought more of commending myself to your eyes, than of anything besides."

"Ah!" she replied with an a.s.suring smile, "you never needed qualities other than your own to commend yourself to me."

"Pleasant hypocrite! And yet, Julia, would you not be better pleased if I could draw and color, and talk landscape with you by the hour?"

"No! I have never thought of your doing anything of the kind."

"Like begets liking."

"It may be, but I do not think so. I do not think we love people so much for what they can do, as for what they are."

"Ah, Julia, that is a great mistake. It is a law in morals, that the qualities of men should depend upon their performances. What a man is, results from what he does, and so we judge of persons. Edgerton is a n.o.ble fellow; his tastes are very fine. I suspect he can form as correct an opinion of a fine picture as any one--perhaps, paint it as finely."

She was silent.

"Do you not think so, Julia?"

"I think he paints very well for an amateur."

"He is certainly a man of exquisite taste in most matters of taste and elegance. I have always thought his manners particularly easy and dignified. His carriage is at once manly and graceful; and his dancing--do you not think he dances with admirable flexibility?"

"Really, Edward, I can scarcely regard dancing as a manly accomplishment. It is necessary that a gentleman should dance, perhaps, but it appears to me that he should do so simply because it is necessary; and to pa.s.s through the measure without ostentation or offence should be his simple object."

"These are not usually the opinions of ladies, Julia."

"They are mine, however."

"You are not sure. You will think otherwise to-morrow. At all events, I think there can be little doubt that Edgerton is one of the best dancers in the circle we have left; he has the happiest taste in painting and poetry; and a more n.o.ble gentleman and true friend does not exist anywhere. I know not to whom I could more freely confide life, wealth, and honor, than to him."

She was silent. I fancied there was something like distress apparent in her countenance. I continued:--

"There is one thing, Julia, about which I am not altogether satisfied."

"Ah!" with much anxiety; "what is that?"

"I owe so much to his father, that, in his present condition, I fancy we ought to receive him in our house. We should not let him go among strangers, exposed to the noise and neglect of a hotel."

There was some abruptness in her answer:--