"How? I do not see."

"Suppose your wife makes the same discovery which other persons have made? Suppose she finds out that Edgerton loves her?"

"Well--what then?"

"She can not remain uninfluenced by it. It will affect her feelings sensibly in some way. No creature in the world can remain insensible to the attachment of another."

"Indeed! Why, agreeable to that doctrine, there could be no security from principle. There could be no virtue certain--nay, not even love."

"Do not mistake me. When I say SHE would be influenced--I do not mean to say that she would be so influenced as to requite the illicit sentiment.

Far from it. But she must pity or she must scorn. She may despise or she may deplore. In either case her feelings would be aroused, and in either case would produce uneasiness if not unhappiness. I KNOW, Clifford, that your wife perceives the pa.s.sion of Edgerton--I am confident, also, that it has influenced her feelings. What may be the sentiment produced by this influence I do not pretend to say. I would not insinuate that it is more than would be natural to the breast of any virtuous woman. She may pity or she may scorn--she may despise or she may deplore. I know not.

But, in either case, I regard your bringing Edgerton into the house and conferring upon him so many opportunities, as being calculated either to make yourself or your wife miserable. In either event you have done wrong. Look to it--remedy it as soon as you can."

My face burned like fire. My eyes were fixed upon the table. I dared not look upon my companion. When I spoke, I felt a choking difficulty in my utterance which compelled me to speak loud to be understood, and which yet left my speech thick, husky, and unnatural.

"Say no more, Kingsley. What you have said disturbs me Nay, I acknowledge, I have been disturbed before. Perhaps, indeed, I know more than yourself. Time will show. At all events, be sure of one thing.

These opportunities, if what you say be true, afford an ordeal through which it is necessary that the parties should now go--if it be only to afford the necessary degree of relief to my mind. Enough has been seen to excite suspicion--enough has been done, you yourself think, to awaken the feelings of my wife. Those feelings must now be tried. Opportunity will do this. She must go through the trial. I am not blind as you suppose. Nay, I am watchful, and I tell you, Kingsley, that the time approaches when all my doubts must cease one way or the other."

"But I still think, Clifford--" he began.

"No more, Kingsley. I tell you, matters must go on. Edgerton can now only be driven from my house by my wife. If she expels him, I shall be too happy not to forgive him. But if she makes it necessary that the expulsion shall be effected by my hands, and with violence--G.o.d have mercy upon both of them for I shall not. Good night!"

"But why will you go? Stay awhile longer. Be not rash--do nothing precipitately, Clifford."

I smiled bitterly in replying:--

"You need not fear me. Have I not proved myself patient--patient until you p.r.o.nounced me cold and indifferent? Why should you suppose that, having waited and forborne so long I should be guilty of rashness now?

No, Kingsley! My wife is very dear to me--how dear I will not say; I will be deliberate for her sake--for my own. I will be sure, very sure--quite sure;--but, once sure!--Good night."

Kingsley followed me to the door. His last injunctions exhorted me to forbearance and deliberation. I silenced them by a significant repet.i.tion of the single words, "Good night--good night!" and hurried, with every feeling of anxiety and jealousy awakened, in the direction of my cottage.

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE UNBRIDLED MADNESS.

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 acc.u.mulating 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 ma.s.ses 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 gla.s.ses 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 pa.s.sions 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 pa.s.sed 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.

CHAPTER XLVII.

FATAL SILENCE.

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 pa.s.sion--"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.