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      Confession, by W. Gilmore Simms
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Title: Confession

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</pre>

    <div style="height: 8em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h1>
      CONFESSION
    </h1>
    <h4>
      or,
    </h4>
    <h1>
      THE BLIND HEART
    </h1>
    <h3>
      A Domestic Story
    </h3>
    <p>
      <br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      By W. Gilmore Simms
    </h2>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  Wagner. But of the world--the heart, the mind of man,
          How happy could we know!

  Faust.              What can we know?
          Who dares bestow the infant his true name?
          The few who felt and knew, but blindly gave
          Their knowledge to the multitude&mdash;they fell!
          Incapable to keep their full hearts in,
          They, from the first of immemorial time,
          Were crucified or burnt.
                           Goethe's Faust, MS. Version.
</pre>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <p>
      <b>CONTENTS</b>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. &mdash; CONFESSION, OR THE BLIND
      HEART. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. &mdash; BOY PASSIONS&mdash;A
      PROFESSION CHOSEN. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. &mdash; ADMITTED AMONG THE LAWYERS
      </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. &mdash; &ldquo;SHE STILL SOOTHED THE MOCK
      OF OTHERS.&rdquo; </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. &mdash; DEBUT. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. &mdash; DENIAL AND DEFEAT. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. &mdash; TEMPTATION. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. &mdash; LOVE FINDS NO SMOOTH WATER
      IN THE SEA OF LAW </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. &mdash; DUELLO. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. &mdash; HEAD WINDS. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. &mdash; CRISIS. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. &mdash; &ldquo;GONE TO BE MARRIED.&rdquo; </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. &mdash; BAFFLED FURY. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. &mdash; ONE DEBT PAID. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. &mdash; HONEYMOON PERIOD. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. &mdash; THE HAPPY SEASON. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. &mdash; THE EVIL PRINCIPLE. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII. &mdash; PRESENTIMENTS. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. &mdash; DISTRUST. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. &mdash; PROGRESS OF THE EVIL SPIRIT.
      </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI. &mdash; CHANGES OF HOME. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII. &mdash; SELF-HUMILIATION. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII. &mdash; PROGRESS OF PASSION. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV. &mdash; A GROUP. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV. &mdash; THE OLD GOOSE FINDS A YOUNG
      GANDER. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXXVI. &mdash; THE HEART-FIEND FINDS AN
      ECHO FROM THE FIEND WITHOUT. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII. &mdash; KINGSLEY. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII. &mdash; MORALS OF ENTERPRISE.
      </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX. &mdash; THE HELL. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX. &mdash; FALSE LUCK. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XXXI. &mdash; HOW THE GAME WAS PLAYED
      </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER XXXII. &mdash; SUDDEN LESSON AND NEW
      SUSPICIONS. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0033"> CHAPTER XXXIII. &mdash; STILL THE CLOUD. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0034"> CHAPTER XXXIV. &mdash; A FATHER'S GRIEFS. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0035"> CHAPTER XXXV. &mdash; APPLICATION OF &ldquo;THE
      QUESTION.&rdquo; </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0036"> CHAPTER XXXVI. &mdash; MEDITATED EXILE. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0037"> CHAPTER XXXVII. &mdash; &ldquo;AND STILL THE BITTER IN
      THE CUP OF JOY.&rdquo; </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0038"> CHAPTER XXXVIII. &mdash; RENEWED AGONIES. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0039"> CHAPTER XXXIX. &mdash; THE NEW HOME. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0040"> CHAPTER XL. &mdash; THE BLACK DOG ONCE MORE UPON
      THE SCENE. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0041"> CHAPTER XLI. &mdash; TRIAL&mdash;THE WOMAN GROWS
      STRONG. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0042"> CHAPTER XLII. &mdash; CROSS PURPOSES. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0043"> CHAPTER XLIII. &mdash; ACCIDENT AND MORE AGONIES.
      </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0044"> CHAPTER XLIV. &mdash; THE DAMNING LETTER. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0045"> CHAPTER XLV. &mdash; VERGE OF THE PRECIPICE. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0046"> CHAPTER XLVI. &mdash; THE UNBRIDLED MADNESS. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0047"> CHAPTER XLVII. &mdash; FATAL SILENCE. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0048"> CHAPTER XLVIII. &mdash; TOO LATE! </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0049"> CHAPTER XLIX. &mdash; SUICIDE. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0050"> CHAPTER L. &mdash; CONFESSION OF EDGERTON. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0051"> CHAPTER LI. &mdash; DOUBTS&mdash;SUMMONS. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0052"> CHAPTER LII. &mdash; DEATH. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0053"> CHAPTER LIII. &mdash; REVELATION&mdash;THE LETTER
      OF JULIA. </a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER I. &mdash; CONFESSION, OR THE BLIND HEART.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;Who dares bestow the infant his true name?
  The few who felt and knew, but blindly gave
  Their knowledge to the multitude&mdash;they fell
  Incapable to keep their full hearts in,
  They, from the first of immemorial time,
  Were crucified or burnt.&rdquo;&mdash;Goethe's &ldquo;Faust.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      The pains and penalties of folly are not necessarily death. They were in
      old times, perhaps, according to the text, and he who kept not to himself
      the secrets of his silly heart was surely crucified or burnt. Though
      lacking in penalties extreme like these, the present is not without its
      own. All times, indeed, have their penalties for folly, much more
      certainly than for crime; and this fact furnishes one of the most human
      arguments in favor of the doctrine of rewards and punishments in the
      future state. But these penalties are not always mortifications and trials
      of the flesh. There are punishments of the soul; the spirit; the
      sensibilities; the intellect&mdash;which are most usually the consequences
      of one's own folly. There is a perversity of mood which is the worst of
      all such penalties. There are tortures which the foolish heart equally
      inflicts and endures. The passions riot on their own nature; and, feeding
      as they do upon that bosom from which they spring, and in which they
      flourish, may, not inaptly, be likened to that unnatural brood which gnaws
      into the heart of the mother-bird, and sustains its existence at the
      expense of hers. Meetly governed from the beginning, they are dutiful
      agents that bless themselves in their own obedience; but, pampered to
      excess, they are tyrants that never do justice, until at last, when they
      fitly conclude the work of destruction by their own.
    </p>
    <p>
      The narrative which follows is intended to illustrate these opinions. It
      is the story of a blind heart&mdash;nay, of blind hearts&mdash;blind
      through their own perversity&mdash;blind to their own interests&mdash;their
      own joys, hopes, and proper sources of delight. In narrating my own
      fortunes, I depict theirs; and the old leaven of wilfulness, which belongs
      to our nature, has, in greater or less degree, a place in every human
      bosom.
    </p>
    <p>
      I was the only one surviving of several sons. My parents died while I was
      yet an infant. I never knew them. I was left to the doubtful charge of
      relatives, who might as well have been strangers; and, from their
      treatment, I learned to doubt and to distrust among the first fatal
      lessons of my youth. I felt myself unloved&mdash;nay, as I fancied,
      disliked and despised. I was not merely an orphan. I was poor, and was
      felt as burdensome by those connections whom a dread of public opinion,
      rather than a sense of duty and affection, persuaded to take me to their
      homes. Here, then, when little more than three years old, I found myself&mdash;a
      lonely brat, whom servants might flout at pleasure, and whom superiors
      only regarded with a frown. I was just old enough to remember that I had
      once experienced very different treatment. I had felt the caresses of a
      fond mother&mdash;I had heard the cheering accents of a generous and a
      gentle father. The one had soothed my griefs and encouraged my hopes&mdash;the
      other had stimulated my energies and prompted my desires. Let no one fancy
      that, because I was a child, these lessons were premature. All education,
      to be valuable, must begin with the child's first efforts at
      discrimination. Suddenly, both of these fond parents disappeared, and I
      was just young enough to wonder why.
    </p>
    <p>
      The change in my fortunes first touched my sensibilities, which it finally
      excited until they became diseased. Neglected if not scorned, I habitually
      looked to encounter nothing but neglect or scorn. The sure result of this
      condition of mind was a look and feeling, on my part, of habitual
      defiance. I grew up with the mood of one who goes forth with a moral
      certainty that he must meet and provide against an enemy. But I am now
      premature.
    </p>
    <p>
      The uncle and aunt with whom I found shelter were what is called in
      ordinary parlance, very good people. They attended the most popular church
      with most popular punctuality. They prayed with unction&mdash;subscribed
      to all the charities which had publicity and a fashionable list to
      recommend them&mdash;helped to send missionaries to Calcutta, Bombay,
      Owyhee, and other outlandish regions&mdash;paid their debts when they
      became due with commendable readiness&mdash;and were, in all out-of-door
      respects, the very sort of people who might congratulate themselves, and
      thank God that they were very far superior to their neighbors. My uncle
      had morning prayers at home, and my aunt thumbed Hannah More in the
      evening; though it must be admitted that the former could not always
      forbear, coming from church on the sabbath, to inquire into the last news
      of the Liverpool cotton market, and my aunt never failed, when they
      reached home, on the same blessed day, to make the house ring with another
      sort of eloquence than that to which she had listened with such
      sanctimonious devotion from the lips of the preacher. There were some
      other little offsets against the perfectly evangelical character of their
      religion. One of these&mdash;the first that attracted my infant
      consideration&mdash;was naturally one which more directly concerned
      myself. I soon discovered that, while I was sent to an ordinary charity
      school of the country, in threadbare breeches, made of the meanest
      material&mdash;their own son&mdash;a gentle and good, but puny boy, whom
      their indulgence injured, and, perhaps, finally destroyed&mdash;was
      despatched to a fashionable institution which taught all sorts of ologies&mdash;dressed
      in such choice broadcloth and costly habiliments, as to make him an object
      of envy and even odium among all his less fortunate school-fellows.
    </p>
    <p>
      Poor little Edgar! His own good heart and correct natural understanding
      showed him the equal folly of that treatment to which he was subjected,
      and the injustice and unkindness which distinguished mine. He strove to
      make amends, so far as I was concerned, for the error of his parents. He
      was my playmate whenever he was permitted, but even this permission was
      qualified by some remark, some direction or counsel, from one or other of
      his parents, which was intended to let him know, and make me feel, that
      there was a monstrous difference between us.
    </p>
    <p>
      The servants discovered this difference as quickly as did the objects of
      it; and though we were precisely of one age, and I was rather the largest
      of the two, yet, in addressing us, they paid him the deference which
      should only be shown to superior age, and treated me with the contumely
      only due to inferior merit. It was &ldquo;Master Edgar,&rdquo; when he was spoken to&mdash;and
      &ldquo;you,&rdquo; when I was the object of attention.
    </p>
    <p>
      I do not speak of these things as of substantial evils affecting my
      condition. Perhaps, in one or more respects, they were benefits. They
      taught me humility in the first place, and made that humility
      independence, by showing me that the lesson was bestowed in wantonness,
      and not with the purpose of improvement. And, in proportion as my physical
      nature suffered their neglect, it acquired strength by the very roughening
      to which that neglect exposed it. In this I possessed a vast advantage
      over my little companion. His frame, naturally feeble, sunk under the
      oppressive tenderness to which the constant care of a vain father, a
      doting mother, and sycophantic friends and servants, subjected it. The
      attrition of boy with boy, in the half-manly sports of schoolboy life&mdash;its
      very strifes and scuffles&mdash;would have brought his blood into adequate
      circulation, and hardened his bones, and given elasticity to his sinews.
      But from all these influences, he was carefully preserved and protected.
      He was not allowed to run, for fear of being too much heated. He could not
      jump, lest he might break a blood-vessel. In the ball play he might get an
      eye knocked out; and even tops and marbles were forbidden, lest he should
      soil his hands and wear out the knees of his green breeches. If he
      indulged in these sports it was only by stealth, and at the fearful cost
      of a falsehood on every such occasion. When will parents learn that
      entirely to crush and keep down the proper nature of the young, is to
      produce inevitable perversity, and stimulate the boyish ingenuity to
      crime?
    </p>
    <p>
      With me the case was very different. If cuffing and kicking could have
      killed, I should have died many sudden and severe deaths in the rough
      school to which I was sent. If eyes were likely to be lost in the campus,
      corded balls of India-rubber, or still harder ones of wood, impelled by
      shinny (goff) sticks, would have obliterated all of mine though they had
      been numerous as those of Argus. My limbs and eyes escaped all injury; my
      frame grew tall and vigorous in consequence of neglect, even as the
      forest-tree, left to the conflict of all the winds of heaven; while my
      poor little friend, Edgar, grew daily more and more diminutive, just as
      some plant, which nursing and tendance within doors deprive of the
      wholesome sunshine and generous breezes of the sky. The paleness of his
      cheek increased, the languor of his frame, the meagerness of his form, the
      inability of his nature! He was pining rapidly away, in spite of that
      excessive care, which, perhaps, had been in the first instance, the
      unhappy source of all his feebleness.
    </p>
    <p>
      He died&mdash;and I became an object of greater dislike than ever to his
      parents. They could not but contrast my strength, with his feebleness&mdash;my
      improvement with his decline&mdash;and when they remembered how little had
      been their regard for me and how much for him&mdash;without ascribing the
      difference of result to the true cause&mdash;they repined at the ways of
      Providence, and threw upon me the reproach of it. They gave me less heed
      and fewer smiles than ever. If I improved at school, it was well, perhaps;
      but they never inquired, and I could not help fancying that it was with a
      positive expression of vexation, that my aunt heard, on one occasion, from
      my teacher, in the presence of some guests, that I was likely to be an
      honor to the family.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;An honor to the family, indeed!&rdquo; This was the clear expression in that
      Christian lady's eyes, as I saw them sink immediately after in a scornful
      examination of my rugged frame and coarse garments.
    </p>
    <p>
      The family had its own sources of honor, was the calm opinion of both my
      patrons, as they turned their eyes upon their only remaining child&mdash;a
      little girl about five years old, who was playing around them on the
      carpet. This opinion was also mine, even then: and my eyes followed theirs
      in the same direction. Julia Clifford was one of the sweetest little
      fairies in the world. Tender-hearted, and just, and generous, like the
      dear little brother, whom she had only known to lose, she was yet as
      playful as a kitten. I was twice her age&mdash;just ten&mdash;at this
      period; and a sort of instinct led me to adopt the little creature, in
      place of poor Edgar, in the friendship of my boyish heart. I drew her in
      her little wagon&mdash;carried her over the brooklet&mdash;constructed her
      tiny playthings&mdash;and in consideration of my usefulness, in most
      generally keeping her in the best of humors, her mother was not unwilling
      that I should be her frequent playmate. Nay, at such times she could spare
      a gentle word even to me, as one throws a bone to the dog, who has jumped
      a pole, or plunged into the water, or worried some other dog, for his
      amusement. At no other period did my worthy aunt vouchsafe me such
      unlooked-for consideration.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Julia Clifford was not my only friend. I had made another shortly
      before the death of Edgar; though, passingly it may be said,
      friendship-making was no easy business with a nature such as mine had now
      become. The inevitable result of such treatment as that to which my early
      years had been subjected, was fully realized. I was suspicious to the last
      degree of all new faces&mdash;jealous of the regards of the old; devoting
      myself where my affections were set and requiring devotion&mdash;rigid,
      exclusive devotion&mdash;from their object in return. There was a terrible
      earnestness in all my moods which made my very love a thing to be feared.
      I was no trifler&mdash;I could not suffer to be trifled with&mdash;and the
      ordinary friendships of man or boy can not long endure the exactions of
      such a disposition. The penalties are usually thought to be&mdash;and are&mdash;infinitely
      beyond the rewards and benefits.
    </p>
    <p>
      My intimacies with William Edgerton were first formed under circumstances
      which, of all others, are most likely to establish them on a firm basis in
      our days of boyhood. He came to my rescue one evening, when, returning
      from school, I was beset by three other boys, who had resolved on drubbing
      me. My haughty deportment had vexed their self-esteem, and, as the same
      cause had left me with few sympathies, it was taken for granted that the
      unfairness of their assault would provoke no censure. They were mistaken.
      In the moment of my greatest difficulty, William Edgerton dashed in among
      them. My exigency rendered his assistance a very singular benefit. My nose
      was already broken&mdash;one of my eyes sealed up for a week's holyday;
      and I was suffering from small annoyances, of hip, heart, leg, and thigh,
      occasioned by the repeated cuffs, and the reckless kicks, which I was
      momently receiving from three points of the compass. It is true that my
      enemies had their hurts to complain of also; but the odds were too greatly
      against me for any conduct or strength of mine to neutralize or overcome;
      and it was only by Edgerton's interposition that I was saved from utter
      defeat and much worse usage. The beating I had already suffered. I was
      sore from head to foot for a week after; and my only consolation was that
      my enemies left the ground in a condition, if anything, something worse
      than my own.
    </p>
    <p>
      But I had gained a friend, and that was a sweet recompense, sweeter to me,
      by far, than it is found or felt by schoolboys usually. None could know or
      comprehend the force of my attachment&mdash;my dependence upon the
      attachment of which I felt assured!&mdash;none but those who, with an
      earnest, impetuous nature like my own&mdash;doomed to denial from the
      first, and treated with injustice and unkindness&mdash;has felt the pang
      of a worse privation from the beginning;&mdash;the privation of that
      sustenance, which is the &ldquo;very be all and end all&rdquo; of its desire and its
      life&mdash;and the denial of which chills and repels its fervor&mdash;throws
      it back in despondency upon itself&mdash;fills it with suspicion, and
      racks it with a never-ceasing conflict between its apprehension and its
      hopes.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edgerton supplied a vacuum which my bosom had long felt. He was, however,
      very unlike, in most respects, to myself. He was rather phlegmatic than
      ardent&mdash;slow in his fancies, and shy in his associations from very
      fastidiousness. He was too much governed by nice tastes, to be an active
      or performing youth; and too much restrained by them also, to be a popular
      one. This, perhaps, was the secret influence which brought us together. A
      mutual sense of isolation&mdash;no matter from what cause&mdash;awakened
      the sympathies between us. Our ties were formed, on my part, simply
      because I was assured that I should have no rival; and on his, possibly,
      because he perceived in my haughty reserve of character, a sufficient
      security that his fastidious sensibilities would not be likely to suffer
      outrage at my hands. In every other respect our moods and tempers were
      utterly unlike. I thought him dull, very frequently, when he was only
      balancing between jealous and sensitive tastes;&mdash;and ignorant of the
      actual, when, in fact, his ignorance simply arose from the decided
      preference which he gave to the foreign and abstract. He was contemplative&mdash;an
      idealist; I was impetuous and devoted to the real and living world around
      me, in which I was disposed to mingle with an eagerness which might have
      been fatal; but for that restraint to which my own distrust of all things
      and persons habitually subjected me.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER II. &mdash; BOY PASSIONS&mdash;A PROFESSION CHOSEN.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Between William Edgerton and Julia Clifford my young life and best
      affections were divided, entirely, if not equally. I lived for no other&mdash;I
      cared to seek, to know, no other&mdash;and yet I often shrunk from both.
      Even at that boyish period, while the heavier cares and the more painful
      vexations of life were wanting to our annoyance, I had those of that
      gnawing nature which seemed to be born of the tree whose evil growth
      &ldquo;brought death into the world and all our wo.&rdquo; The pang of a nameless
      jealousy&mdash;a sleepless distrust&mdash;rose unbidden to my heart at
      seasons, when, in truth, there was no obvious cause. When Julia was most
      gentle&mdash;when William was most generous&mdash;even then, I had learned
      to repulse them with an indifference which I did not feel&mdash;a rudeness
      which brought to my heart a pain even greater than that which my
      wantonness inflicted upon theirs. I knew, even then, that I was perverse,
      unjust; and that there was a littleness in the vexatious mood in which I
      indulged, that was unjust to my own feelings, and unbecoming in a manly
      nature. But even though I felt all this, as thoroughly as I could ever
      feel it under any situation, I still could not succeed in overcoming tha'
      insane will which drove me to its indulgence.
    </p>
    <p>
      Vainly have I striven to account for the blindness of heart&mdash;for such
      it is, in all such cases&mdash;which possessed me. Was there anything in
      my secret nature, born at my birth and growing with my growth&mdash;which
      impelled me to this willfulness. I can scarcely believe so; but, after
      serious reflection, am compelled to think that it was the strict result of
      moods growing out of the particular treatment to which I had been
      subjected. It does not seem unnatural that an ardent temper of mind,
      willing to confide, looking to love and affection for the only aliment
      which it most and chiefly desires, and repelled in this search, frowned on
      by its superiors as if it were something base, will, in time, grow to be
      habitually wilful, even as the treatment which has schooled it. Had I been
      governed and guided by justice, I am sure that I should never have been
      unjust.
    </p>
    <p>
      My waywardness in childhood did not often amount to rudeness, and never, I
      may safely say, where Julia was concerned. In her case, it was simply the
      exercise of a sullenness that repelled her approaches, even as its own
      approaches had been repelled by others. At such periods I went apart,
      communing, sternly with myself, refusing the sympathy that I most yearned
      after, and resolving not to be comforted. Let me do the dear child the
      justice to say that the only effect which this conduct had upon her, was
      to increase her anxieties to soothe the repulsive spirit which should have
      offended her. Perhaps, to provoke this anxiety in one it loves, is the
      chief desire of such a spirit. It loves to behold the persevering
      devotion, which it yet perversely toils to discourage. It smiles within,
      with a bitter triumph, as it contemplates its own power, to impart the
      same sorrow which a similar perversity has already made it feel.
    </p>
    <p>
      But, without seeking further to analyze and account for such a spirit, it
      is quite sufficient if I have described it. Perhaps, there are other
      hearts equally froward and wayward with my own. I know not if my story
      will amend&mdash;perhaps it may not even instruct or inform them&mdash;I
      feel that no story, however truthful, could have disarmed the humor of
      that particular mood of mind which shows itself in the blindness of the
      heart under which it was my lot to labor. I did not want knowledge of my
      own perversity. I knew&mdash;I felt it&mdash;as clearly as if I had seen
      it written in characters of light, on the walls of my chamber. But, until
      it had exhausted itself and passed away by its own processes, no effort of
      mine could have overcome or banished it. I stalked apart, under its
      influence, a gloomy savage&mdash;scornful and sad&mdash;stern, yet
      suffering&mdash;denying myself equally, in the perverse and wanton denial
      to which I condemned all others.
    </p>
    <p>
      Perhaps something of this temper is derived from the yearnings of the
      mental nature. It may belong somewhat to the natural direction of a mind
      having a decided tendency to imaginative pursuits. There is a dim, vague,
      indefinite struggle, for ever going on in the nature of such a person,
      after an existence and relations very foreign to the world in which it
      lives; and equally far from, and hostile to that condition in which it
      thrives. The vague discontent of such a mind is one of the causes of its
      activity; and how far it may be stimulated into diseased intensity by
      injudicious treatment, is a question of large importance for the
      consideration of philosophers. The imaginative nature is one singularly
      sensitive in its conditions; quick, jealous, watchful, earnest, stirring,
      and perpetually breaking down the ordinary barriers of the actual, in its
      struggles to ascertain the extent of the possible. The tyranny which
      drives it from the ordinary resources and enjoyments of the young, by
      throwing it more completely on its own, impels into desperate activity
      that daring of the imaginative mood, which, at no time, is wanting in
      courage and audacity. My mind was one singularly imaginative in its
      structure; and my ardent temperament contributed largely to its activity.
      Solitude, into which I was forced by the repulsive and unkind treatment of
      my relatives, was also favorable to the exercise of this influence; and my
      heart may be said to have taken, in turn, every color and aspect which
      informed my eyes. It was a blind heart for this very reason, in respect to
      all those things for which it should have had a color of its own. Books
      and the woods&mdash;the voice of waters and of song&mdash;the dim
      mysteries of poetry, and the whispers of lonely forest-walks, which
      beguiled me into myself, and more remotely from my fellows, were all, so
      far as my social relations were concerned, evil influences! Influences
      which were only in part overcome by the communion of such gentle beings as
      William Edgerton and Julia Clifford.
    </p>
    <p>
      With these friends, and these only, I grew up. As my years advanced, my
      intimacy with the former increased, and with the latter diminished. But
      this diminution of intimacy did not lessen the kindness of her feelings,
      or the ordinary devotedness of mine. She was still&mdash;when the
      perversity of heart made me not blind&mdash;the sweet creature to whom the
      task of ministering was a pleasure infinitely beyond any other which I
      knew. But, as she grew up to girlhood, other prospects opened upon her
      eyes, and other purposes upon those of her parents. At twelve she was
      carried by maternal vanity into company&mdash;sent to the dancing school&mdash;provided
      with teachers in music and painting, and made to understand&mdash;so far
      as the actions, looks, and words of all around could teach&mdash;that she
      was the cynosure of all eyes, to whom the whole world was bound in
      deference.
    </p>
    <p>
      Fortunately, in the case of Julia, the usual effects of maternal folly and
      indiscretion did not ensue. Nature interposed to protect her, and saved
      her in spite of them all. She was still the meek, modest child, solicitous
      of the happiness of all around her&mdash;unobtrusive, unassuming&mdash;kind
      to her inferiors, respectful to superiors, and courteous to, and
      considerate of all other persons. Her advancing years, which rendered
      these new acquisitions and accomplishments desirable, if not necessary, at
      the same time prompted her foolish mother to another step which betrayed
      the humiliating regard which she entertained for me. When I was seventeen,
      Julia was twelve, and when neither she nor myself had a solitary thought
      of love, the over considerate mother began to think, on this subject, for
      us both. The result of her cogitations determined her that it was no
      longer fitting that Julia should be my companion. Our rambles in the woods
      together were forbidden; and Julia was gravely informed that I was a poor
      youth, though her cousin&mdash;an orphan whom her father's charity
      supported, and whom the public charity schooled. The poor child artlessly
      told me all this, in a vain effort to procure from me an explanation of
      the mystery (which her mother had either failed or neglected to explain)
      by which such circumstances were made to account for the new commands
      which had been given her. Well might she, in her simplicity of heart,
      wonder why it was, that because I was poor, she should be familiar with me
      no longer.
    </p>
    <p>
      The circumstance opened my eyes to the fact that Julia was a tall girl,
      growing fast, already in her teens, and likely, under the rapidly-maturing
      influence of our summer sun, to be soon a woman. But just then&mdash;just
      when she first tasked me to solve the mystery of her mother's strange
      requisitions, I did not think of this. I was too much filled with
      indignation&mdash;the mortified self-esteem was too actively working in my
      bosom to suffer me to think of anything but the indignity with which I was
      treated. A brief portion of the dialogue between the child and my self,
      will give some glimpses of the blind heart by which I was afflicted.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, you do not understand it, Julia. You do not know, then, that you are
      the daughter of a rich merchant&mdash;the only daughter&mdash;that you
      have servants to wait on you, and a carriage at command&mdash;that you can
      wear fine silks, and have all things that money can buy, and a rich man's
      daughter desire. You don't know these things, Julia, eh?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, Edward, I hear you say so now, and I hear mamma often say the same
      things; but still I don't see&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You don't see why that should make a difference between yourself and your
      poor cousin, eh? Well, but it does; and though you don't see it now, yet
      it will not be very long before you will see, and understand it, and act
      upon it, too, as promptly as the wisest among them. Don't you know that I
      am the object of your father's charity&mdash;that his bounty feeds me&mdash;and
      that it would not be seemly that the world should behold me on a familiar
      footing of equality or intimacy with the daughter of my benefactor&mdash;my
      patron&mdash;without whom I should probably starve, or be a common beggar
      upon the highway?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But father would not suffer that, Edward.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, no! no!&mdash;he would not suffer it, Julia, simply because his own
      pride and name would feel the shame and disgrace of such a thing. But
      though he would keep me from beggary and the highway, Julia, neither he
      nor your mother would spend a sixpence or make an effort to save my
      feelings from pain and misery. They protect me from the scorn of others,
      but they use me for their own.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The girl hung her head in silence.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And you, too,&rdquo; I added&mdash;&ldquo;the time will come when you too, Julia,
      will shrink as promptly as themselves from being seen with your poor
      relation. You&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! no! Edward&mdash;how can you think of such a thing?&rdquo; she replied with
      girlish chiding.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Think it!&mdash;I know it! The time will soon be here. But&mdash;obey
      your mother, Julia. Go! leave me now. Begin, once the lesson which, before
      many days, you will find it very easy to learn.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      This was all very manly, so I fancied at the time; and then blind with the
      perverse heart which boiled within me, I felt not the wantonness of my
      mood, and heeded not the bitter pain which I occasioned to her gentle
      bosom. Her little hand grasped mine, her warm tears fell upon it; but I
      flung away from her grasp, and left her to those childish meditations
      which I had made sufficiently mournful.
    </p>
    <p>
      Subsequent reflection, while it showed me the brutality of my conduct to
      Julia, opened my eyes to the true meaning of her mother's interdiction;
      and increased the pang of those bitter feelings, which my conscious
      dependence had awakened in my breast, it was necessary that this
      dependence should be lessened; that, as I was now approaching manhood, I
      should cast about for the future, and adopt wisely and at once the means
      of my support hereafter. It was necessary that I should begin the business
      of life. On this head I had already reflected somewhat, and my thoughts
      had taken their direction from more than one conference which I had had
      with William Edgerton. His father was an eminent lawyer, and the law had
      been adopted for his profession also. I determined to make it mine; and to
      speak on this subject to my uncle. This I did. I chose an afternoon, the
      very week in which my conversation had taken place with Julia, and, while
      the dinner things were undergoing removal, with some formality requested a
      private interview with him. He looked round at me with a raised brow of
      inquiry&mdash;nodded his head&mdash;and shortly after rose from the table.
      My aunt stared with an air of supercilious wonder; while poor Julia, timid
      and trembling, barely ventured to give me a single look, which said&mdash;and
      that was enough for me&mdash;&ldquo;I wish I dared say more.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      My conference with my uncle was not of long duration. I told him it was my
      purpose&mdash;my desire&mdash;to begin as soon as possible to do something
      for myself. His answer signified that such was his opinion also. So far we
      were agreed; but when I told him that it was my wish to study the law, he
      answered with sufficient, and as I thought, scornful abruptness:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The law, indeed! What puts the law into your head? What preparations have
      you made to study the law? You know nothing of languages which every
      lawyer should know&mdash;Latin&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I interrupted him to say that I had some slight knowledge of Latin&mdash;sufficient,
      I fancied, for all legal purposes.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! indeed! where did you get it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A friend lent me a grammar and dictionary, and I studied myself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, you are ambitious; but you deceive yourself. You were never made for
      a lawyer. Besides, how are you to live while prosecuting your studies? No,
      no! I have been thinking of something for you, Edward&mdash;and, just now,
      it happens fortunately that old Squire Farmer, the bricklayer, wants some
      apprentices&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I could scarcely listen thus far.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I thank you, sir, but I have no disposition to be a bricklayer.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You must do something for yourself. You can not expect to eat the bread
      of idleness. I have done, and will do for you what I can&mdash;whatever is
      necessary;&mdash;but I have my own family to provide for. I can not rob my
      own child&mdash;-&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nor do I expect it, Mr. Clifford,&rdquo; I replied hastily, and with some
      indignation. &ldquo;It is my wish, sir, to draw as little as possible from your
      income and resources. I would not rob Julia Clifford of a single dollar.
      Nay, sir, I trust before many years to be able to refund you every copper
      which has been spent upon me from the moment I entered your household.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He said hastily:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I wish nothing of that, Edward;&mdash;but the law is a study of years,
      and is expensive and unpromising in every respect. Your clothes already
      call for a considerable sum, and such a profession requires, more than
      almost any other, that a student should be well dressed.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I promise you, sir, that my dress shall be such as shall not trespass
      upon your income. I shall be governed by as much economy&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He interrupted me to say, that
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;His duty required that his brother's son should be dressed as well as his
      associates.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I replied, with tolerable composure:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I do not think, sir, that bricklaying will admit of very genteel
      clothing, nor do I think that the vocation will suit me. I have flattered
      myself, sir, that my talents&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, you have talents, then, have you? Well, it is fortunate that the
      discovery has been made in season.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I bore with this, though my cheek was burning, and said&mdash;with an
      effort to preserve my voice and temper, in which, though the difficulty
      was great, I was tolerably successful&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You have misunderstood me in some things, Mr. Clifford; and I will try
      now to explain myself clearly in others. Having resolved, sir, that the
      law shall be my profession&mdash;-&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ha! resolved, say you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, go on&mdash;go on!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Having resolved to pursue the study of law, and seeing that I am
      burdensome and expensive to you&mdash;believing, too, that I can relieve
      you of the burden&mdash;I have simply requested permission of you to make
      the attempt.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, how do you propose to do so?&mdash;how can you support yourself&mdash;that
      is relieve me of the burden of your expenses&mdash;and study the law at
      the same time?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Such things have been done, sir; and can be done again. I flatter myself
      I can do it. Industry will enable me to do so. I propose to apply for a
      clerkship in a mercantile establishment which I know stands in need of
      assistance, and while there will pursue my studies in such intervals of
      leisure as the business will afford me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You seem to have the matter ready cut and dry. Why do you come to me,
      then? Remember, I can make no advances.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I need none, sir. My simple object with you, sir, was to declare my
      intention, and to request that I may be permitted to refer to you the
      merchants to whom I mean to apply, for a knowledge of my character and
      attainments.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, certainly, you may&mdash;for the character;&mdash;but as to the
      attainments&rdquo;&mdash;with a sneering smile&mdash;&ldquo;of them I can say nothing,
      and, perhaps, the less said the better. I've no doubt you'll do well
      enough with the merchants. It does not need much genius or attainment for
      such situations. But, if you'll take my counsel, you'll go to the
      bricklayer. We want bricklayers sadly. To be a tolerable lawyer, parts are
      necessary; and God knows the country is over-stocked with hosts of lawyers
      already, whose only parts lie in their impudence. Better think a little
      while longer. Speak to old Farmer yourself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I smiled bitterly&mdash;thanked him for his counsel, which was only a
      studied form of insult, and turned away from him without further speech,
      and with a proud swelling of indignation at my heart. Thus our conference
      ended. A week after, I was ensconced behind the counter of a wholesale
      dealer, and my hands at night were already busy in turning over the heavy
      folios of Chitty and Blackstone.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER III. &mdash; ADMITTED AMONG THE LAWYERS
    </h2>
    <p>
      Behold me, then, merchandising by day, and conning by night the intricate
      mysteries of law. Books for the latter purpose were furnished by my old
      friend, William Edgerton, from his father's library. He himself was a
      student, beginning about the same time with myself; though with the
      superior privilege of devoting himself exclusively to this study. But if
      he had more time, I was more indefatigable. My pride was roused, and
      emulation soon enabled me to supply the want of leisure. My nights were
      surrendered, almost wholly, to my new pursuit. I toiled with all the
      earnestness which distinguished my temperament, stimulated to a yet higher
      degree by those feelings of pride and pique, which were resolved to
      convince my skeptical uncle that I was not entirely without those talents,
      the assertion of which had so promptly provoked his sneer. Besides, I had
      already learned that no such scheme as mine could be successfully
      prosecuted, unless by a stern resolution; and this implied the constant
      presence of a close, undeviating method in my studies. I tasked myself
      accordingly to read&mdash;understandingly, if possible&mdash;so many pages
      every night, making my notes, queries, doubts, &amp;c., EN PASSANT. In
      order to do this, I prescribed to myself a rule, to pass directly from the
      toils of the day and the store to my chamber, suffering no stoppage by the
      way, and studiously denying myself the dangerous fascinations of that
      society which was everywhere at command, in the persons of young men about
      my own age and condition. The intensity of my character, and the
      suspiciousness which it induced, helped me in this determination. Perhaps,
      there is no greater danger to a young man's habits of study and business,
      than a chat at the street corner, with a merry and thoughtless group. A
      single half hour consumed in this manner, is almost always fatal to the
      remaining hours of the day. It breaks into the circle, and impairs the
      method without which the passage of the sun becomes a very weary and
      always an unprofitable progress. If you would be a student or anything,
      you must plunge headlong into it at the beginning&mdash;bury yourself in
      your business, and work your way out of your toils, by sheer, dogged
      industry.
    </p>
    <p>
      My labors were so far successful that I could prosecute my studies with
      independence. I had left the dwelling of my uncle the moment I took
      employment in the mercantile house. My salary, though small, was ample;
      with my habits, it was particularly so. I had few of those vices in which
      young men are apt to indulge, and which, when they become habits, cease
      unhappily to be regarded as vices. I used tobacco in no shape, and no
      ardent spirits. I needed no stimulants, and, by the way, true industry
      never does. It is only indolence that needs drink; and indolence does need
      it; and the sooner drunkenness kills indolence by the use of drink, the
      better for society. The only objection to liquors as an agent for ridding
      the community of a nuisance, is, that it is rather too slow, and too
      offensive in its detailed operations; arsenic would be far less offensive,
      more summary, and is far more certain. You would seek vainly to cure
      drunkenness, unless you first cure the idleness which is its root and
      strength, and, while they last, its permanent support. But my object is
      not homily.
    </p>
    <p>
      If I was free from vices such as these, however, I had vices of my own,
      which were only less odious as they were less obvious. That vexing,
      self-tormenting spirit of which I have spoken as the evil genius that
      dogged my footsteps&mdash;that moral perverseness which I have described
      as the &ldquo;blind heart&rdquo;&mdash;still afflicted me, though in a far less degree
      now than when I was the inmate of my uncle's dwelling, and exposed to all
      the caprices of himself, his wife and servants. I kept on good terms with
      my employers, for the very natural reason that they saw me attend to my
      business and theirs, with a hearty cheerfulness that went to work promptly
      in whatever was to be done, and executed its tasks with steady fortitude,
      neatness, and rapidity. But, even with them, I had my sulks&mdash;my
      humors&mdash;my stubborn fits of sullenness, that seemed anxious to
      provoke opposition, and awaken wrath. These, however, they considerately
      forgave in consideration of my real usefulness: and as they perceived that
      whatever might have been the unpleasantness occasioned by these specimens
      of spleen, they were never suffered to interfere with or retard the
      operations of business. &ldquo;It's an ugly way he's got,&rdquo; was, probably, the
      utmost extent of what either of the partners said, and of what is commonly
      said on such occasions by most persons, who do not care to trouble
      themselves with a too close inquiry.
    </p>
    <p>
      Well, at twenty-one, William Edgerton and myself were admitted to the
      practice of the law, and that too with considerable credit to ourselves. I
      had long since been carried by my friend into his family circle; and Mr.
      Edgerton, his father, had been pleased to distinguish me with sundry
      attentions, which were only grateful to me in consequence of the unusual
      deference with which his manner evinced his regard. His gentle inquiries
      and persuasive suggestions beguiled me into more freedom of speech than I
      had ever before been accustomed to; and his judicious management of my
      troubled spirit, for a time, stifled its contradictions, and suppressed
      its habitual tendencies. But it was with some jealousy, and an erectness
      of manner which was surely ungracious, though, perhaps, not offensive,
      that I endured and replied to his inquiries into my personal condition, my
      resources, and the nature of that dependence which I bore to the family of
      my uncle. When he learned&mdash;which he did not from me&mdash;in what
      manner I had pursued my studies&mdash;after what toils of the day, and at
      what late hours of the night&mdash;when he found from a close private
      examination, which he had given me, before my admission, that my knowledge
      of the law was quite as good as the greater number of those who apply for
      admission&mdash;he was pleased to express his astonishment at my
      perseverance, and delight at my success. When, too, in addition to this,
      he discovered, upon a minute inquiry from my employers and others, that I
      was abstemious, and indulged in no excesses of any kind, his interest in
      me increased, as I thought, who had been accustomed to nothing of the
      sort, beyond all reasonable measure-and I soon had occasion to perceive
      that it was no idle curiosity that prompted his consideration and inquiry.
    </p>
    <p>
      Without my knowledge, he paid a visit to my uncle. This gentleman, I may
      be permitted here to say, had been quite as much surprised as anybody
      else, at my determined prosecution of my studies in spite of the
      difficulties by which I was surrounded. That I was pursuing them, while in
      the mercantile establishment to which I had gone, he did not believe; and
      very frequently when I was at his house&mdash;for I visited the family,
      and sometimes, though unfrequently, dined with them on a sabbath&mdash;he
      jeered me on my progress&mdash;the &ldquo;wonderful progress,&rdquo; as he was pleased
      to term it&mdash;which he felt sure I was making with my Coke and
      Blackstone, while baling blankets, or bundling up plains and kerseys. This
      I bore patiently, sustained as I was by the proud, indomitable spirit
      within me, which assured me of the ultimate triumph which I felt positive
      would ensue. I enjoyed his surprise&mdash;a surprise that looked something
      like consternation&mdash;when the very day of my admission to the bar, and
      after that event, I encountered him in the street, and in answer to his
      usual sarcastic inquiry:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, Edward, how does the law come on? How is Sir William Blackstone,
      Sir Edward Coke, and the rest of the white heads?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I simply put the parchment into his hands which declared my formal
      introduction to those venerable gentry.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, you don't mean? Is it possible? So you really are admitted&mdash;a
      lawyer, eh?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You see, sir&mdash;and that, too, without any Greek.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, and what good is it to do you? To have a profession, Edward, is one
      thing; to get business, another!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, sir&mdash;but I take it, the profession must be had first. One step
      is gained. That much is sure. The other, I trust, will follow in due
      season.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;True, but I still think that the bricklayer would make the more money.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Were money-making, sir, the only object of life, perhaps, then, that
      would be the most desirable business; but&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, I forgot&mdash;the talents, the talents are to be considered.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And after the utterance of this sneer, our dialogue as may be supposed,
      did not much longer continue.
    </p>
    <p>
      I did not know of the contemplated visit of Mr. Edgerton to my worthy
      uncle, nor of its purpose, or I should, most assuredly, have put my veto
      upon the measure with all the tenacity of a resentful spirit; but this
      gentleman, who was a man of nice sensibility as well as strong good sense,
      readily comprehended a portion of my secret history from what was known to
      him. He easily conceived that my uncle was somewhat of a niggard from the
      manner in which I had employed myself during my preparation for the bar.
      He thought, however, that my uncle, though unwilling to expend money in
      the prosecution of a scheme which he did not approve&mdash;now that the
      scheme was so far successful as to afford every promise of a reasonable
      harvest, could not do less than come forward to the assistance of one who
      had shown such a determined disposition to assist himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was mistaken. He little knew the man. His interview with my uncle was a
      short one. The parties were already acquainted, though not intimately.
      They knew each other as persons of standing in the same community, and
      this made the opening of Mr. Edgerton's business easy. I state the tenor
      of the interview as it came to my knowledge afterward.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Clifford,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you have a nephew&mdash;a young gentleman, who
      has been recently admitted to the bar&mdash;Mr. Edward Clifford.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The reply, with a look of wonder was necessarily affirmative.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have had much pleasure,&rdquo; continued the other, &ldquo;in knowing him for some
      time. He is an intimate of my eldest son, and from what has met my eyes,
      sir, I should say, you are fortunate in having a nephew of so much
      promise.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, yes, sir, I believe he is a clever youth enough,&rdquo; was the costive
      answer.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He is more than that, sir. I regard him, indeed, as a most astonishing
      young man. The very manner in which he has pursued his studies while
      engaged in the harassing labors of a large wholesale business house of
      this city&mdash;alone establishes this fact.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The cheeks of my uncle reddened. The last sentence of Mr. Edgerton was
      unfortunate for his object. It conveyed a tacit reproof, which the
      niggardly conscience of Mr. Clifford readily appropriated and, perhaps,
      anticipated. He dreaded lest Mr. Edgerton knew all.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are probably aware, Mr. Edgcrton,&rdquo; he replied with equal hesitancy
      and haste&mdash;&ldquo;you have heard that Edward Clifford is an orphan&mdash;that
      he has nothing, and it was therefore necessary that he should learn to
      employ himself; though it was against my wish, sir, that he went into a
      mercantile house.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was something suppressed in this&mdash;a mean evasion&mdash;for he
      could not easily have told Mr. Edgcrton, without a blush, that, instead of
      the mercantile establishment, he would have made me a bricklayer's hodman.
      But this, it seems, Edgerton had found out for himself. His reply,
      however, was calculated to soothe the jealous apprehensions of Mr.
      Clifford. He had an object in view, which he thought too important to risk
      for the small pleasure of a passing sarcasm.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Perhaps, it has happened for the best, Mr. Clifford. You were right in
      requiring the young man to do for himself. Were I worth millions, sir, I
      should still prefer that my son should learn that lesson&mdash;that he
      should work out his own deliverance with the sweat of his own brow.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I agree with you, sir, perfectly,&rdquo; replied the other, with increased
      complacency. &ldquo;A boy learns to value his money as he should, only when he
      has earned it for himself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! it is not for this object simply,&rdquo; replied Mr. Edgerton, &ldquo;that I
      would have him acquire habits of industry; it is for the moral results
      which such habits produce&mdash;the firmness, character, consistency&mdash;the
      strength and independence&mdash;temperance, justice&mdash;all of which
      arise, and almost only, from obedience to this law. But it is clear that
      one can not do everything by himself, and this young man, though he has
      gone on in a manner that might shame the best of us, is still not so
      thoroughly independent as he fancies himself. It will be some time before
      he will be able to realize anything from his profession, and he will need
      some small assistance in the meantime.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I can not help him,&rdquo; exclaimed Mr. Clifford, abruptly&mdash;&ldquo;I have not
      the means to spare. My own family need everything that I can give. He has
      himself only to blame. He chose his profession for himself. I warned him
      against it. He needn't send to me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do not mistake me, Mr. Clifford,&rdquo; said Mr. Edgerton, calmly. &ldquo;Your nephew
      knows nothing of my present visit. I would be loath that he should know.
      It was the singular independence of his mind that led me to the
      conviction, that he would sooner die than ask assistance from anybody,
      that persuaded me to suggest to you in what manner you might afford him an
      almost necessary help, without offending his sensibility.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; exclaimed the other, while a sneer mantled upon his lips. &ldquo;You
      are very considerate, Mr. Edgerton; but the same sensibilities might
      prompt him to reject the assistance when tendered.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, sir,&rdquo; replied Edgerton, mildly&mdash;&ldquo;I think I could manage that.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am sorry, sir, that I can not second your wishes in any material
      respect,&rdquo; was the answer of my uncle;&mdash;&ldquo;but I will see Edward, and
      let him know that my house is open to him as it was from, the time he was
      four years old; and he shall have a seat at my table until he can
      establish himself more to his satisfaction; but money, sir, in truth, I
      have not a cent to spare. My own necessities&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Enough, sir,&rdquo; said Mr. Edgerton, mildly; &ldquo;I take it for granted, Mr.
      Clifford, that if you could contribute to the success of your brother's
      son, you certainly would neither refuse nor refrain to do so.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, surely&mdash;certainly not,&rdquo; replied the other, hastily. &ldquo;Anything
      that I could do&mdash;anything in reason, sir, I should be very happy to
      do, but&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And then followed the usual rigmarole about &ldquo;his own family,&rdquo; and &ldquo;hard
      times,&rdquo; and &ldquo;diminished resources,&rdquo; and all those stereotype commonplaces
      which are for ever on the lips of stereotype insincere people. Mr.
      Clifford did not perceive the dry and somewhat scornful innuendo, which
      lay at the bottom of Mr. Edgerton's seemingly innocent assumption; and the
      latter took his leave, vexed with himself at having made the unsuccessful
      application&mdash;but still more angry with the meanness of character
      which he had encountered in my uncle.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER IV. &mdash; &ldquo;SHE STILL SOOTHED THE MOCK OF OTHERS.&rdquo;
     </h2>
    <p>
      It is not improbable that, after a few hours given to calm reflection, my
      uncle perceived how obnoxious he might be made to public censure for his
      narrow treatment of my claims; and the next day he sent for me in order to
      tender me the freedom of his house&mdash;a tender which he had made the
      day before to Mr. Edgerton in my behalf. But his offer had been already
      anticipated by that excellent friend that very day. Coming warm and fresh
      from his interview with my uncle, he called upon me, and in a very plain,
      direct, business-like, but yet kind and considerate manner, informed me
      that he stood very much in need of an assistant who would prepare his
      papers&mdash;did me the honor to say that he fancied I would suit him
      better than anybody else he knew, and offered me six hundred dollars for
      my labors in that capacity for the first year of my service. My engagement
      to him, he said at the same time, did not imply such entire employment as
      would incapacitate me for the execution of any business which might be
      intrusted to my hands individually. I was permitted the use of a desk in
      his office, and was also permitted to hang out my own banner from his
      window I readily persuaded myself that I could be of service to Mr.
      Edgerton&mdash;such service as would, perhaps, leave my obligation a light
      one&mdash;and promptly acceded to his offer. He had scarcely departed when
      a servant brought a note from Mr. Clifford. Even while meditating what he
      fancied was a favor, he could not forbear the usual sneer. The following
      was his communication:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;DEAR EDWARD: If you can spare a moment from your numerous clients, and
      are not in a great hurry to make your deposites, you will suffer me to see
      you at the office before two o'clock. Yours affectionately, J. B.
      CLIFFORD.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Very affectionately!&rdquo;! exclaimed. It might be nothing more than a
      pleasantry which he intended by the offensive passages in his note; but
      the whole tenor of his character and conduct forbade this conviction.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! no!&rdquo; I muttered to myself, as the doubt suggested itself to my mind;
      &ldquo;no! no! it is the old insolence&mdash;the insolence of pride, of
      conscious wealth&mdash;of power, as he thinks, to crush! But he is
      mistaken. He shall find defiance. Let him but repeat those sarcasms and
      that sneer which are but too frequent on his lips when he speaks to me,
      and I will answer him, for the first time, by a narration which shall
      sting him to the very soul, if he has one!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      This resolution was scarcely made when the image of Julia Clifford&mdash;the
      sweet child&mdash;a child now no longer-the sweet woman&mdash;interposed,
      and my temper was subdued of its resolve, though its bitterness remained
      unqualified.
    </p>
    <p>
      And what of Julia Clifford? I have said but little of her for some time
      past, but she has not been forgotten. Far from it. She was still
      sufficiently the attraction that drew me to the dwelling of my selfish
      uncle. In the three years that I had been at the mercantile establishment,
      her progress, in mind and person, had been equally ravishing and rapid.
      She was no more the child, but the blooming girl&mdash;the delicate
      blossom swelling to the bud&mdash;the bud bursting into the flower&mdash;but
      the bloom, and the beauty, and the innocence&mdash;the rich tenderness,
      and the dewy sweet, still remained the same through all the stages of her
      progress from the infant to the woman. Wealth, and the arrogant example of
      those about her, had failed to change the naturally true and pure
      simplicity of her character. She was not to be beguiled by the one, nor
      misguided by the other, from the exquisite heart which was still worthy of
      Eden. When I was admitted to the bar at twenty-one, she was sixteen&mdash;the
      age in our southern country when a maiden looks her loveliest. But I had
      scarcely felt the changes in the last three years which had been going on
      in her. I beheld beauties added to beauties, charms to charms; and she
      seemed every day to be the possessor of fresh graces newly dropped from
      heaven; but there was no change. Increased perfection does not imply
      change, nor does it suffer it.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was my custom, as the condescending wish of my uncle expressed, that I
      should take my Sunday dinner with his family. I complied with this
      request, and it was no hard matter to do so. But it was a sense of
      delight, not of duty, that made me comply; and, but for Julia, I feel
      certain that I should never have darkened the doors, which opened to admit
      me only through a sense of duty. But the attraction&mdash;scarcely known
      to myself&mdash;drew me with singular punctuality; and I associated the
      privilege which had been accorded me with another. I escorted the ladies
      to church; sometimes, too, when the business of my employers permitted, I
      spent an evening during the week with the family; and beholding Julia I
      was not over-anxious to perceive the indifference with which I was treated
      by all others.
    </p>
    <p>
      But let me retrace my steps. I subdued my choler so far as to go, with a
      tolerable appearance of calmness if not humility, to the interview which
      my uncle had been pleased to solicit. I need not repeat in detail what
      passed between us. It amounted simply to a supercilious offer, on his
      part, of lodging and board, until I should be sufficiently independent to
      open the oyster for myself. I thanked him with respect and civility, but,
      to his surprise, declined to accept his offer.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, what do you propose to do?&rdquo; he demanded.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do what I have been doing for the three past years; work for myself, and
      pay my board from the proceeds of my own labor.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What, you go back to the merchants, do you? You are wiser than I thought.
      The law would not give you your bread here for twenty years in this city.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are mistaken, uncle,&rdquo; I said, good humoredly&mdash;&ldquo;it is from the
      law that I propose to get my bread.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Indeed!&mdash;You are even more sanguine than I thought you. But, pray,
      upon what do you base your expectations?&mdash;the talents, I suppose.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I felt the rankling of this well-known and offensive sneer, but replied
      simply to the point:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, sir, upon assurances which you will probably think far more worthy of
      respect. I have already been employed by Mr. Edgerton as an attorney, at a
      salary of six hundred dollars.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, indeed! Well, you are a fortunate fellow, I must say, to get such a
      helping hand at the outset. But you may want some small amount to begin
      with&mdash;you can not draw upon Mr. Edgerton before services are
      rendered, and if fifty or a hundred dollars, Edward&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I thank you, sir;&mdash;so far from wanting money, I should be almost
      able to lend some. I have saved some two hundred from my mercantile
      salary.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I enjoyed the ghastly grin which rose to his features. It was evident that
      he was not pleased that I should be independent. He had set out with the
      conviction, when my father died, that my support and education would
      devolve upon him, and though they did not, yet it was plain enough to me
      that he was not unwilling that such should be the impression of the
      community. I had disarmed him entirely by the simplest process, and,
      mortified at being disappointed, he was disposed to hate the youth who had
      baffled him. It was the strangest thing in the world that such should be
      the feeling of any man, and that, too, in reference to so near a relation;
      but the case is nevertheless true. I saw it in his looks that moment&mdash;I
      felt it in his accents. I KNEW that such was the real feeling in his soul.
      There are motives which grow from vanities, piques, rivalries, and the
      miserable ostentations of a small spirit, which act more terribly upon the
      passions of man, than even the desire of gain or the love of woman. The
      heart of Mr. Clifford, was, after its particular fashion, a blind heart,
      like my own.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I am glad you are so well off. You will dine with us on Sunday, I
      suppose?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      My affirmative was a matter of course; and, on Sunday, the evident
      gratification of Julia when she saw me, amply atoned for all her father's
      asperities and injustice. She had heard of my success&mdash;and though in
      a sneer from the lips of her father it was not the less productive of an
      evident delight to her. She met me with the expression of this delight
      upon all her features.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am so glad, so very glad, and so surprised, too, Cousin Edward, at your
      success. And yet you kept it all to yourself. You might have told ME, at
      least, that you were studying law. Why was it that I was never allowed to
      know of your intention?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Your father knew it, Julia.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, so he says now. He says you told him something about it when you
      first went into a store; but he did not think you in earnest.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not in earnest! He little knew me, Julia.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But your telling him, Edward, was not telling me. Why did you not tell
      me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You might not have kept my secret, Julia. You know what naughty things
      are said of your sex, touching your inability to keep a secret.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Naughty things, indeed&mdash;naughty and untrue! I'm sure, I should have
      kept your secret, if you desired it. But why should it be a secret?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, indeed!&rdquo; I muttered, as the shadow of my perverseness passed deeply
      over my heart. &ldquo;Why, unless to protect myself from the sneers which would
      stifle my ambition, and the sarcasm which would have stung my heart.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you have no fear of these from me, Cousin Edward,&rdquo; she said gently,
      and with dewy eyes, while her fingers slightly pressed upon my wrist.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I know not that, Cousin Julia, I somehow suspect everything and everybody
      now. I feel very lonely in the world&mdash;as if there was a destiny at
      work to make my whole life one long conflict, which I must carry on
      without sympathy or succor.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, these are only notions, Edward.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Notions!&rdquo; I exclaimed, giving her a bitter smile as I spoke, while my
      thoughts reverted to the three years of unremitting and almost uncheered
      labor through which I had passed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, notions only, Cousin Edward. You are full of such notions. You every
      now and then start up with a new one; and it makes you gloomy and
      discontented&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I make no complaints, Julia.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, that is the worst of it. You make no complaints, I think, because you
      do not wish to be cured of them. You prefer nursing your supposed cause of
      grief, with a sort of solitary pleasure&mdash;the gratification of a
      haughty spirit, that is too proud to seek for solace, and to find it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Julia had in truth touched upon the true nature of my misanthropy&mdash;of
      that self vexing and self-torturing spirit which too effectually blinds
      the heart.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But could I find it, Julia?&rdquo; I asked, looking into her eyes with an
      expression which I began to feel was something very new to mine.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Perhaps&mdash;I think&mdash;you could,&rdquo; was the half-tremulous answer, as
      she beheld the peculiar expression of my glance. The entrance of Mrs.
      Clifford, was, perhaps, for the first time, rather a relief to us both.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And so you are a lawyer, Edward? Well, who would have thought of it? It
      must be a very easy thing to be made a lawyer.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Julia looked at me with eyes that reddened with vexation. I felt my gorge
      rising; but when I reflected upon the ignorance, and the unworthy nature
      of the speaker, I overcame the disposition to retort, and smilingly
      replied:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's not such hard work as bricklaying, certainly.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;if it were only half so profitable. But Mr. Clifford
      says that a lawyer now is only another name for a beggar&mdash;a sort of
      genteel beggar. The town's overrun with them&mdash;half of them live upon
      their friends.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I trust I shall not add to the number of this class, Mrs. Clifford.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, no! I know YOU never will, Cousin Edward,&rdquo; exclaimed Julia, with a
      flush upon her cheeks at her own temerity.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Really, Julia,&rdquo; said her mother, &ldquo;you are very confident. How do you know
      anything about it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The sharp glances of rebuke which accompanied this speech daunted the
      damsel for a moment, and her eyes were suddenly cast in confusion upon the
      ground; but she raised them with boldness a moment after, as she replied:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We have every assurance, mother, for what I say, in the fact that Cousin
      Edward has been supporting himself at another business, while actually
      pursuing the study of law for these three years; and that very pride about
      which father spoke today, is another assurance&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Bless my stars, child, you have grown very pert on a sudden, to talk
      about guaranties and assurances, just as if you was a lawyer yourself. The
      next thing we hear, I suppose, will be that instead of being busy over the
      'Seven Champions' and the last fashions, you, too, will be turning over
      the leaves of big law-books, and carrying on such studies in secret to
      surprise a body, as if there was any merit or good in doing such things
      secretly.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Julia felt that she had only made bad worse, and she hung her head in
      silence. For my part, though I suppressed my choler, the pang was only the
      more keenly felt for the effort to hide it. In my secret soul, I asked,
      &ldquo;Will the day never come when I, too, will be able to strike and sting?&rdquo; I
      blushed an instant after, at the small and mean appetite for revenge that
      such an inquiry implied. But I came to the support of Julia.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Let me say, Mrs. Clifford, that I think&mdash;nay, I know&mdash;that
      Julia is right in her conjecture. The guaranty which I have given to my
      friends, by the pride and industry which I have shown, should be
      sufficient to convince them what my conduct shall be hereafter. I know
      that I shall never trespass upon their feelings or their pockets. They
      shall neither blush for nor lose by their relationship with Edward
      Clifford.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well said! well spoken! with good emphasis and proper action. Forrest
      himself could scarce have done it better!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Such was the exclamation of Mr. Clifford, who entered the room at this
      moment. His mock applause was accompanied by a clamorous clapping of his
      hands. I felt my cheeks burn, and my blood boil. The truth is, I was not
      free from the consciousness that I had suffered some of the grandiloquent
      to appear in my manner while speaking the sentence which had provoked the
      ridicule of my uncle. The sarcasm acquired increase of sting in
      consequence of its being partially well-merited. I replied with some
      little show of temper, which the imploring glances of Julia did not
      altogether persuade me to suppress. The &ldquo;blind heart&rdquo; was growing stronger
      within me, from the increasing conviction of my own independence. In this
      sort of mimic warfare the day passed off as usual. I attended the family
      to church in the afternoon, took tea, and spent the evening with them&mdash;content
      to suffer the &ldquo;stings and arrows&rdquo;&mdash;however outrageous, of my
      exemplary and Christian aunt and uncle, if permitted to enjoy the presence
      and occasional smiles of the true angel, whose influence could still
      temper my feelings into a humane and patient toleration of influences
      which they yet burned to trample under foot.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER V. &mdash; DEBUT.
    </h2>
    <p>
      A brief interval now passed over, after my connection begun with Mr.
      Edgerton, in which time the world went on with me more smoothly, perhaps,
      than ever. My patron&mdash;for so this gentleman deserves to be called&mdash;was
      as indulgent as I could wish. He soon discerned the weaknesses in my
      character, and with the judgment of an old practitioner, he knew how to
      subdue and soften, without seeming to perceive them. I need not say that I
      was as diligent and industrious, and not less studious, while in his
      employ, than I had been in that of my mercantile acquaintance. The entire
      toils of the desk soon fell upon my shoulders, and I acquired the
      reputation among my small circle of acquaintance, of being a very good
      attorney for a young beginner. It is true, I was greatly helped by the
      continued perusal of an admirable collection of old precedents, which a
      long period of extensive practice had accumulated in the collection of my
      friend. But to be an attorney, simply, was not the bound of my ambition. I
      fancied that the forum was, before all others, my true field of exertion.
      The ardency of my temper, the fluency of my speech, the promptness of my
      thought, and the warmth of my imagination, all conspired in impressing on
      me the belief that I was particularly fitted for the arena of public
      disputation. This, I may add, was the opinion of Mr. Edgerton also; and I
      soon sought an occasion for the display of my powers.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was the custom at our bar&mdash;and a custom full of danger&mdash;for
      young beginners to take their cases from the criminal docket. Their
      &ldquo;'prentice han',&rdquo; was usually exercised on some wretch from the stews,
      just as the young surgeon is permitted to hack the carcass of a tenant of
      the &ldquo;Paupers' Field,&rdquo; the better to prepare him for practice on living and
      more worthy victims. Was there a rascal so notoriously given over to the
      gallows that no hope could possibly be entertained of his extrication from
      the toils of the evidence, and the deliberations of a jury, he was
      considered fair game for the young lawyers, who, on such cases, gathered
      about him with all the ghostly and keen propensities of vultures about the
      body of the horse cast out upon the commons.
    </p>
    <p>
      The custom was evil, and is now, I believe, abandoned. It led to much
      irreverence among thoughtless young men&mdash;to an equal disregard of
      that solemnity which should naturally attach to the court of justice, and
      to the life of the prisoner arraigned before it. A thoughtless levity too
      frequently filled the mind of the young lawyer and his hearers, when it
      was known that the poor wretch on trial was simply regarded as an agent,
      through whose miserable necessity, the beginner was to try his strength
      and show his skill in the art of speech-making. It was my fortune, acting
      rather in compliance with the custom than my own preference, to select one
      of these victims and occasions for my debut. I could have done otherwise.
      Mr. Edgerton freely tendered to me any one of several cases of his own, on
      the civil docket, in which to make my appearance; but I was unwilling to
      try my hand upon a case in which the penalty of ill success might be a
      serious loss to my friend's client, and might operate to the injury of his
      business; and, another reason for my preference was to be found&mdash;though
      not expressed by me&mdash;in the secret belief which I entertained that I
      was peculiarly gifted with the art of appealing to the passions, and the
      sensibilities of my audience.
    </p>
    <p>
      Having made my determination, I proceeded to prepare myself by a due
      consideration of the case at large; the history of the transaction, which
      involved the life of my client&mdash;(the allegation was for murder)&mdash;and
      of the testimony of the witnesses so far as it had been suggested in the
      EXPARTE examination before the grand jury. I reviewed the several leading
      principles on the subject of the crime; its character, the sort of
      evidence essential to conviction, and certainly, to do myself all justice,
      as effectually prepared myself for the duties of the trial as probably any
      young man of the time and community was likely to have done. The case, I
      need not add, was hopelessly against me; the testimony conclusive; and I
      had nothing to do but to weigh its character with keen examination, pick
      out and expose its defects and inconsistencies, and suggest as plausible a
      presumption in favor of the accused, as could be reasonably made out from
      the possibilities and doubts by which all human occurrences are
      necessarily attended. Something, too, might be done by judicious appeals
      to the principle of mercy, assuming for the jury a discretion on this
      subject which, by the way, they have no right to exercise.
    </p>
    <p>
      I was joined in the case by my friend, young Edgerton. So far our boyish
      fortunes had run together, and he was not unwilling, though against his
      father's counsel, to take the same occasion with me for entering the world
      in company. The term began; the case was one of the last on the criminal
      docket, and the five days which preceded that assigned for the trial, were
      days, I am constrained to confess, of a thrilling and terrible agitation
      to my mind. I can scarcely now recall the feelings of that week without
      undergoing a partial return of the same painful sensations. My soul was
      striving as with itself, and seeking an outlet for escape. I panted, as if
      for breath&mdash;my tongue was parched&mdash;my lips clammy&mdash;my
      voice, in the language of the poet, clove to the roof of my throat.
      Altogether, I have never felt such emotions either before or since.
    </p>
    <p>
      I will not undertake to analyze them, or account for those conflicting
      sensations which make us shrink, with something like terror, from the very
      object which we desire. At length the day came, and the man; attended by
      his father, William Edgerton, and myself, took our places, and stood
      prepared for the issue. I looked round me with a dizzy feeling of
      uncertainty. Objects appeared to swim and tremble before my sight. My eyes
      were of as little service to me then as if they had been gazing to
      blindness upon the sun. Everything was confused and imperfect. I could see
      that the courthouse was filled to overflowing, and this increased my
      feebleness. The case was one that had occasioned considerable excitement
      in the community, It was one of no ordinary atrocity. This was a
      sufficient reason why the audience should be large. There was yet another.
      There were two new debutants. In a community where popular eloquence is,
      of all others, perhaps the most desirable talent, this circumstance was
      well calculated to bring many listeners. Besides, something was expected
      from both Edgerton and myself. We had not reached our present position
      without making for ourselves a little circle, in which we had friends to
      approve and exult, and enemies to depreciate, and condemn.
    </p>
    <p>
      The proceedings were at length opened by the attorney-general, the
      witnesses examined, and turned over to us for cross-examination. This part
      of the duty was performed by my associate. The business fairly begun, my
      distraction was lessened. My mind, driven to a point, made a decisive
      stand; and the sound of Edgerton's voice, as he proposed his questions,
      served still more to dissipate my confusion. I furnished him with sundry
      questions, and our examination was admitted to be quite searching and
      acute. My friend went through his part of the labor with singular
      coolness. He was in little or no respect excited. He, perhaps, was
      deficient in enthusiasm. If there was no faltering in what he said, there
      was no fine phrensy. His remarks and utterance were subdued to the
      plainest demands of the subject. They were shrewd and sensible, not
      particularly ingenious, nor yet deficient in the proper analysis of the
      evidence. He acquitted himself creditably.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was my part to reply to the prosecuting attorney; but when I rose, I
      was completely confounded. Never shall I forget the pang of that impotence
      which seemed to overspread my frame, and to paralyze every faculty of
      thought and speech. I was the victim to my own ardor. A terrible reaction
      of mind had taken place, and I was prostrated. The desire to achieve
      greatness&mdash;the belief that it was expected from me&mdash;the
      consciousness that hundreds of eyes were then looking into mine with
      hungering expectation, overwhelmed me! I felt that I could freely have
      yielded myself for burial beneath the floor on which I stood. My cheeks
      were burning, yet my hands were cold as ice, and my knees tottered as with
      an ague. I strove to speak, however; the eyes of the judge met mine, and
      they looked the language of encouragement&mdash;of pity. But this
      expression only increased my confusion. I stammered out nothing but broken
      syllables and incoherent sentences. What I was saying, I know not&mdash;how
      long I presented this melancholy spectacle of imbecility to the eyes of my
      audience, I know not. It may have been a few minutes only. To me it seemed
      an age; and I was just endued with a sufficient power of reflection to ask
      myself whether I had not better sit down at once in irreversible despair,
      when my wandering and hitherto vacant eyes caught a glance-a single glance&mdash;of
      a face opposite.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was that of my uncle! He was perched on one of the loftiest benches,
      conspicuous among the crowd&mdash;his eyes keenly fixed upon mine, and his
      features actually brightened by a smile of triumphant malice and
      exultation.
    </p>
    <p>
      That glance restored me. That single smile brought me strength. I was
      timid, and weak, and impotent no longer. Under the presence of habitual
      scorn, my habitual pride and independence returned to me. The tremors left
      my limbs. The clammy huskiness which had loaded my tongue, and made it
      cleave to the roof of my mouth, instantly departed; and my whole mind
      returned to my control as if beneath the command of some almighty voice. I
      now saw the judge distinctly&mdash;I could see the distinct features of
      every juryman; and with the pride of my restored consciousness, I retorted
      the smile upon my uncle's face with one of contempt, which was not without
      its bitterness.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then I spoke, and spoke with an intenseness, a directness of purpose and
      aim&mdash;a stern deliberateness&mdash;a fire and a feeling&mdash;which
      certainly electrified my hearers with surprise, if with no more elevated
      emotions. That one look of hostility had done more for my mind than could
      have been effected in my behalf by all the kind looks and encouraging
      voices of all the friends in creation.
    </p>
    <p>
      After a brief exordium, containing some general proposition on the subject
      of human testimony, which meant no more than to suggest the propriety of
      giving to the prisoner the benefit of what was doubtful and obscure in the
      testimony which had been taken against him&mdash;I proceeded to compare
      and contrast its several parts. There were some inconsistencies in the
      evidence which enable me to make something of a case. The character of the
      witnesses was something more than doubtful and that, too, helped, in a
      slight degree, my argument. This was rapid, direct, closely wound
      together, and proved&mdash;such was the opinion freely expressed by
      others, afterward&mdash;that I had the capacity for consecutive
      arrangement of facts and inferences in a very remarkable degree. I closed
      with an appeal in favor of that erring nature, which, even in our own
      cases, led us hourly to the commission of sins and errors; and which,
      where the individual was poor, wretched, and a stranger, under the evil
      influences of destitution, vicious associations, and a lot in life, which,
      of necessity, must be low, might well persuade us to look with an eye of
      qualified rebuke upon his offences.
    </p>
    <p>
      This was, of course, no argument, and was only to be considered the
      natural close of my labors. Before I was half through I saw my uncle rise
      from his seat, and hastily leave the court-room; and then I knew that I
      was successful&mdash;that I had triumphed, through that stimulating
      influence of his hate, over my own fears and feebleness. I felt sure that
      the speech must be grateful to the rest of my hearers, which HE could not
      stay to hear; and in this conviction, the tone of my spirits became
      elevated&mdash;the thoughts gushed from me like rain, in a natural and
      unrestrainable torrent of language&mdash;my voice was clear and full, far
      more so than I had ever thought it could be made&mdash;and my action far
      more animated, perhaps, than either good taste or the occasion justified.
      The criminal was not acquitted; but both William Edgerton and myself were
      judged to have been eminently successful.
    </p>
    <p>
      The result of my debut, in other respects, was flattering far beyond my
      expectations. Business poured in upon me. My old employers, the merchants,
      were particularly encouraging and friendly. They congratulated me warmly
      on my success, assured me that they had always thought I was better
      calculated for the law than trade; and ended by putting into my hands all
      their accounts that needed a legal agency for collection. Mr. Edgerton was
      loud in his approbation, and that very week saw his son and myself united
      in co-partnership, with the prospect of an early withdrawal of the father
      from business in my favor. Indeed, the latter gave us to understand that
      his only purpose now was to see us fairly under way, with a sufficient
      knowledge of the practice, and assured of the confident of his own
      friends, in order to give his years and enfeebled health a respite from
      the toils of the profession.
    </p>
    <p>
      My worthy uncle, true to himself, played a very different part from these
      gentlemen. He hung back, forbore all words on the subject of my debut, and
      of the promising auspices under which my career was begun, and actually
      placed certain matters of legal business into the hands of another lawyer.
      Of this, he himself gave me the first information in very nearly this
      language:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have just had to sue Yardle &amp; Fellows, and a few others, Edward,
      and I thought of employing you, but you are young, and there may be some
      legal difficulties in the way:&mdash;but when you get older, and arrive at
      some experience, we will see what can be done for you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are perfectly right, sir,&rdquo; was my only answer, but the smile upon my
      lips said everything. I saw, then, that HE COULD NOT SMILE. He was now
      exchanging the feeling of scorn which he formerly entertained for one of a
      darker quality. Hate was the necessary feeling which followed the
      conviction of his having done me wilful injustice&mdash;not to speak of
      the duties left undone, which were equally his shame.
    </p>
    <p>
      There were several things to mortify him in my progress. His sagacity as a
      man of the world stood rebuked&mdash;his conduct as a gentleman&mdash;his
      blood as a relation, who had not striven for the welfare and good report
      of his kin, and who had suffered unworthy prejudices, the result of equal
      avarice and arrogance, to operate against him.
    </p>
    <p>
      There is nothing which a base spirit remembers with so much malignant
      tenacity as your success in his despite. Even in the small matter just
      referred to, the appropriation of his law business, the observant fates
      gave me my revenge. By a singular coincidence of events, the very firm
      against which he had brought action the day before were clients of Mr.
      Edgerton. That gentleman was taken with a serious illness at the approach
      of the next court, and the business of their defence devolved upon his son
      and myself; and finally, when it was disposed of, which did not happen
      till near the close of that year, it so happened that I argued the case;
      and was successful.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr Clifford was baffled, and you may judge the feeling with which he now
      regarded me. He had long since ceased to jest with me and at my expense.
      He was now very respectful, and I could see that his dislike grew daily in
      strict degree with his deference. But the deportment of Mr. Clifford&mdash;springing
      as it did from that devil, which each man is supposed to carry at times in
      his bosom, and of whose presence in mine at seasons I was far from unaware&mdash;gave
      me less annoyance than that of another of his household. Julia, too, had
      put on an aspect which, if not that of coldness, was at least, that of a
      very marked reserve. I ascribed this to the influence of her parents&mdash;perhaps,
      to her own sense of what was due to their obvious desires&mdash;to her own
      feeling of indifference&mdash;to any and every cause but the right one.
    </p>
    <p>
      There were other circumstances to alarm me, in connection with this
      maiden. She was, as I have said, singularly beautiful; and, as I thought,
      until now, singularly meek and considerate. Her charms, about which there
      could be no two opinions, readily secured her numerous admirers, and when
      these were strengthened by the supposed fortune of which she was to be the
      heiress, the suitors were, some of them, almost as pressing, after the
      fashion of the world in which we lived, as those of Penelope. I now no
      longer secured her exclusive regard at the evening fireside or in our way
      to church. There were gallants on either hand&mdash;gay, dashing lads,
      with big whiskers, long locks, and smart ratans, upon whom madame, our
      lady-mother, looked with far more complacency than upon me. The course of
      Julia, herself, was, however, unexceptionable. She was singularly cautious
      in her deportment, and, if reserved to me the most jealous scrutiny&mdash;after
      due reflection&mdash;never enabled me to discover that she was more lavish
      of her regards to any other. But the discovery of her position led me to
      another discovery which the reader will wonder, as I did myself, that I
      had not made before. This was the momentous discovery that my heart was
      irretrievably lost to her&mdash;that I loved her with all the intensity of
      a first passion, which, like every other passion in my heart, was
      absorbing during its prevalence. I could name my feelings to myself only
      when I perceived that such feelings were entertained by others;&mdash;only
      when I found that the prize, which I desired beyond all others, was likely
      to be borne away by strangers, did I know how much it was desirable to
      myself.
    </p>
    <p>
      The discovery of this affection instantly produced its natural effects as
      well upon my deportment as upon my feelings; and that sleepless spirit of
      suspicion and doubt&mdash;that true creature and consequence of the
      habitual distrust which my treatment from boyhood had instilled into my
      mind&mdash;at once rose to strength and authority within me, and swayed me
      even as the blasts of November sway the bald tops of the slender trees
      which the gusts have already denuded of all foliage. The change in Julia's
      deportment, of which I have already spoken, increased the febrile fears
      and suspicions which filled my soul and overcame my judgment. She too&mdash;so
      I fancied&mdash;had learned to despise and dislike me, under the goading
      influences of her father's malice and her mother's silly prejudices. I
      jumped to the conclusion instantly, that I was bound to my self to assert
      my superiority, my pride and independence, in such a manner, as most
      effectually to satisfy all parties that their hate or love was equally a
      matter of indifference.
    </p>
    <p>
      You may judge what my behavior was after this. For a time, at least, it
      was sufficiently unbecoming. The deportment of Julia grew more reserved
      than ever, and her looks more grave. There was a sadness evidently mingled
      with this gravity which, amid all the blindness of my heart, I could not
      help but see. She became sadder and thinner every day; and there was a
      wo-begone listlessness about her looks and movements which began to give
      me pain and apprehension. I discovered, too after a while, that some
      apprehensions had also crept into the minds of her parents in respect to
      her health. Their looks were frequently addressed to her in evident
      anxiety. They restrained her exercises, watched the weather when she
      proposed to go abroad, strode in every way to keep her from fatigue and
      exposure; and, altogether, exhibited a degree of solicitude which at
      length had the effect of arousing mine.
    </p>
    <p>
      Involuntarily, I approached her with more tenderness than my vexing spirit
      had recently permitted me to show; but I recoiled from the effects of my
      own attentions. I was vexed to perceive that my approaches occasioned a
      start, a flutter&mdash;a shrinking inward&mdash;as if my advance had been
      obtrusive, and my attempts at familiarity offensive.
    </p>
    <p>
      I was then little schooled in the intricacies of the female heart. I
      little conjectured the origin of that seemingly paradoxical movement of
      the mind, which, in the case of one, sensitive and exquisitely delicate,
      prompts to flight from the very pursuit which it would yet invite; which
      dreads to be suspected of the secret which it yet most loves to cherish,
      and seeks to protect, by concealment, the feelings which it may not
      defend; even as the bird hides the little fledglings of its care from the
      hunter, whom it dare not attack.
    </p>
    <p>
      Stupid, and worse than stupid, my blind heart saw nothing of this, and
      perverted what it saw. I construed the conduct of Julia into matter of
      offence, to be taken in high dudgeon and resolutely resented; and I drew
      myself up stiffly when she appeared, and by excess of ceremonious
      politeness only, avoided the reproach of brutality. Yet, even at such
      moments, I could see that there was a dewy reproach in her eyes, which
      should have humbled me, and made me penitent. But the effects of fifteen
      years of injudicious management were not to be dissipated in a few days
      even by the Ithuriel spells of love. My sense of independence and
      self-resource had been stimulated to a diseased excess, until, constantly
      on the QUI VIVE, it became dogged and inflexible. It was a work of time to
      soften me and make me relent; and the labor then was one of my own secret
      thoughts, and unbiased private decision. The attempt to persuade or reason
      me into a conviction was sure to be a failure.
    </p>
    <p>
      Months passed in this manner without effecting any serious change in
      Julia, or in bringing us a step nearer to one another. Meanwhile, the
      sphere of my observation and importance increased, as the circle of my
      acquaintance became extended. I was regarded as a rising young man, and
      one likely to be successful ultimately in my profession. The social
      privileges of my friends, the Edgertons, necessarily became mine; and it
      soon occurred that I encountered my uncle and his family in circles in
      which it was somewhat a matter of pride with him to be permitted to move.
      This, as it increased my importance in his sight, did not diminish his
      pains. But he treated me now with constant deference, though with the same
      unvarying coldness. When in the presence of others, he warmed a little. I
      was then &ldquo;his nephew;&rdquo; and he would affect to speak with great familiarity
      on the subject of my business, my interests, the last case in which I was
      engaged, and so forth&mdash;the object of which was to persuade third
      persons that our relations were precisely as they should be, and as people
      would naturally suppose them.
    </p>
    <p>
      At all these places and periods, when it was my lot to meet with Julia,
      she was most usually the belle of the night. A dozen attendants followed
      in her train, solicitous of all her smiles, and only studious how to
      afford her pleasure. I, only, stood aloof&mdash;I, who loved her with a
      more intense fervor than all, simply because I had none, or few besides to
      love. The heart which has been evermore denied, will always burn with this
      intensity. Its passion, once enkindled, will be the all-absorbing flame.
      Devoted itself, it exacts the most religious devotion; and, unless it
      receives it, recoils upon its own resources, and shrouds itself in gloom,
      simply to hide its sufferings from detection.
    </p>
    <p>
      I affected that indifference to the charms of this maiden, which no one of
      human sensibilities could have felt. Opinions might have differed in
      respect to her beauty; but there could be none on the score of her virtues
      and her amiability, and almost as few on the possessions of her mind.
      Julia Clifford, though singularly unobtrusive in society, very soon
      convinced all around her that she had an excellent understanding, which
      study had improved, and grace had adorned by all the most appropriate
      modes of cultivation. Her steps were always followed by a crowd&mdash;her
      seat invariably encircled by a group to itself. I looked on at a distance,
      wrapped up in the impenetrable folds of a pride, whose sleeves were
      momently plucked, as I watched, by the nervous fingers of jealousy and
      suspicion. Sometimes I caught a timid glance of her eye, addressed to the
      spot where I stood, full of inquiry, and, as I could not but believe, of
      apprehension;&mdash;and yet, at such moments; I turned perversely from the
      spot, nor suffered myself to steal another look at one, all of whose
      triumphs seemed made at my expense.
    </p>
    <p>
      On one of these occasions we met&mdash;our eyes and hands, accidentally;
      and, though I, myself, could not help starting back with a cold chill at
      my heart, I yet fancied there was something monstrous insulting in the
      evident recoil of her person from the contact with mine, at the same
      moment. I was about to turn hurriedly away with a slight bow of
      acknowledgment, when the touching tenderness of her glance, so full of
      sweetness and sadness, made me shrink with shame from such a rudeness.
      Besides, she was so pale, so thin, and really looked so unwell, that my
      conscience, in spite of that blind heart whose perversity would still have
      kept me to my first intention, rebuked me, and drove me to my duty. I
      approached&mdash;I spoke to her&mdash;and my words, though few, under the
      better impulses of the moment, were gentle and solicitous, as they should
      have been. My tones, too, were softened:&mdash;wilfully as I still felt, I
      could not forbear the exercise of that better ministry of the affections
      which was disposed to make amends for previous misconduct. I do not know
      exactly what I said&mdash;I probably did nothing more than utter the
      ordinary phrases of social compliment;&mdash;but everything was
      obliterated from my mind in an instant, by the startling directness of
      what was said by her. Looking at me with a degree of intentness by which,
      alone, she was, perhaps, able to preserve her seeming calmness, she
      replied by an inquiry as remote from what my observation called for as
      possible, yet how applicable to me and my conduct!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why do you treat me thus, Edward? Why do you neglect me as you do&mdash;as
      if I were a stranger, or, at least, not a friend? What have I done to
      merit this usage from one who&mdash;-&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She did not finish the sentence, but her reproachful eyes, full of a dewy
      suffusion that seemed very much like tears, appeared to conclude it thus&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;One who&mdash;used to love me!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      So different was this speech from any that I looked for&mdash;so different
      from what the usage of our conventional world would have seemed to justify&mdash;so
      strange for one so timid, so silent usually on the subject of her own
      griefs, as Julia Clifford&mdash;that I was absolutely confounded. Where
      had she got this courage? By what strong feeling had it been stimulated?
      Had I been at that time as well acquainted with the sex as I have grown
      since, I must have seen that nothing but a deep interest in my conduct and
      regard, could possibly have prompted the spirit of one so gentle and
      shrinking, to the utterance of so searching an appeal. And in what way
      could I answer it? How could I excuse myself? What say, to justify that
      cold, rude indifference to a relative, and one who had ever been gentle
      and kind and true to me. I had really nothing to complain of. The vexing
      jealousies of my own suspicious heart had alone informed it to its
      perversion; and there I stood&mdash;dumb, confused, stupid-speaking, when
      I did speak, some incoherent, meaningless sentences, which could no more
      have been understood by her than they can now be remembered by me. I
      recovered myself, however, sufficiently soon to say, before we were
      separated by the movements of the crowd:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I will come to you to-morrow, Julia. Will you suffer me to see you in the
      morning, say at twelve?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, come!&rdquo; was all her answer; and the next moment the harsh accents of
      her ever-watchful mother warned us to risk no more.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VI. &mdash; DENIAL AND DEFEAT.
    </h2>
    <p>
      My sleep that night was anything but satisfactory. I had feverish dreams,
      unquiet slumbers, and woke at morning with an excruciating headache. I was
      in no mood for an explanation such as my promise necessarily implied, but
      I prepared my toilet with particular care&mdash;spent two hours at my
      office in a vain endeavor to divert myself, by a resort to business, from
      the conflicting and annoying sensations which afflicted me, and then
      proceeded to the dwelling of my uncle.
    </p>
    <p>
      I was fortunate in seeing Julia without the presence of her mother. That
      good lady had become too fashionable to suffer herself to be seen at so
      early an hour. Her vanity, in this respect, baffled her vigilance, for she
      had her own apprehensions on the score of my influence upon her daughter.
      Julia was scarcely so composed in the morning as she had appeared on the
      preceding night. I was now fully conscious of a flutter in her manner, a
      flush upon her face, an ill-suppressed apprehension in her eyes, which
      betokened strong emotions actively at work. But my own agitation did not
      suffer me to know the full extent of hers. For the first time, on her
      appearance, did I ask myself the question&mdash;&ldquo;For what did I seek this
      interview?&rdquo; What had I to say&mdash;what near? How explain my conduct&mdash;my
      coldness? On what imaginary and unsubstantial premises base the neglect in
      my deportment, amounting to rudeness, of which she had sufficient reason
      and a just right to complain? When I came to review my causes of vexation,
      how trivial did they seem. The reserve which had irritated me, on her
      part, now that I analyzed its sources, seemed a very natural reserve, such
      as was only maidenly and becoming. I now recollected that she was no
      longer a child&mdash;no longer the lively little fairy whom I could dandle
      on my knee and fling upon my shoulder, without a scruple or complaint. I
      stood like a trembling culprit in her presence. I was eloquent only
      through the force of a stricken conscience.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Julia!&rdquo; I exclaimed when we met, &ldquo;I have come to make atonement. I feel
      how rude I have been, but that was only because I was very wretched.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Wretched, Edward!&rdquo; she exclaimed with some surprise. &ldquo;What should make
      you wretched?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You&mdash;you have made me wretched.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Me!&rdquo; Her surprise naturally increased
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, you, dear Julia, and you only.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I took her hand in mine. Mine was burning&mdash;hers was colder than the
      icicles. Need I say more to those who comprehend the mysteries of the
      youthful heart. Need I say that the tongue once loosed, and the
      declaration of the soul must follow in a rush from the lips. I told her
      how much I loved her;&mdash;how unhappy it made me to think that others
      might bear away the prize; that, in this way, my rudeness arose from my
      wretchedness, and my wretchedness only from my love. I did not speak in
      vain. She confessed an equal feeling, and we were suffered a brief hour of
      unmitigated happiness together.
    </p>
    <p>
      Surely there is no joy like that which the heart feels in the first moment
      when it gives utterance to its own, and hears the avowed passion of the
      desired object:&mdash;a pure flame, the child of sentiment, just blushing
      with the hues of passion, just budding with the breath and bloom of life.
      No sin has touched the sentiment;&mdash;no gross smokes have risen to
      involve and obscure the flame; the altar is tended by pure hands; white
      spirits; and there is no reptile beneath the fresh blossoming flowers
      which are laid thereon. The grosser passions sleep, like the fumes at the
      shrine of Apollo, beneath the spell of that master passion in whose
      presence they can only maintain a subordinate existence. I loved; I had
      told my love;&mdash;and I was loved in return. I trembled with the deep
      intoxication of that bewildering moment; and how I found my way back to my
      office&mdash;whom I saw on the way, or to whom I spoke, I know not. I
      loved;&mdash;I was beloved. He only can conceive the delirium of this
      sweet knowledge who has passed a life like mine&mdash;who has felt the
      frowns and the scorn, and the contempt of those who should have nurtured
      him with smiles&mdash;whose soul, ardent and sensitive, has been made to
      recoil cheerlessly back on itself&mdash;denied the sunshine of the
      affections, and almost forbade to hope. Suddenly, when I believed myself
      most destitute, I had awakened to fortune&mdash;to the realization of
      desires which were beyond my fondest dreams. I, whom no affection hitherto
      had blessed, had, in a moment, acquired that which seemed to me to
      comprise all others, and for which all others might have been profitably
      thrown away.
    </p>
    <p>
      I fancied now that henceforth my sky was to be without a cloud. I did not&mdash;nor
      did Julia imagine for a moment that any opposition to our love could arise
      from her parents. What reason now could they have to oppose it? There was
      no inequality in our social positions. My blood had taken its rise from
      the same fountains with her own. In the world's estimation my rank was
      quite as respectable as that of any in my uncle's circle, and, for my
      condition, my resources, though small, were improving daily, and I had
      already attained such a place among my professional brethren, as to leave
      it no longer doubtful that it must continue to improve. My income, with
      economy&mdash;such economy as two simple, single-minded creatures, like
      Julia and myself, were willing to employ&mdash;would already yield us a
      decent support. In short, the idea of my uncle's opposition to the match
      never once entered my head. Yet he did oppose it. I was confounded with
      his blunt, and almost rugged refusal.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, sir, what are your objections?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He answered with sufficient coolness.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am sorry to refuse you, Edward, but I have already formed other
      arrangements for my daughter. I have designed her for another.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Indeed, sir&mdash;may I ask with whom?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Young Roberts&mdash;his father and myself have had the matter for some
      time in deliberation. But do not speak of it, Edward&mdash;my confidence
      in you, alone, induces me to state this fact.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am very much obliged to you, sir;&mdash;but you do not surely mean to
      force young Roberts upon Julia, if she is unwilling?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, she will not be unwilling. She's a dutiful child, who will readily
      recognise the desires of her parents as the truest wisdom.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, Mr. Clifford&mdash;you forget that Julia has already admitted to me
      a preference&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;So you tell me, Edward, and it is with regret that I feel myself
      compelled to say that I wholly disapprove of your seeking my daughter's
      consent, before you first thought proper to obtain mine. This seems to me
      very muck like an abuse of confidence.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Really, sir, you surprise me more than ever. Now that you force me to
      speak, let me say that, regarding myself as of blood scarcely inferior to
      that of my cousin, I can not see how the privilege of which I availed
      myself in proposing for her hand, can be construed into a breach of
      confidence. I trust, sir, that you have not contemplated your brother's
      son in any degrading or unbecoming attitude.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no, surely not, Edward; but mere equality of birth does not
      constitute a just claim, by itself, to the affections of a lady.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I trust the equality of birth, sir, is not impaired on my part by
      misconduct&mdash;by a want of industry, capacity&mdash;by inequalities in
      other respects&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And talents!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He finished the sentence with the ancient sneer. But I was now a man&mdash;a
      strong one, and, at this moment particularly a stern one.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Stop, sir,&rdquo; I retorted; &ldquo;there must be an end to this. Whether you accede
      to my application or not, sir, there is nothing to justify you in an
      attempt to goad and mortify my feelings. I have proffered to you a
      respectful application for the hand of of your daughter, and though I were
      poorer, and humbler, and less worthy in all respects than I am, I should
      still be entitled to respectful treatment. At another time, with my
      sensibilities less deeply interested than they are, I should probably
      submit, as I have already frequently submitted, to the unkind and
      ungenerous sarcasms in which you have permitted yourself to indulge at my
      expense. But my regard for your daughter alone would prompt me to resent
      and repel them now. The object of my interview with you is quite too
      sacred&mdash;too solemnly invested&mdash;to suffer me to stand silently
      under the scornful usage even of her father.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      All this may have been deserved by Mr. Clifford, but it was scarcely
      discreet in me. It gave him the opportunity which, I do not doubt, he
      desired&mdash;the occasion which he had in view. It afforded him an excuse
      for anger, for a regular outbreak between us, which, in some sort, yielded
      him that justification for his refusal, without which he would have found
      it a very difficult matter to account for or excuse. We parted in mutual
      anger, the effect of which was to close his doors against me, and exclude
      me from all opportunities of interview with Julia, unless by stealth. Even
      then, these opportunities were secured by my artifice, without her
      privity. As dutiful as fond, she urged me against them; and, resolute to
      &ldquo;honor her father and mother&rdquo; in obedience to those holy laws without a
      compliance with which there is little hope and no happiness, she informed
      me with many tears that she was now forbidden to see me, and would
      therefore avoid every premeditated arrangement for our meeting. I did not
      do justice to her character, but reproached her with coldness&mdash;with a
      want of affection, sensibility, and feeling.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do not say so, Edward&mdash;do not&mdash;do not! I cold&mdash;I
      insensible&mdash;I wanting in affection for you! How, how can you think
      so?&rdquo; And she threw herself on my bosom and sobbed until I began to fancy
      that convulsions would follow.
    </p>
    <p>
      We separated, finally, with assurances of mutual fidelity&mdash;assurances
      which, I knew, from the exclusiveness of all my feelings, my concentrative
      singleness of character, and entire dependence upon the beloved object of
      those affections which were now the sole solace of my heart, would not be
      difficult for me to keep. But I doubted HER strength&mdash;HER resolution&mdash;against
      the pressing solicitations of parents whom she had never been accustomed
      to withstand. But she quieted me with that singular earnestness of look
      and manner which had once before impressed me previous to our mutual
      explanation. Like vulgar thinkers generally, I was apt to confound
      weakness of frame and delicacy of organization with a want of courage and
      moral resources of strength and consolation.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fear nothing for my truth, Edward. Though, in obedience to my parents, I
      shall not marry against their will, be sure I shall never marry against my
      own.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, Julia, you think so, but&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I know so, Edward. Believe nothing that you hear against me or of me,
      which is unfavorable to my fidelity, until you hear it from my own lips.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you will meet me again&mdash;soon?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no, do not ask it, Edward. We must not meet in this manner. It is not
      right. It is criminal.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I had soon another proof of the decisive manner in which my uncle seemed
      disposed to carry on the war between us. Erring, like the greater number
      of our young men, in their ambitious desire to enter public life
      prematurely, I was easily persuaded to become a candidate for the general
      assembly. I was now just twenty-five&mdash;at a time when young men are
      not yet released from the bias of early associations, and the unavoidable
      influence of guides, who are generally blind guides. Until thirty, there
      are few men who think independently; and, until this habit is acquired&mdash;which,
      in too many cases, never is acquired&mdash;the individual is sadly out of
      place in the halls of legislation. It is this premature disposition to
      enter into public life, which is the sole origin of the numberless
      mistakes and miserable inconsistencies into which our statesmen fall;
      which cling to their progress for ever after, preventing their
      performances, and baffling them in all their hopes to secure the
      confidence of the people. They are broken-down political hacks in the
      prime of life, and just at the time when they should be first entering
      upon the duties of the public man. Seduced, like the rest, as well by my
      own vanity as the suggestions of favoring friends, I permitted my name to
      be announced, and engaged actively in the canvass. Perhaps the feverish
      state of my mind, in consequence of my relations with Julia Clifford and
      her parents, made me more willing to adopt a measure, about which, at any
      other time, I should have been singularly slow and cautious. As a man of
      proud, reserved, and suspicious temper, I had little or no confidence in
      my own strength with the people; and defeat would be more mortifying than
      success grateful to a person of my pride. I fancied, however, that popular
      life would somewhat subdue the consuming passions which were rioting
      within my bosom; and I threw myself into the thick of the struggle with
      all the ardor of a sanguine temperament.
    </p>
    <p>
      To my surprise and increased vexation, I found my worthy uncle striving in
      every possible way, without actually declaring his purpose, in opposing my
      efforts and prospects. It is true he did not utter my name; but he had
      formed a complete ticket, in which my name was not; and he was toiling
      with all the industry of a thoroughgoing partisan in promoting its
      success. The cup which he had commended to my lips was overrunning with
      the gall of bitterness. Hostility to me seemed really to have been a sort
      of monomania with him from the first. How else was this canton procedure
      to be accounted for? how, even with this belief, could it be excused? His
      conduct was certainly one of those mysteries of idiosyncracy upon which
      the moral philosopher may speculate to doomsday without being a jot the
      wiser.
    </p>
    <p>
      If his desire was to baffle me, he was successful. I was defeated, after a
      close struggle, by a meagre majority of seven votes in some seventeen
      hundred; and the night after the election was declared, he gave a ball in
      honor of the successful candidates, in which his house was filled to
      overflowing. I passed the dwelling about midnight. Music rang from the
      illuminated parlor. The merry dance proceeded. All was life, gayety, and
      rich profusion. And Julia! even then she might have been whirling in the
      capricious movements of the dance with my happy rival&mdash;she as happy&mdash;unconscious
      of him who glided like some angry spectre beneath her windows, and almost
      within hearing of her thoughtless voice.
    </p>
    <p>
      Such were my gloomy thoughts&mdash;such the dark and dismal subjects of my
      lonely meditations. I did the poor girl wrong. That night she neither sung
      nor danced; and when I saw her again, I was shocked at the visible
      alteration for the worse which her appearance exhibited She was now grown
      thin, almost to meagreness; her cheeks were very wan, her lips whitened,
      and her beauty greatly faded in consequence of her suffering health.
    </p>
    <p>
      Yet, will it be believed that, in that interview, though such was her
      obvious condition, my perverse spirit found the language of complaint and
      suspicion more easy than that of devotion and tenderness. I know that it
      would be easy, and feel that it would be natural, to account for and to
      excuse this brutality, by a reference to those provocations which I had
      received from her father. A warm temper, ardent and glowing, it is very
      safe to imagine, must reasonably become soured and perverse by bad
      treatment and continual injury. But this for me was no excuse. Julia was a
      victim also of the same treatment, and in far greater degree than myself,
      as she was far less able to endure it. Mine, however, was the perverseness
      of impetuous blood&mdash;unrestrained, unchecked&mdash;having a fearful
      will, an impetuous energy, and, gradually, with success and power,
      swelling to the assertion of its own unqualified dominion&mdash;the
      despotism of the blind heart.
    </p>
    <p>
      Julia bore my reproaches until I was ashamed of them. Her submission stung
      me, and I loved then too ardently not to arrive in time at justice, and to
      make atonement. Would I had made it sooner! When I had finished all my
      reproaches and complainings, she answered all by telling me that the
      affair with young Roberts had been just closed, and she hoped finally, by
      her unqualified rejection of his suit, even though backed by all her
      father's solicitations, complaints, nay, threats and anger. How ungenerous
      and unmanly, after this statement had been made, appeared all the bitter
      eludings in which I had indulged! I need not say what efforts I made to
      atone for my precipitation and injustice; and how easily I found
      forgiveness from one who knew not how to harbor unkindness&mdash;and if
      she even had the feeling in her bosom, entertained it as one entertains
      his deadliest foe, and expelled it as soon as its real character was
      discovered.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VII. &mdash; TEMPTATION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Thus stood the affair between my fair cousin and myself&mdash;a condition
      of things seriously and equally affecting her health and my temper&mdash;when
      an explosion took place, of a nature calculated to humble my uncle and
      myself, if not in equal degree, or to the same attitude, at least to a
      most mortifying extent in both cases. I have not stated before&mdash;indeed,
      it was not until the affair which I am now about to relate had actually
      exploded, that I was made acquainted with any of the facts which produced
      it&mdash;that, prior to my father's death, there had been some large
      business connections between himself and my uncle. In those days secret
      connections in business, however dangerous they might be in social, and
      more than equivocal in moral respects, were considered among the
      legitimate practices of tradesmen. What was the particular sort of
      relations existing between my father and uncle, I am not now prepared to
      state, nor is it absolutely necessary to my narrative. It is enough for me
      to say that an exposure of them took place, in part, in consequence of
      some discovering made by my father's unsatisfied creditors, by which the
      obscure transactions of thirty years were brought to light, or required to
      be brought to light; and in the development of which, the fair business
      fame of my uncle was likely to be involved in a very serious degree&mdash;not
      to speak of the inevitable effects upon his resources of a discovery and
      proof of fraudulent concealment. The reputation of my father must have
      suffered seriously, had it not been generally known that he left nothing&mdash;a
      fact beyond dispute from the history of my own career, in which neither
      goods nor chattels, lands nor money, were suffered to enure to my
      advantage.
    </p>
    <p>
      The business was brought to me. The merchant who brought it, and who had
      been busy for some years in tracing out the testimony, so far as it could
      be procured, gave me to understand that he had determined to place it in
      my hands for two reasons: firstly, to enable me to release the memory of
      my father from the imputation&mdash;under any circumstances discreditable&mdash;of
      bankruptcy, by compelling my uncle to disgorge the sums which he had
      appropriated, and which, as was alleged, would satisfy all my father's
      creditors; and, secondly, to give me an opportunity of revenging my own
      wrongs upon one, of whose course of conduct toward me the populace had
      already seen enough, during the last election, to have a tolerably correct
      idea.
    </p>
    <p>
      I examined the papers, thanked my client for his friendly intentions, but
      declined taking charge of the case for two other reasons. My relations to
      the dead and to the living were either of them sufficient reasons for this
      determination. I communicated the grounds of action, in a respectful
      letter, to my uncle, and soon discovered, by the alarm which he displayed
      in consequence, that the cause of the complaint was in all probability
      good. The case belonged to the equity jurisdiction, and the relator soon
      filed his bill.
    </p>
    <p>
      My uncle's tribulation may be conjectured from the fact that he called
      upon me, and seemed anxious enough to bury the hatchet. He wished me to
      take part in the proceedings&mdash;insisted, somewhat earnestly, and
      strove very hard to impress me with the conviction that my father's memory
      demanded that I should devote myself to the task of meeting and
      confounding the creditor who thus, as it were, had set to work to rake up
      the ashes of the dead; but I answered all this very briefly and very
      dryly:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If my father has participated in this fraud, he has reaped none of its
      pleasant fruits. He lived poor, and died poor. The public know that; and
      it will be difficult to persuade them, with a due knowledge of these
      facts, that he deliberately perpetrated such unprofitable villany.
      Besides, sir, you do not seem to remember that, if the claim of Banks,
      Tressell, &amp; Sons, is good, it relieves my father's memory of the only
      imputation that now lies against it&mdash;that of being a bankrupt.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ay!&rdquo; he cried hoarsely, &ldquo;but it makes me one&mdash;me, your uncle.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And what reason, sir, have I to remember or to heed this relationship?&rdquo; I
      demanded sternly, with a glance beneath which he quailed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;True, true, Edward, your reproach is a just one. I have not been the
      friend I should have been; but&mdash;let us be friends, now, and hereafter&mdash;we
      must be friends. Mrs. Clifford is very anxious that it should be so&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;Edward,&rdquo;
       solemnly, &ldquo;you must help me out of this business. You must, by Heaven, you
      must&mdash;if you would not have me blow my brains out!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The man was giving true utterance to his misery&mdash;the fruit of those
      pregnant fears which filled his mind.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I would do for you, sir, whatever is proper for me to do, but can not
      meddle in this unless you are prepared to make restitution, which I should
      judge to be your best course.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How can you advise me to beggar my child? This claim, if recognised, will
      sweep everything. The interest alone is a fortune. I can not think of
      allowing it. I would rather die!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This is mere madness, Mr. Clifford; your death would not lessen the
      difficulty. Hear me, sir, and face the matter manfully. You must do
      justice. If what I understand be true, you have most unfortunately
      suffered yourself to be blinded to the dishonor of the act which you have
      committed; you have appropriated wealth which did not belong to you, and,
      in thus doing, you have subjected the memory of my father to the reproach
      of injustice which he did not deserve. I will not add the reproach which I
      might with justice add, that, in thus wronging the father's memory, and
      making it cover your own improper gains, you have suffered his son to want
      those necessaries of education and sustenance, which&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say no more, Edward, and it shall all be amended. Listen to me now; but
      stay&mdash;close that door for a moment&mdash;there!&mdash;Now, look you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And, having taken these precautionary steps, the infatuated man proceeded
      to admit the dishonest practices of which he had been guilty. His object
      in making the confession, however, was not that he might make reparation.
      Far from it. It was rather to save from the clutch of his creditors, from
      the grasp of justice, his ill-gotten possessions. I have no patience in
      revealing the schemes by which this was to be effected; but, as a
      preliminary, I was to be made the proprietor of one half of the sum in
      question, and the possessor of his daughter's hand; in return for which I
      was simply to share with him in the performance of certain secret acts,
      which, without rendering his virtue any more conspicuous, would have most
      effectually eradicated all of mine.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have listened to you, Mr. Clifford, and with great difficulty. I now
      distinctly decline your proposals. Not even the bribe, so precious in my
      sight, as that which you have tendered in the person of your daughter, has
      power to tempt me into hesitation. I will have nothing to do with you in
      this matter. Restore the property to your creditors.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, Edward, you have not heard;&mdash;your share alone will be twenty
      odd thousand dollars, without naming the interest!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Clifford, I am sorry for you. Doubly sorry that you persist in seeing
      this thing in an improper light. Even were I disposed to second your
      designs, it is scarcely possible, sir, that you could be extricated. The
      discovery of those papers, and the extreme probability that Hansford, the
      partner of the English firm of Davis, Pierce, &amp; Hansford, is
      surviving, and can be found, makes the probabilities strongly against you.
      My advice to you, is, that you make a merit of necessity;&mdash;that you
      endeavor to effect a compromise before the affair has gone too far. The
      creditors will make some concessions sooner than trust the uncertainties
      of a legal investigation, and whether you lose or gain, a legal
      investigation is what you should particularly desire to avoid. If you will
      adopt this counsel, I will act for you with Banks &amp; Tressel: and if
      you will give me carte blanche, I think I can persuade them to a private
      arrangement by which they will receive the principal in liquidation of all
      demands. This may be considered a very fair basis for an arrangement,
      since the results of the speculation could only accrue from the business
      capacities of the speculator, and did not belong to a fund which the
      proprietor had resolved not to appropriate, and which must therefore, have
      been entirely unproductive. I do not promise you that they will accept,
      but it is not improbable. They are men of business&mdash;they need, at
      this moment, particularly, an active capital; and have had too much
      knowledge of the doubts and delays attending a prolonged suit in equity,
      not to listen to a proposition which yields them the entire principal of
      their claim.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I need not repeat the arguments and entreaties by which I succeeded in
      persuading my uncle to accede to the only arrangement which could possibly
      have rescued him from the public exposure which was impending; but he did
      consent, and, armed with his credentials, I proceeded to the office of
      Banks &amp; Tressell, without loss of time.
    </p>
    <p>
      Though resolved, if I could effect the matter, that my uncle should
      liquidate their claim to the uttermost farthing which they required, it
      was my duty to make the best bargain which I could, in reference to his
      unfortunate family. Accordingly, without suffering them to know that I had
      carte blanche, I simply communicated to them my wish to have the matter
      arranged without public investigation&mdash;that I was persuaded from a
      hasty review which I had given to the case, that there were good grounds
      for action;&mdash;but, at the same time, I dwelt upon the casualties of
      such a course&mdash;the possibility that the chief living witness&mdash;if
      he were living&mdash;might not be found, or might not survive long enough&mdash;as
      he was reputed to be very old&mdash;for the purposes of examination before
      the commission;&mdash;the long delays which belonged to a litigated suit,
      in which the details of a mixed foreign and domestic business of so many
      years was to be raked up, reviewed and explained; and the further chances,
      in the event of final success, of the property of the debtor being so
      covered, concealed, or made away with, as to baffle at last all the
      industry and labors of the creditor.
    </p>
    <p>
      The merchants were men of good sense, and estimated the proverb&mdash;&ldquo;a
      bird in hand is worth two in the bush&rdquo;&mdash;at its true value. It did not
      require much argument to persuade them to receive a sum of over forty
      thousand dollars, and give a full discharge to the defendant; and I
      flattered myself that the matter was all satisfactorily arranged, and had
      just taken a seat at my table to write to Mr. Clifford to this effect,
      when, to my horror, I receive a note from that gentleman, informing me of
      his resolve to join issue with the claimants, and &ldquo;maintain his RIGHTS(?)
      to the last moment.&rdquo; He thanked me, in very cold consequential style, for
      my &ldquo;FRIENDLY efforts&rdquo;&mdash;the words italicised, as I have now written
      it;&mdash;but conduced with informing me that he had taken the opinion of
      older counsel, which, though it might be less correct than mine, was,
      perhaps, more full of promise for his interests.
    </p>
    <p>
      This note justified me in calling upon the unfortunate gentleman. It is
      true I had not committed him to Banks &amp; Tressell&mdash;the suggestions
      which I had made for the arrangement were all proposed as a something
      which I might be able to bring about in a future conference with him&mdash;but
      I was too anxious to save him from his lamentable folly&mdash;from that
      miserable love of money, which, overreaching itself in its blindness, as
      does every passion&mdash;was not only about to deliver him to shame but to
      destitution also.
    </p>
    <p>
      I found him in Mrs. Clifford's presence. That simple and silly woman had
      evidently been made privy to the whole transaction, so far as my arguments
      had been connected with it;&mdash;for ALL the truth is not often to be got
      out of the man who means or has perpetrated a dishonesty. She had been
      alarmed at the immense loss of money, and consequently of importance, with
      which the family was threatened; and without looking into, or being able
      to comprehend the facts as they stood, she had taken around against any
      measure which should involve such a sacrifice. Her influence over the weak
      man beside her, was never so clear to me as now; and in learning to
      despise his character more than ever, I discovered, at the same time, the
      true source of many of his errors and much of his misconduct. She did not
      often suffer him to reply for himself&mdash;yielded me the ultimatum from
      her own lips; and condescended to assure me that she could only ascribe
      the advice which I had given to her husband, to the hostile disposition
      which I had always entertained for herself and family. That I was &ldquo;a wolf
      in sheep's clothing, SHE had long since been able to see, though all
      others unhappily seemed blind.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Here she scowled at her husband, who contented himself with walking to and
      fro, playing with his coatskirts, and feeling, no doubt, a portion of the
      shame which his miserable bondage to this silly woman necessarily
      incurred.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Clifford has got a lawyer who can do for him what it seems you can
      not,&rdquo; was her additional observation. &ldquo;He promises to get him to dry land,
      and save him without so much as wetting his shoes, though his own blood
      relations, who are thought so smart, can not, it appears, do anything.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Of course I could have nothing to say to the worthy lady, but my
      expostulations were freely urged to Mr. Clifford.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You, at least,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;should know the risks which you incur by this
      obstinacy. Mrs. Clifford can not be expected to know; and I now warn you,
      sir, that the case of Banks &amp; Tressell is a very strong one, very well
      arranged, and so admirably hung together, in its several links of
      testimony, that even the absence of old Hansford (the chief witness),
      should his answers never be obtained, would scarcely impair the integrity
      of the evidence. In a purely moral point of view, nothing can be more
      complete than it is now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, and who would it convict, Mr. Edward Clifford?&rdquo; exclaimed the
      inveterate lady, anticipating her husband's answer with accustomed
      interference; &ldquo;who would it convict, if not your own father? It was as
      much his business as my husband's; and if there's any shame, I'm sure his
      memory and his son will have to bear their share of it; and this makes it
      so much more wonderful to me that you should take sides against Mr.
      Clifford, instead of standing up in his defence.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I would save him, madam, if you and he would let me,&rdquo; I exclaimed with
      some indignation. &ldquo;Your reference to my father's share in this transaction
      does not affect me, as it is very evident that you are not altogether
      acquainted with the true part which he had in it. He had all the risk, all
      the loss, all the blame&mdash;and your husband all the profit, all the
      importance. He lived poor, and died so; without a knowledge of those
      profitable results to his brother of which the latter has made his own
      avails by leaving my father's memory to aspersion which he did not
      deserve, and his son to destitution and reproach which he merited as
      little. My father's memory is liable to no reproach when every creditor
      knows that he died in a state of poverty, in which his only son has ever
      lived. Neither he nor I ever shared any of the pleasant fruits, for which
      we are yet to be made accountable.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And whose fault was it that you didn't get your share I'm sure Mr.
      Clifford made you as handsome an offer yesterday as any man could desire.
      Didn't he offer you half? But I suppose nothing short of the whole would
      satisfy so ambitious a person.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Neither the half nor the whole will serve me, madam, in such a business.
      My respect for your husband and his family would, of itself, have been
      sufficient to prevent my acceptance of his offer.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But there was Julia, too, Edward!&rdquo; said Mr. Clifford, approaching me with
      a most insinuating smile.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is not yet too late,&rdquo; said Mrs. Clifford, unbending a little. &ldquo;Take
      the offer of Mr. Clifford, Edward, and be one of us; and then this ugly
      business&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, my dear Edward, even now, though I have spoken with young Perkins
      about the affair, and he tells me there's nothing so much to be afraid of,
      yet, for the look of the thing, I'd rather that you should be seen acting
      in the business. As it's so well known that your father had nothing, and
      you nothing, it'll then be easy for the people to believe that nothing was
      the gain of any of us; and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Young Perkins may think and say what he pleases, and you are yourself
      capable of judging how much respect you may pay to his opinion. Mine,
      however, remains unchanged. You will have to pay this money&mdash;nay,
      this necessity will not come alone. The development of all the particulars
      connected with the transaction will disgrace you for ever, and drive you
      from the community. Even were I to take part with you, I do not see that
      it would change the aspect of affairs. So far from your sharing with me
      the reputation of being profitless in the affair, the public would more
      naturally suspect that I had shared with you&mdash;now, if not before&mdash;and
      the whole amount involved would not seduce me to incur this imputation.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But my daughter&mdash;Julia&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do not speak of her in this connection, I implore you, Mr. Clifford. Let
      her name remain pure, uncontaminated by any considerations, whether of
      mere gain or of the fraud which the gain is supposed to involve. Freely
      would I give the sum in question, were it mine, and all the wealth besides
      that I ever expect to acquire, to make Julia Clifford my wife;&mdash;but I
      can not suffer myself, in such a case as this, to accept her as a bribe,
      and to sanction crime. Nay, I am sure that she too would be the first to
      object.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And so you really refuse? Well, the world's coming to a pretty pass. But
      I told Mr. Clifford, months ago, that you had quite forgot yourself, ever
      since you had grown so great with the Edgertons, and the Blakes, and
      Fortescues, and all them high-headed people. But I'm sure, Mr. Edward
      Clifford, my daughter needn't go a-begging to any man; and as for this
      business, whatever you may say against young Perkins, I'll take his
      opinion of the law against that of any other young lawyer in the country.
      He's as good as the best, I'm thinking.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Your opinion is your own, Mrs. Clifford, but I beg to set you right on
      the subject of mine. I did not say anything against Mr. Perkins.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, I beg your pardon; I'm sure you did. You said he was nothing of a
      lawyer, and something more.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Was there ever a more perverse and evil and silly woman! I contented
      myself with assuring her that she was mistaken and had very much
      misunderstood me&mdash;took pains to repeat what I had really said, and
      then cut short an interview that had been painful and humbling to me on
      many grounds. I left the happy pair tête-à-tête, in their princely parlor
      together, little fancying that there was another argument which had been
      prepared to overthrow my feeble virtue. But all this had been arranged by
      the small cunning of this really witless couple. I was left to find my way
      down stairs as I might; and just when I was about to leave the dwelling&mdash;vexed
      to the heart at the desperate stolidity of the miserable man, whom avarice
      and weakness were about to expose to a loss which might be averted in
      part, and an exposure to infamy which might wholly be avoided&mdash;I was
      encountered by the attenuated form and wan countenance of his suffering
      but still lovely daughter.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VIII. &mdash; LOVE FINDS NO SMOOTH WATER IN THE SEA OF LAW
    </h2>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Julia!&rdquo; I exclaimed, with a start which betrayed, I am sure, quite as
      much surprise as pleasure. My mood was singularly inflexible. My character
      was not easily shaken, and, once wrought upon by any leading influence, my
      mind preserved the tone which it acquired beneath it, long after the cause
      of provocation had been withdrawn. This earnestness of character&mdash;amounting
      to intensity&mdash;gave me an habitual sternness of look and expression,
      and I found it hard to acquire, of a sudden, that command of muscle which
      would permit me to mould the stubborn lineaments, at pleasure, to suit the
      moment. Not even where my heart was most deeply interested&mdash;thus
      aroused&mdash;could I look the feelings of the lover, which, nevertheless,
      were most truly the predominant ones within my bosom.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Julia,&rdquo; I exclaimed, &ldquo;I did not think to see you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, Edward, did you wish it?&rdquo; she replied in very mournful accents,
      gently reproachful, as she suffered me to take her hand in mine, and lead
      her back to the parlor in the basement story. I seated her upon the sofa,
      and took a place at her side.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why should I not wish to see you, Julia? What should lead you to fancy
      now that I could wish otherwise?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Alas!&rdquo; she replied, &ldquo;I know not what to think&mdash;I scarcely know what
      I say. I am very miserable. What is this they tell me? Can it be true,
      Edward, that you are acting against my father&mdash;that you are trying to
      bring him to shame and poverty?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I released her hand. I fixed my eyes keenly upon hers.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Julia, you have your instructions what to say. You are sent here for
      this. They have set you in waiting to meet me here, and speak things which
      you do not understand, and assert things which I know you can not
      believe.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Edward, I believe YOU!&rdquo; she exclaimed with emphasis, but with downcast
      eyes; &ldquo;but it does not matter whether I was sent here, or sought you of my
      own free will. They tell me other things&mdash;there is more&mdash;but I
      have not the heart to say it, and it needs not much.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If you believe me, Julia, it certainly does not need that you should
      repeat to me what is said of me by enemies, equally unjust to me, and
      hostile to themselves. Yet I can readily conjecture some things which they
      have told you. Did they not tell you that your hand had been proffered me,
      and that I had refused it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She hung her head in silence.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You do not answer.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Spare me; ask me not.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nay, tell me, Julia, that I may see how far you hold me worthy of your
      love, your confidence. Speak to me&mdash;have they not told you some such
      story?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Something of this; but I did not heed it, Edward.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Julia&mdash;nay!&mdash;did you not?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And if I did, Edward&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It surely was not to believe it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! no! no! I had no fears of you&mdash;have none, dear Edward! I knew
      that it was not, could not be true.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Julia, it was true!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;True, indeed! There was more truth in THAT than in any other part of the
      story. Nay, more&mdash;had they told you all the truth, dearest Julia,
      that part, strange as it may appear, would have given you less pain than
      pleasure.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How! Can it be so?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Your hand was proffered me by your father, and I refused it. Nay, look
      not from me, dearest&mdash;fear not for my affection&mdash;fear nothing. I
      should have no fear that you could suppose me false to you, though the
      whole world should come and tell you so. True love is always secured by a
      just confidence in the beloved object; and, without this confidence, the
      whole life is a series of long doubts, struggles, griefs, and
      apprehensions, which break down the strength, and lay the spirit in the
      dust. I will now tell you, in few words, what is the relation in which I
      stand to your father and his family. He, many years ago, committed an
      error in business, which the laws distinguish by a harsher name. By this
      error he became rich. Until recently, the proofs of this error were
      unknown. They have lately been discovered by certain claimants, who are
      demanding reparation. In the difficulty of your father, he came to me. I
      examined the business, and have given it as my opinion that he should
      stifle the legal process by endeavoring to make a private arrangement with
      the creditors.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Could he do this?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He could. The creditors were willing, and at first he consented that I
      should arrange it with them. He now rejects the arrangement.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But why?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Because it involves the surrender of the entire amount of property which
      they claim&mdash;a sum of forty thousand dollars.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, dear Edward, is it due?&mdash;does my father owe this money? If he
      does, surely he can not refuse. Perhaps he thinks that he owes nothing.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nay, Julia, unhappily he knows it, and the offer of your hand, and half
      of the sum mentioned, was made to me, on the express condition that I
      should exert my influence as a man, and my ingenuity as a lawyer, in
      baffling the creditors and stifling the claim.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The poor girl was silent and hung her head, her eyes fixed upon the
      carpet, and the big tears slowly gathering, dropping from them, one, by
      one. Meanwhile, I explained, as tenderly as I could, the evil consequences
      which threatened Mr. Clifford in consequence of his contumacy.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Alas&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;it is not his fault. He would be willing&mdash;I
      heard him say as much last night&mdash;but mother&mdash;she will not
      consent. She refused positively the moment father said it would be
      necessary to sell out, and move to a cheaper house. Oh, Edward, is there
      no way that you can save us? Save my father from shame, though he gives up
      all the money.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Would I not do this, Julia? Nay, were I owner of the necessary amount
      myself, believe me, it should not be withheld.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I do believe you, Edward; but&rdquo;&mdash;and here her voice sunk to a whisper&mdash;&ldquo;you
      must try again, try again and again&mdash;for I think that father knows
      the danger, though mother does not; and I think&mdash;I hope&mdash;he will
      be firm enough, when you press him, and warn him of the danger, to do as
      you wish him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am afraid not, Julia. Your mother&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do not fear; hope&mdash;hope all, dear Edward; for, to confess to you, I
      KNOW that they are anxious to have your support&mdash;they said as much.
      Nay, why should I hide anything from you? They sent me here to see&mdash;to
      speak with you, and&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;To see what your charms could do to persuade me to be a villain. Julia!
      Julia! did you think to do this&mdash;to have me be the thing which they
      would make me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! no!&mdash;Heaven forbid, dear Edward, that you should fancy that any
      such desire had a place, even for a moment, in my mind. No! I knew not
      that the case involved any but mere money considerations. I knew not that&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Enough! Say no more, Julia! I do not think that you would counsel me to
      my own shame.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! no! You do me only justice. But, Edward, you will save my father! You
      will try&mdash;you will see him again&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What! to suffer again the open scorn, the declared doubts of my
      friendship and integrity, which is the constant language of your mother?
      Can it be that you would desire that I should do this&mdash;nay, seek it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;For my poor father's sake!&rdquo; she cried, gaspingly.
    </p>
    <p>
      But I shook my head sternly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;For mine, then&mdash;for mine! for mine!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She threw herself into my arms, and clung to me until I promised all that
      she required. And as I promised her, so I strove with her father. I used
      every argument, resorted to every mode of persuasion, but all was of no
      avail. Mr. Clifford was under the rigid, the iron government of his fate!
      His wife was one of those miserably silly women&mdash;born, according to
      Iago&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     &ldquo;To suckle fools and chronicle small beer&rdquo;&mdash;
</pre>
    <p>
      who, raised to the sudden control of unexpected wealth, becomes insane
      upon it, and is blind, deaf, and dumb, to all counsel or reason which
      suggests the possibility of its loss. From the very moment when Mr.
      Clifford spoke of selling out house, horses, and carriage, as the
      inevitable result which must follow his adoption of my recommendation, she
      declared herself against it at all hazards, particularly when her husband
      assured her that &ldquo;the glorious uncertainties of the law&rdquo; afforded a
      possibility of his escape with less loss. The loss of money was, with her,
      the item of most consideration; her mind was totally insensible to that of
      reputation. She was willing to make this compromise with me, as a sort of
      alternative, for, in that case, there would be no diminution of attendance
      and expense&mdash;no loss of rank and equipage. We should all live
      together&mdash;how harmoniously, one may imagine&mdash;but the grandeur
      and the state would still be intact and unimpaired. Even for this,
      however, she was not prepared, when she discovered that there was no
      certainty that my alliance would bring immunity to her husband. How this
      notion got even partially into his head, I know not; unless in consequence
      of a growing imbecility of intellect, which in a short time after betrayed
      itself more strikingly. But of this in its own place.
    </p>
    <p>
      My attempts to convince my unfortunate uncle were all rendered unavailing,
      and shown to be so to Julia herself in a very short time afterward. The
      insolence of Mrs. Clifford, when I did seek an interview with her husband,
      was so offensive and unqualified, that Julia herself, with a degree of
      indignation which she could not entirely suppress, begged me to quit the
      house, and relieve myself from such undeserved insult and abuse. I did so,
      but with no unfriendly wishes for the wretched woman who presided over its
      destinies, and the no less wretched husband whom she helped to make so;
      and my place as consulting friend and counsellor was soon supplied by Mr.
      Perkins&mdash;one of those young barristers, to be found in every
      community, who regard the &ldquo;penny fee&rdquo; as the sine qua non, and obey
      implicitly the injunction of the scoundrel in the play &ldquo;Make money&mdash;honestly
      if you can, but&mdash;make money!&rdquo; He was one of those creatures who set
      people at loggerheads, goad foolish and petulant clients into lawsuits,
      stir up commotions in little sets, and invariably comfort the suit-bringer
      with the most satisfactory assurances of success. It was the confident
      assurances of this person which had determined Mr. Clifford&mdash;his wife
      rather&mdash;to resist to the last the suit in question. Through the sheer
      force of impudence, this man had obtained a tolerable share of practice.
      His clients, as may be supposed, lay chiefly among such persons as, having
      no power or standard for judging, necessarily look upon him who is most
      bold and pushing as the most able and trustworthy. The bullies of the law&mdash;and,
      unhappily, the profession has quite too many&mdash;are very commanding
      persons among the multitude. Mr. Clifford knew this fellow's mental
      reputation very well, and was not deceived by the confidence of his
      assurances; nay, to the last, he showed a hankering desire to give me the
      entire control of the subject; but the hostility of Mrs. Clifford
      overruled his more prudent if not more honorable purposes; and, as he was
      compelled to seek a lawyer, the questionable moral standing of Perkins
      decided his choice. He wished one, in short, to do a certain piece of
      dirty work: and, as if in anticipation of the future, he dreaded to unfold
      the case to any of the veterans, the old-time gentlemen and worthies of
      the bar. I proposed this to him. I offered to make a supposititious
      relation of the facts for the opinion of Mr. Edgerton and others&mdash;nay,
      pledged myself to procure a confidential consultation&mdash;anything,
      sooner than that he should resort to a mode of extrication which, I
      assured him, would only the more deeply involve him in the meshes of
      disgrace and loss. But there was a fatality about this gentleman&mdash;a
      doom that would not be baffled, and could not be stayed. The wilful mind
      always precipitates itself down the abyss; and, whether acting by his own,
      or under the influence of another's judgment, such was, most certainly,
      the case with him. He was not to be saved. Mr. Perkins was regularly
      installed as his defender&mdash;his counsellor, private and public&mdash;and
      I was compelled, though with humiliating reluctance, to admit to the
      plaintiffs, Banks &amp; Tressell, that there was no longer any hope of
      compromise. The issue on which hung equally his fortune and his reputation
      was insanely challenged by my uncle.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER IX. &mdash; DUELLO.
    </h2>
    <p>
      But my share in the troubles of this affair was not to end, though I was
      no longer my uncle's counsellor. An event now took place which gave the
      proceedings a new and not less unpleasing aspect than they had worn
      before. Mrs. Clifford, it appears, in her communications to her husband's
      lawyer, did not confine herself to the mere business of the lawsuit. Her
      voluminous discourse involved her opinions of her neighbors, friends, and
      relatives; and, one day, a few weeks after, I was suddenly surprised by a
      visit from a gentleman&mdash;one of the members of the bar&mdash;who
      placed a letter in my hands from Mr. Perkins. I read this billet with no
      small astonishment. It briefly stated that certain reports had reached his
      ears, that I had expressed myself contemptuously of his abilities and
      character, and concluded with an explicit demand, not for an explanation,
      but an apology. My answer was immediate.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You will do me the favor to say, Mr. Carter, that Mr. Perkins has been
      misinformed. I never uttered anything in my life which could disparage
      either his moral or legal reputation.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am sorry to say, Mr. Clifford,&rdquo; was the reply, &ldquo;that denial is
      unnecessary, and can not be received. Mr. Perkins has his information from
      the lips of a lady; and, as a lady is not responsible, she can not be
      allowed to err. I am required, sir to insist on an apology. I have already
      framed it, and it only needs your signature.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He drew a short, folded letter, from his pocket, and placed it before me.
      There was so much cool impertinence in this proceeding, and in the
      fellow's manner, that I could with difficulty refrain from flinging the
      paper in his face. He was one of the little and vulgar clique of which
      Perkins was a sort of centre. The whole set were conscious enough of the
      low estimate which was put upon them by the gentlemen of the bar. Denied
      caste, they were disposed to force their way to recognition by the bully's
      process, and stung by some recent discouragements, Mr. Perkins was,
      perhaps, rather glad than otherwise, of the silly, and no less malicious
      than silly, tattle of Mrs. Clifford for I did not doubt that the gross
      perversion of the truth which formed the basis of his note, had originated
      with her, which enabled him to single out a victim, who, as the times
      went, had suddenly risen to a comparative elevation which is not often
      accorded to a young beginner. I readily conjectured his object from his
      character and that of the man he sent. My own nature was passionate; and
      the rude school through which my boyhood had gone, had made me as
      tenacious of my position as the grave. That I should be chafed by reptiles
      such as these, stung me to vexation; and though I kept from any violence
      of action, my words did not lack of it.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Perkins is, permit me to say, a very impertinent fellow; and, if you
      please, our conference will cease from this moment.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He was a little astounded&mdash;rose, and then recovering himself,
      proceeded to reply with the air of a veteran martinet.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am glad, sir, that you give me an opportunity of proceeding with this
      business without delay. My friend, Mr. Perkins, prepared me for some such
      answer. Oblige me, sir, by reading this paper.&rdquo; He handed me the challenge
      for which his preliminaries had prepared me.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Accepted, sir; I will send my friend to you in the course of the
      morning.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      As I uttered this reply, I bowed and waved him to the door. He did not
      answer, other than by a bow, and took his departure. The promptness which
      I had shown impressed him with respect. Baffled, in his first spring, the
      bully, like the tiger, is very apt to slink back to his jungle. His
      departure gave me a brief opportunity for reflection, in which I slightly
      turned over in my mind the arguments for and against duelling. But these
      were now too late&mdash;even were they to decide me against the practice&mdash;to
      affect the present transaction; and I sallied out to seek a friend&mdash;a
      friend!
    </p>
    <p>
      Here was the first difficulty. I had precious little choice among friends.
      My temper was not one calculated to make or keep friends. My earnestness
      of character, and intensity of mood, made me dictatorial; and where
      self-esteem is a large and active development, as it must be in an old
      aristocratic community, such qualities are continually provoking popular
      hostility. My friends, too, were not of the kind to whom such scrapes as
      the present were congenial. I was unwilling to go to young Edgerton, as I
      did not wish to annoy his parents by my novel anxieties. But where else
      could I turn? To him I went. When he heard my story, he began by
      endeavoring to dissuade me from the meeting.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am pledged to it, William,&rdquo; was my only answer.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, Edward, I am opposed to duelling myself, and should not promote or
      encourage, in another, a practice which I would not be willing myself to
      adopt.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A good and sufficient reason, William. You certainly should not. I will
      go to Frank Kingsley.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He will serve you, I know; but, Edward, this duelling is a bad business.
      It does no sort of good. Kill Perkins, and it does not prove to him, even
      if he were then able to hear, that Mrs. Clifford spoke a falsehood; and if
      he kills you, you are even still farther from convincing him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have no such desire, William; and your argument, by the way, is one of
      those beggings of the question which the opponents of duelling continually
      fall into when discussing the subject. The object of the man, who, in a
      case like mine, fights a duel, is not to prove his truth, but to protect
      himself from persecution. Perkins seeks to bully and drive me out of the
      community. Public opinion here approves of this mode of protecting one's
      self;&mdash;may, if I do not avail myself of its agency, the same public
      opinion would assist my assailant in my expulsion. I fight on the same
      ground that a nation fights when it goes to war. It is the most obvious
      and easy mode to protect myself from injury and insult. So long as I
      submit, Perkins will insult and bully, and the city will encourage him, If
      I resist, I silence this fellow, and perhaps protect other young
      beginners. I have not the most distant idea of convincing him of my truth
      by fighting him&mdash;may, the idea of giving him satisfaction is an idea
      that never entered my brain. I simply take a popular mode of securing
      myself from outrage and persecution.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, do you secure yourself? Has duelling this result?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not invariably, perhaps; simply because the condition of humanity does
      not recognise invariable results. If it is shown to be the probable, the
      frequent result, it is all that can be expected of any human agency or
      law.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, is it probable&mdash;frequent?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, almost certain, almost invariable. Look at the general manners, the
      deportment, the forbearance, of all communities where duelling is
      recognised as an agent of society. See the superior deference paid to
      females, the unfrequency of bullying, the absence of blackguarding, the
      higher tone of this public press, and of society in general, from which
      the public press takes its tone, and which it represents in our country,
      but does not often inform. Even seduction is a rare offence, and a matter
      of general exclamation, where this extra-judicial agent is recognised.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And so forth. It is not necessary to repeat our discussion on this vexed
      question, of its uses and abuses. I did not succeed in convincing him,
      and, under existing circumstances, it is not reasonable to imagine that
      his arguments had any influent over me. To Frank Kingsley I went, and
      found him in better mood to take up the cudgels, and even make my cause
      his own. He was one of those ardent bloods, who liked nothing better than
      the excitement of such an affair; whether as principal or assistant, it
      mattered little. To him I expressed my wish that his arrangements should
      bring the matter to an issue, if possible, within the next twenty-four
      hours.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Prime!&rdquo; he exclaimed, rubbing his hands. &ldquo;That's what I like. If you
      shoot as quickly now, and as much to the point, you may count any button
      on Perkins's coat.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He proceeded to confer with the friend of my opponent, while, with a
      meditative mind, I went to my office, necessarily oppressed with the
      strange feelings belonging to my situation. In less than two hours after
      Kingsley brought me the carte, by which I found that the meeting was to
      take place two miles out of town, by sunrise the day after the one ensuing&mdash;the
      weapons, pistols&mdash;distance, as customary, ten paces!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are a shot, of course?&rdquo; said Kingsley.
    </p>
    <p>
      My answer, in the negative, astonished him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, you will have little or no time for practice.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I do not intend it. My object is not to kill this man; but to make him
      and all others see that the dread of what may be done, either by him or
      them, will never reconcile me to submit to injury or insult. I shall as
      effectually secure this object by going out, as I do, without preparation,
      as if I were the best shot in America. He does not know that I am not; and
      a pistol is always a source of danger when in the grasp of a determined
      man.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are a queer fellow in your notions, Clifford, and I can not say that
      I altogether understand you; but you must certainly ride out with me this
      afternoon, and bark a tree. It will do no hurt to a determined man to be a
      skilful one also.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I see no use in it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why&mdash;what if you should wish to wing him?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I think I can do it without practice. But I have no such desire.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Really you are unnecessarily magnanimous. You may be put to it, however.
      Should the first shot be ineffectual and he should demand a second, would
      you throw away that also?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! I should then try to shoot him. As my simple aim is to secure myself
      from persecution, which is usually the most effectual mode of destroying a
      young man in this country, I should resort only to such a course as would
      be likely to yield me this security. That failing, I should employ
      stronger measures; precisely as a nation would do in a similar conflict
      with another nation. One must not suffer himself to be destroyed or driven
      into exile. This is the first law of nature&mdash;this of
      self-preservation. In maintaining this law, a man must do any or all
      things which in his deliberate judgment, will be effectual for the end
      proposed. Were I fighting with savages, for example, and knew that they
      regarded their scalps with more reverence than their lives, I should
      certainly scalp as well as slay.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They would call that barbarous?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ay, no doubt; particularly in those countries where they paid from five
      to fifty, and even one hundred pounds to one Indian for the scalp of his
      brother, until they rid themselves of both. But see you not that the
      scalping process, as it produces the most terror and annoyance, is
      decidedly the most merciful, as being most likely to discourage and deter
      from war. If the scalp could bo taken from the head of every Seminole shot
      down, be sure the survivors never after would have come within range of
      rifle-shot.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But these discussions gave way to the business before me. Kingsley left me
      to myself, and though sad and serious with oppressive thoughts, I still
      had enough of the old habits, dominant with me, to go to my daily
      concerns, and arrange my papers with considerable industry and customary
      method. My professional business was set in order, and Edgerton duly
      initiated in the knowledge of all such portions as needed explanation.
      This done, I sat down and wrote a long farewell letter to Julia, and one,
      more brief, but renewing the counsel I had previously given to her father,
      in respect to the suit against him. These letters were so disposed as to
      be sent in the event of my falling in the fight. The interval which
      followed was not so easy to be borne. Conscience and reflection were
      equally busy, and unpleasantly so. I longed for the time of action which
      should silence these unpleasant monitors.
    </p>
    <p>
      The brief space of twenty-four hours was soon overpassed, and my anxieties
      ceased as the moment for the meeting with my enemy, drew nigh. My friend
      called at my lodgings a good hour before daylight&mdash;it was a point of
      credit with him that we should not delay the opposite party the sixtieth
      part of a second. We drove out into the country in a close carriage,
      taking a surgeon&mdash;who was a friend of Kingsley&mdash;along with us.
      We were on the ground in due season, and some little time before our
      customers. But they did not fail or delay us. They were there with
      sufficient promptitude.
    </p>
    <p>
      Perkins was a man of coolness and courage. He took his position with
      admirable nonchalance; but I observed, when his eyes met mine, that they
      were darkened with a scowl of anger. His brows were contracted, and his
      face which was ordinarily red, had an increased flush upon it which
      betrayed unusual excitement. He evidently regarded me with feelings of
      bitter animosity. Perhaps this was natural enough, if he believed the
      story of Mrs. Clifford&mdash;and my scornful answer to his friend, Mr.
      Carter, was not calculated to lessen the soreness. For my part, I am free
      to declare, I had not the smallest sentiment of unkindness toward the
      fellow. I thought little of him, but did not hate&mdash;I could not have
      hated him. I had no wish to do him hurt; and, as already stated, only went
      out to put a stop to the further annoyances of insolents and bullies, by
      the only effectual mode&mdash;precisely as I should have used a bludgeon
      over his head, in the event of a personal assault upon me. Of course, I
      had no purpose to do him any injury, unless&mdash;with the view to my own
      safety. I resolved secretly to throw away my fire. Kingsley suspected me
      of some such intention, and earnestly protested against it.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I should not place you at all,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if I fancied you could do a
      thing so d&mdash;-d foolish. The fellow intends to shoot you if he can.
      Help him to a share of the same sauce.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I nodded as he proceeded to his arrangements. Here some conference ensued
      between the seconds:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Carter was very sorry that such a business must proceed. Was it yet
      too late to rectify mistakes? Might not the matter be adjusted?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Kingsley, on such occasions, the very prince of punctilio, agreed that the
      matter was a very lamentable one&mdash;to be regretted, and so forth&mdash;but
      of the necessity of the thing, he, Mr. Carter, for his principal, must be
      the only judge.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Carter could answer for his friend, Mr. Perkins, that he was always
      accessible to reason.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Kingsley never knew a man more so than HIS principal.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;May we not reconcile the parties?&rdquo; demanded Mr. Carter.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Does Mr. Perkins withdraw his message?&rdquo; answered Kingsley by another
      question.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He would do so, readily, were there any prospect of adjusting the matter
      upon an honorable footing.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Carter will be pleased to name the basis for what he esteems an
      honorable adjustment.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Perkins withdraws his challenge.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We have no objection to that.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He substitutes a courteous requisition upon Mr. Clifford for an
      explanation of certain language, supposed to be offensive, made to a
      lady.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Clifford denies, without qualification, the employment of any such
      language.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This throws us back on our old ground,&rdquo; said Carter&mdash;&ldquo;there is a
      lady in question&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Who can not certainly be brought into the controversy,&rdquo; said Kingsley&mdash;&ldquo;I
      see no other remedy, Mr. Carter, but that we should place the parties. We
      are here to answer to your final summons.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Very good, sir; this matter, and what happens, must lie at your door. You
      are peremptory. I trust you have provided a surgeon.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;His services are at your need, sir,&rdquo; replied Kingsley with military
      courtesy.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I thank you, sir&mdash;my remark had reference to your own necessity.
      Shall we toss up for the word?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      These preliminaries were soon adjusted. The word fell to Carter, and thus
      gave an advantage to Perkins, as his ear was more familiar than mine with
      the accents of his friend. We were placed, and the pistol put into my
      hands, without my uttering a sentence.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Coolly now, my dear fellow,&rdquo; said Kingsley in a whisper, as he withdrew
      from my side;&mdash;&ldquo;wing him at least&mdash;but don't burn powder for
      nothing.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Scarcely the lapse of a moment followed, when I heard the words &ldquo;one,&rdquo;
       &ldquo;two,&rdquo; &ldquo;three,&rdquo; in tolerably rapid succession, and, at the utterance of
      the last, I pulled trigger. My antagonist had done so at the first. His
      eye was fixed upon mine with deliberate malignity&mdash;THAT I clearly saw&mdash;but
      it did not affect my shot. This, I purposely threw away. The skill of my
      enemy did not correspondend (sic) with his evident desires. I was hurt,
      but very slightly. His bullet merely raised the skin upon the fleshy part
      of my right thigh. We kept our places while a conference ensued between
      the two seconds. Mr. Perkins, through his friend, declared himself
      unsatisfied unless I apologized, or&mdash;in less unpleasant language&mdash;explained.
      This demand was answered by Kingsley with cavalier indifference He came to
      me with a second pistol. His good-humored visage was now slightly ruffled.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Clifford!&rdquo; said he, as he put the weapon into my hand, &ldquo;you must trifle
      no longer. This fellow abuses your generosity. He knows, as well as I,
      that you threw away your fire; and he will play the same game with you, on
      the same terms, for a month together, Sundays not excepted. I am not
      willing to stand by and see you risk your life in this manner; and, unless
      you tell me that you will give him as good as he sends, I leave you on the
      spot. Will you take aim this time?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I will!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You promise me then?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I do!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I was conscious of the increased activity of my organ of destructiveness
      as I said these words. I smiled with a feeling of pleasant bitterness&mdash;that
      spicy sort of malice which you may sometimes rouse in the bosom of the
      best-natured man in the world, by an attempt to do him injustice. The
      wound I had received, though very trifling, had no little to do with this
      determination. It was not unlike such a wound as would be made by a smart
      stroke of a whip, and the effect upon my blood was pretty much as if it
      had been inflicted by some such instrument. I was stung and irritated by
      it, and the pertinacity of my enemy, particularly as he must have seen
      that my shot was thrown away, decided me to punish him if I could. I did
      so! I was not conscious that I was hurt myself, until I saw him falling!&mdash;I
      then felt a heavy and numbing sensation in the same thigh which had been
      touched before. A faintness relieved me from present sensibility, and when
      I became conscious, I found myself in the carriage, supported by Kingsley
      and the surgeon, on my way to my lodgings. My wound was a flesh wound
      only; the ball was soon extracted, and in a few weeks after, I was enabled
      to move about with scarcely a feeling of inconvenience. My opponent
      suffered a much heavier penalty. The bone of his leg was fractured, and it
      was several months before he was considered perfectly safe. The lesson he
      got made him a sorer and shorter&mdash;a wiser, if not a better man; but
      as I do not now, and did not then, charge myself with the task of bringing
      about his moral improvement, it is not incumbent upon me to say anything
      further on this subject. We will leave him to get better as he may.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER X. &mdash; HEAD WINDS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The hurts of Perkins did not, unhappily, delay the progress of my uncle to
      that destruction to which his silly wife and knavish lawyer had destined
      him. His business was brought before the court by the claimants, Messrs.
      Banks &amp; Tressell; and a brief period only was left him for putting in
      his answer. When I thought of Julia, I resolved, in spite of all previous
      difficulties&mdash;the sneers of the father, and the more direct, coarse
      insults of the mother&mdash;to make one more effort to rescue him from the
      fate which threatened him. I felt sure that, for the reasons already
      given, the merchants would still be willing to effect a compromise which
      would secure them the principal of their claim, without incurring the
      delay and risk of litigation. Accordingly, I penned a note to Mr.
      Clifford, requesting permission to wait upon him at home, at a stated
      hour. To this I received a cold, brief answer, covering the permission
      which I sought. I went, but might as well have spared myself the labor and
      annoyance of this visit. Mrs. Clifford was still in the ascendant&mdash;still
      deaf to reason, and utterly blind to the base position into which her
      meddlesome interference in the business threw her husband. She had her
      answer ready; and did not merely content herself with rejecting my
      overtures, but proceeded to speak in the language of one who really
      regarded me as busily seeking, by covert ways, to effect the ruin of her
      family. Her looks and language equally expressed the indignation of a mind
      perfectly convinced of the fraudulent and evil purposes of the person she
      addressed. Those of my uncle were scarcely less offensive. A grin of
      malicious self-gratulation mantled his lips as he thanked me for my
      counsel, which, he yet remarked, &ldquo;however wise and good, and
      well-intended, he did not think it advisable to adopt. He had every
      confidence in the judgment of Mr. Perkins, who, though without the great
      legal knowledge of some of his youthful neighbors, had enough for his
      purposes; and had persuaded him to see the matter in a very different
      point of view from that in which I was pleased to regard it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was no doing anything with or for these people. The fiat for their
      overthrow had evidently been issued. The fatuity which leads to
      self-destruction was fixed upon them; and, with a feeling rather of
      commiseration than anger, I prepared to leave the house. In this
      interview, I made a discovery, which tended still more to lessen the
      hostility I might otherwise have felt toward my uncle. I was constrained
      to perceive that he labored under an intellectual feebleness and
      incertitude which disconcerted his expression, left his thoughts seemingly
      without purpose, and altogether convinced me that, if not positively
      imbecile in mind and memory, there were yet some ugly symptoms of
      incapacity growing upon him which might one day result in the loss of
      both. I had always known him to be a weak-minded man, disposed to vanity
      and caprice, but the weakness had expanded very much in a brief period,
      and now presented itself to my view in sundry very salient aspects. It was
      easy now to divert his attention from the business which he had in hand&mdash;a
      single casual remark of courtesy or observation would have this effect&mdash;and
      then his mind wandered from the subject with all the levity and caprice of
      a thoughtless damsel. He seemed to entertain now no sort of apprehension
      of his legal difficulties, and spoke of them as topics already adjusted.
      Nay, for that matter, he seemed to have no serious sense of any subject,
      whatever might be its personal or general interest; but, passing from
      point to point, exhibited that instability of mental vision which may not
      inaptly be compared to that wandering glance which is usually supposed to
      distinguish and denote, in the physical eye, the presence of insanity. It
      was not often now that he indulged, while speaking to me, in that manner
      of hostility&mdash;those sneers and sarcastic remarks&mdash;which had been
      his common habit. This was another proof of the change which his mental
      man had undergone. It was not that he was more prudent or more tolerant
      than before. He was quite as little disposed to be generous toward me. But
      he now appeared wholly incapable of that degree of intellectual
      concentration which could enable him to examine a subject to its close. He
      would begin to talk with me seriously enough, and with a due solemnity,
      about the suit against him; but, in a tangent, he would dart off to the
      consideration of some trifle, some household matter, or petty affair, of
      which, at any other time, he must have known that his hearers had no wish
      to hear. Poor Julia confirmed the conjectures which I entertained, but did
      not utter, by telling me that her father had changed very much in his ways
      ever since this business had been begun.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mother does not see it, but he is no longer the same man. Oh, Edward, I
      sometimes think he's even growing childish.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The fear was a well-founded one. Before the case was tried, Mr. Clifford
      was generally regarded, among those who knew him intimately, as little
      better than an imbecile; and so rapid was the progress of his infirmity,
      that when the judgment was given, as it was, against him, he was wholly
      unable to understand or fear its import. His own sense of guilt had
      anticipated its effects, and his intense vanity was saved from public
      shame only by the substitution of public pity. The decree of the court
      gave all that was asked; and the handsome competence of the Cliffords was
      exchanged for a miserable pittance, which enabled the family to live only
      in the very humblest manner.
    </p>
    <p>
      It will readily be conjectured, from what I have stated in respect to
      myself, that mine was not the disposition to seek revenge, or find cause
      for exultation in these deplorable events. I had no hostility against my
      unhappy uncle; I should have scorned myself if I had. If such a feeling
      ever filled my bosom, it would have been most effectually disarmed by the
      sight of the wretched old man, a grinning, gibbering idiot, half-dancing
      and half-shivering from the cold, over the remnants of a miserable and
      scant fire in the severest evening in November. It was when the affair was
      all over; when the property of the family was all in the hands of the
      sheriff; when the mischievous counsel of such a person as Jonathan
      Perkins, Esquire could do no more harm even to so foolish a person as my
      uncle's wife; and when his presence, naturally enough withdrawn from a
      family from which he could derive no further profit, and which he had
      helped to ruin, was no longer likely to offend mine by meeting him there&mdash;that
      I proceeded to renew my direct intercourse with the unfortunate people
      whom I was not suffered to save.
    </p>
    <p>
      The reader is not to suppose that I had kept myself entirely aloof from
      the family until these disasters had happened. I sought Julia when
      occasion offered, and, though she refused it, tendered my services and my
      means whenever they might be bestowed with hope of good. And now, when all
      was over, and I met her at the door, and she sank upon my bosom, and wept
      in my embrace, still less than ever was I disposed to show to her mother
      the natural triumph of a sagacity which had shown itself at the expense of
      hers. I forgot, in the first glance of my uncle, all his folly and
      unkindness. He was now a shadow, and the mental wreck was one of the most
      deplorable, as it was one of the most rapid and complete, that could be
      imagined. In less than seven months, a strong man&mdash;strong in health&mdash;strong,
      as supposed, in intellect&mdash;singularly acute in his dealings among
      tradesmen&mdash;regarded by them as one of the most shrewd in the
      fraternity&mdash;vain of his parts, of his family, and of his fortune&mdash;solicitous
      of display, and constant in its indulgence!&mdash;that such a man should
      be stricken down to imbecility and idiotism&mdash;a meagre skeleton in
      form&mdash;pale, puny, timid&mdash;crouching by the fireplace&mdash;grinning
      with stealthy looks, momently cast around him&mdash;and playing&mdash;his
      most constant employment&mdash;with the bellows strings that hung beside
      him, or the little kitten, that, delighted with new consideration, had
      learned to take her place constantly at his feet! What a wreck!
    </p>
    <p>
      But the moral man had been wrecked before, or this could not have been. It
      was only because of his guilt&mdash;of its exposure rather&mdash;that he
      sunk. In striving to shake off the oppressive burden, he shook off the
      intellect which had been compelled chiefly to endure it. The sense of
      shame, the conviction of loss, and, possibly, other causes of conscience
      which lay yet deeper&mdash;for the progeny of crime is most frequently a
      litter as numerous as a whelp's puppies&mdash;helped to crush the mind
      which was neither strong enough to resist temptation at first, nor to bear
      exposure at last. I turned away with a tear, which I could not suppress,
      from the wretched spectacle. But I could have borne with more patience to
      behold this ruin, than to subdue the rising reproach which I felt as I
      turned to encounter Mrs. Clifford.
    </p>
    <p>
      This weak woman, still weak, received me coldly, and I could see in her
      looks that she regarded me as one whom it was natural to suppose would
      feel some exultation at beholding their downfall. I saw this, but
      determined to say nothing, in the attempt to undo these impressions. I
      knew that time was the best teacher in all such matters, and resolved that
      my deportment should gradually make her wiser on the subject of that
      nature which she had so frequently abused, and which, I well knew, she
      could never understand. But this hope I soon discovered to be unavailing.
      Her disaster had only soured, not subdued her; and, with the natural
      tendency of the vulgar mind, she seemed to regard me as the person to whom
      she should ascribe all her misfortunes. As, to her narrow intellect, it
      seemed natural that I should exult in the accomplishment of my
      predictions, so it was a process equally natural that she should couple me
      with their occurrence; and, indeed, I was too nearly connected with the
      event, through the medium of my unconscious father, not to feel some
      portion of the affliction on his account also; though neither his memory
      nor my reputation suffered from the development of the affair in the
      community where we lived.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mrs. Clifford did not openly, or in words, betray the feelings which were
      striving in her soul; but the general restraint which she put upon herself
      in my presence, the acerbity of her tone, manner, and language, to poor
      Julia, and the unvaried querulousness of her remarks, were sufficient to
      apprize me of the spite which she would have willingly bestowed upon
      myself, had she any tolerable occasion for doing so. A few weeks served
      still further to humble the conceit and insolence of the unfortunate
      woman. The affair turned out much more seriously than I expected. A sudden
      fall in the value of real and personal estate, just about the time when
      the sheriff's sale took place, rendered necessary a second levy, which
      swept the miserable remnant of Mr. Clifford's fortune, leaving nothing to
      my uncle but a small estate which had been secured by settlement to Mrs.
      Clifford and her daughter, and which the sheriff could not legally lay
      hands on.
    </p>
    <p>
      I came forward at this juncture, and, having allowed them to remove into
      the small tenement to which, in their reduced condition they found it
      prudent to retire, I requested a private interview with Mrs. Clifford, and
      readily obtained it.
    </p>
    <p>
      I was received by the good lady in apparent state. All the little
      furniture which she could save from the former, was transferred very
      inappropriately to the present dwelling-house. The one was quite unsuited
      to the other. The massive damask curtains accorded badly with the little
      windows over which they were now suspended, and the sofa, ten feet in
      length, occupied an unreasonable share of an apartment twelve by sixteen.
      The dais of piled cushions, on which so many fashionable groups had
      lounged in better times, now seemed a mountain, which begot ideas of
      labor, difficulty, and up-hill employment, rather than ease, as the eye
      beheld it cumbering two thirds of the miserable area into which it was so
      untastefully compressed. These, and other articles of splendor and luxury,
      if sold, would have yielded her the means to buy furniture more suitable
      to her circumstances and situation, and left her with some additional
      resources to meet the daily and sometimes pressing exigencies of life.
    </p>
    <p>
      The appearance of this parlor argued little in behalf of the salutary
      effect which such reverses might be expected to produce in a mind even
      tolerably sensible. They argued, I fancied, as unfavorably for my suit as
      for the humility of the lady whom I was about to meet. If the parlor of
      Mrs. Clifford bore such sufficient tokens of her weakness of intellect,
      her own costume betrayed still more. She had made her person a sort of
      frame or rack upon which she hung every particle of that ostentatious
      drapery which she was in the habit of wearing at her fashionable evenings.
      A year's income was paraded upon her back, and the trumpery jewels of
      three generations found a place on every part of her person where it is
      usual for fashionable folly to display such gewgaws. She sailed into the
      room in a style that brought to my mind instantly the description which
      Milton gives of the approach of Delilah to Samson, after the first days of
      his blind captivity:&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
   &ldquo;But who is this, what thing of sea or land?&mdash;
    Female of sex it seems&mdash;
    That so bedecked, ornate and gay,
    Comes this way sailing, like a stately ship
    Of Tarsus, bound for the isles
    Of Javan or Gadire,
    With all her bravery on and tackle trim,
    Sails filled, and streamers waving,
    Courted by all the winds that hold their play,
    An amber scent of odorous perfume
    Her harbinger!&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      No description could have been more, just and literal in the case of Mrs.
      Clifford. I could scarce believe my eyes; and when forced to do so, I
      could scarcely suppose that this bravery was intended for my eyes only.
      Nor was it;&mdash;but let me not anticipate. This spectacle, I need not
      say, sobered me entirely, if anything was necessary to produce this
      effect, and increased the grave apprehensions which were already at my
      heart. The next consequence was to make the manner of my communication
      serious even to severity. A smile, which was of that doubtful sort which
      is always sinister and offensive, overspread her lips as she motioned me
      to resume the seat from which I had risen at her entrance; while she threw
      herself with an air of studied negligence upon one part of the sofa. I
      felt the awkwardness of my position duly increased, as her house, dress,
      and manner, convinced me that she was not yet subdued to hers; but a
      conscious rectitude of intention carried me forward, and lightened the
      task to my feelings.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mrs. Clifford,&rdquo; I said, without circumlocution, &ldquo;I have presumed to ask
      your attention this morning to a brief communication which materially
      affects my happiness, and which I trust may not diminish, if it does not
      actually promote, yours. Before I make this communication, however, I hope
      I may persuade myself that the little misunderstandings which have
      occurred between us are no longer to be considered barriers to our mutual
      peace, and happiness&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Misunderstandings, Mr. Clifford?&mdash;I don't know what
      misunderstandings you mean. I'm sure I've never misunderstood you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I could not misunderstand the insolent tenor of this speech, but I availed
      myself of the equivoque which it involved to express my gratification that
      such was the case.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My path will then be more easy, Mrs. Clifford&mdash;my purpose more
      easily explained.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am glad you think so, sir,&rdquo; she answered coolly, smoothing down certain
      folds of her frock, and crossing her hands upon her lap, while she assumed
      the attitude of a patient listener. There was something very repulsive in
      all this; but I saw that the only way to lessen the unpleasantness of the
      scene, and to get on with her, would be to make the interview as short as
      possible, and come at once to my object. This I did.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is now more than a year, Mrs. Clifford, since I had the honor to say
      to my uncle, that I entertained for my cousin Julia such a degree of
      affection as to make it no longer doubtful to me that I should best
      consult my own happiness by seeking to make her my wife. I had the
      pleasure at the same time to inform him, which I believed to be true, that
      Julia herself was not unwilling that such should be the nearer tie between
      us&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, yes, Mr. Clifford, I know all this; but my husband and myself
      thought better of it, and&mdash;&rdquo; she said with fidgety impatience.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And my application was refused,&rdquo; I said calmly; thus finishing the
      sentence where she had paused.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, sir, and what then?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;At that time, madam, my uncle gave as a reason that he had other
      arrangements in view.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, sir, so we had; and this reminds me that those arrangements were
      broken off entirely in consequence of the perversity which you taught my
      daughter. I know it all, sir; there's no more need to tell me of it, than
      there is to deny it. You put my daughter up to refusing young Roberts, who
      would have jumped at her, as his father did&mdash;and he one of the best
      families and best fortunes in the city. I'm sure I don't know, sir, what
      object you can have in reminding me of these things.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Here was ingenious perversity. I bore with it as well as I could, and
      strove to preserve my consideration and calmness.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You do your daughter injustice, Mrs. Clifford, and me no less, in this
      opinion. But I do not seek to remind you of misunderstandings and
      mistakes, the memory of which can do no good. My purpose now is to renew
      the offer to you which I originally made to Mr. Clifford. My attachment to
      your daughter remains unaltered, and I am happy to say that fortune has
      favored me so far as to enable me to place her in a situation of
      comparative comfort and independence which I could not offer then&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Which is as much as to say that she don't enjoy comfort and independence
      where she is; and if she does not, sir, to whom is it all owing, sir, but
      to you and your father? By your means it is that we are reduced to
      poverty; but you shall see, sir, that we are not entirely wanting in
      independence. My answer, sir, is just the same as Mr. Clifford's was. I am
      very much obliged to you for THE HONOR you intend my family, but we must
      decline it. As for the comfort and independence which you proffer to my
      daughter, I am happy to inform you that she can receive it at any moment
      from a source perhaps far more able than yourself to afford both, if her
      perversity does not stand in the way, as it did when young Roberts made
      his offers. Mr. Perkins, sir, the excellent young man that you tried to
      murder, is to be here, sir, this very morning, to see my daughter. Here's
      his letter, sir, which you may read, that you may be under no
      apprehensions that my daughter will ever suffer from a want of comfort and
      independence.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She flung a letter down on the sofa beside her, but I simply bowed, and
      declined looking at it. I did not, however, yield the contest in this
      manner. I urged all that might properly be urged on the subject, and with
      as much earnestness as could be permitted in an interview with a lady&mdash;and
      such a lady!&mdash;but, as the reader may suppose, my toils were taken in
      vain: all that I could suggest, either in the shape of reason or
      expostulation, only served to make her more and more dogged, and to
      increase her tone of insolence; and sore, stung with vexation,
      disappointed, and something more than bewildered, I dashed almost headlong
      out of the house, without seeing either Julia or her father, precisely at
      the moment when Mr. Perkins was about to enter.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XI. &mdash; CRISIS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The result of this interview of my rival with the mother of Julia, was
      afforded me by the latter. The mother had already given her consent to his
      suit&mdash;that of Julia alone was to be obtained; and to this end the
      arts of the suitor and the mother were equally devoted. Her refusal only
      brought with it new forms of persecution. Her steps were haunted by the
      swain, to whom Mrs. Clifford gave secret notice of all her daughter's
      intentions. He was her invariable attendant at church, where I had the
      pain constantly to behold them, in such close proximity, that I at length
      abandoned the customary house of worship, and found my pew in another,
      where I could be enabled to endure the forms of service without being
      oppressed by foreign and distracting thoughts and fancies.
    </p>
    <p>
      Of the progress of the suit I had occasional intelligence from Julia
      herself, whom I had, very reluctantly on her part, persuaded to meet me at
      the house of a female relative and friend, who favored our desires and
      managed our interviews. Brief were these stolen moments, but oh, how
      blissful! The pleasures they afforded, however, were almost wholly mine.
      The clandestine character of our meetings served to deprive her of the joy
      which they otherwise might have yielded; and the fear that she was not
      doing right, humbled her spirit and made her tremble with frequent
      apprehensions.
    </p>
    <p>
      At length Mrs. Clifford suspected our interviews, and detected them. We
      had a most stormy scene on one occasion, when the sudden entrance of this
      lady surprised us together, at the house of our friend. The consequence of
      this was, a rupture between the ladies, which resulted in Julia's being
      forbidden to visit the house of her relative again. This measure was
      followed by others of such precaution, that at length I could no longer
      communicate with her, or even seek her, unless when she was on her way to
      church. Her appearance then was such as to awaken all my apprehensions.
      Her form, always slender, was become more so. The change was striking in a
      single week. Her face, usually pale and delicate, was now haggard. Her
      walk was feeble, and without elasticity. Her whole appearance was
      wo-begone and utterly spiritless. Days and weeks passed, and my heart was
      filled with hourly-increasing apprehensions. I returned to the familiar
      church, but here I suffered a new alarm. That sabbath the family pew was
      unoccupied. While I trembled lest something serious had befallen her, I
      was called on by the family physician. This gentleman had been always
      friendly. He had been my father's physician, and had been his friend and
      frequent guest; he knew my history, and sympathized with my fortunes. He
      now know the history of Julia's affections. She had made him her
      confidante so far, and he brought me a letter from her. She was sick, as I
      expected. This letter was of startling tenor:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Save me, Edward, if you can. I am now willing to do as you proposed. I
      can no longer endure these annoyances&mdash;these cruel persecutions! My
      mother tells me that I must submit and marry this man, if we would save
      ourselves from ruin. It seems he has a claim against the estate for
      professional services; and as we have no other means of payment, without
      the sale of all that is left, he is base enough to insist upon my hand as
      the condition of his forbearance. He uses threats now, since entreaties
      have failed him. Oh, Edward, if you can save me, come!&mdash;for of a
      certainty, I can not bear this persecution much long and live. I am now
      willing to consent to do what Aunt Sophy recommended. Do not think me bold
      to say so, dear Edward&mdash;if I am bold, it is despair which makes me
      so.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I read this letter with mingled feelings of indignation and delight&mdash;indignation,
      because of the cruelties to which the worthless mother and the base suitor
      subjected one so dear and innocent delight, since the consent which she
      now yielded placed the means of saving her at my control. The consent was
      to flight and clandestine marriage, to which I had, with the assistance of
      our mutual friend, endeavored to persuade her, in several instances,
      before.
    </p>
    <p>
      The question now was, how to effect this object, since we had no
      opportunities for communication; but, before I took any steps in the
      matter, I made it a point of duty to deprive the infamous attorney,
      Perkins, of his means of power over the unhappy family. I determined to
      pay his legal charges; and William Edgerton, at my request, readily
      undertook this part of the business. They were found to be extortionate,
      and far beyond anything either warranted by the practice or the fee bill.
      Edgerton counselled me to resist the claim; but the subject was too
      delicate in all its relations, and my own affair with Perkins would have
      made my active opposition seem somewhat the consequence of malice and
      inveterate hostility. I preferred to pay the excess, which was done by
      Edgerton, rather than have any further dispute or difficulty with one whom
      I so much despised. Complete satisfaction was entered upon the records of
      the court, and a certified discharge, under the hand of Perkins himself&mdash;which
      he gave with a reluctance full of mortification&mdash;was sent in a blank
      envelope to Mrs. Clifford. She was thus deprived of the only excuse&mdash;if,
      indeed, such a woman ever needs an excuse for wilfulness&mdash;for
      persecuting her unhappy daughter on the score of the attorney.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the possession of this document effected no sort of change in her
      conduct. She pursued her victim with the same old tenacity. It was not to
      favor Perkins that she strove for this object: it was to baffle ME. That
      blind heart, which misguides all of us in turn, was predominant in her,
      and rendered her totally incapable of seeing the cruel consequences to her
      daughter which her perseverance threatened. Julia was now so feeble as
      scarcely to leave her chamber; the physician was daily in attendance; and,
      though I could not propose to make use of his services in promoting a
      design which would subject him to the reproach of the grossest treachery,
      yet, without counsel, he took it upon him plainly to assure the mother
      that the disorder of her daughter arose solely from her mental
      afflictions. He went farther. Mrs. Clifford, whose garrulity was as
      notorious as her vanity and folly, herself took occasion, when this was
      told her, to ascribe the effect to me; and, with her own coloring, she
      continued, by going into a long history of our &ldquo;course of wooing.&rdquo; The
      doctor availed himself of these statements to suggest the necessity of a
      compromise, assuring Mrs. Clifford that I was really a more deserving
      person than she thought me, and, in short, that some concessions must be
      made, if it was her hope to save her daughter's life.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She is naturally feeble of frame, nervous and sensitive, and these
      excitements, pressing upon her, will break down her constitution and her
      spirits together. Let me warn you, Mrs. Clifford, while yet in season.
      Dismiss your prejudices against this young man, whether well or ill
      founded, and permit your daughter to marry him. Suffer me to assure you,
      Mrs. Clifford, that such an event will do more toward her recovery than
      all my medicine.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What, and see him the master of my house&mdash;he, the poor beggar-boy
      that my husband fed in charity, and who turned from him with ingratitude
      in his moment of difficulty, and left him to be despoiled by his enemies?
      Never! never! Daughter of mine shall never be wife of his! The serpent! to
      sting the hand of his benefactor!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My dear Mrs. Clifford, this prejudice of yours, besides being totally
      unfounded, amounts to monomania. Now, I know something of all these
      matters, as you should be aware; and I should be sorry to counsel anything
      to you or to your family which would be either disgraceful or injurious.
      So far from this young man being ungrateful, neglectful, or suffering your
      husband to be preyed on by enemies, I am of opinion that, if his counsel
      had been taken in this late unhappy business, you would probably have been
      spared all of the misery and nearly one half of the loss which has been
      incurred by the refusal to do so.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And so you, too, are against us, doctor? You, too, believe everything
      that this young man tells you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, madam; I assure you, honestly, that I never heard a single word from
      his lips in regard to this subject. It is spoken of by everybody but
      himself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ay! ay! the whole town knows it, and from who else but him, I wonder? But
      you needn't to talk, doctor, on the subject. My mind's made up. Edward
      Clifford, while I have breath to say 'No,' and a hand to turn the lock of
      the door against him, shall never again darken these doors!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The physician was a man of too much experience to waste labor upon a case
      so decidedly hopeless. He knew that no art within his compass could cure
      so thorough a case of heart-blindness, and he gave her up; but he did not
      give up Julia. He whispered words of consolation into her ears, which,
      though vague, were yet far more useful than physic.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Cheer up, my daughter; be of good heart and faith. I AM SURE that there
      will be some remedy provided for you, before long, which will do you good.
      I have given the letter to your aunt, and she promises to do as you wish.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It may be said, en passant, that the billet sent to me had been covered in
      another to my female friend and Julia's relative; and that the doctor,
      though not unconscious of the agency of this lady between us, was yet
      guilty of no violation of the faith which is always implied between the
      family and the physician. He might SUSPECT, but he did not KNOW; and
      whatever might have been his suspicions, he certainly did not have the
      most distant idea of that concession which Julia had made, and of the
      course of conduct for which her mother's persecutions had now prepared her
      mind.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Perkins, though deprived of his lien upon Mrs. Clifford, by reason of
      his claim, did not in the least forego his intentions. His complaints and
      threatenings necessarily ceased&mdash;his tone was something lowered; but
      he possessed a hold upon this silly woman's prejudices which was far
      superior to any which he might before have had upon her fears. His
      hostility to me was grateful to the hate which she also entertained, and
      which seemed to be more thoroughly infixed in her after her downfall&mdash;which,
      as it has been seen, she ascribed to me; chiefly because of my predictions
      that such would be the case. In due proportion to her hate for me, was her
      desire to baffle my wishes, even though it might be at the expense of her
      own daughter's life. But a vain mother has no affections&mdash;none, at
      least, worthy of the name, and none which she is not prepared to discard
      at the first requisition of her dearer self. Her hate of me was so extreme
      as to render her blind to everything besides&mdash;her daughter's
      sickness, the counsel of the physician, the otherwise obvious vulgarity
      and meanness of Perkins, and that gross injustice which I had suffered at
      her hands from the beginning, and which, to many minds, might have amply
      justified in me the hostile feelings which she laid to my charge. In this
      blindness she precipitated events, and by her cruelty justified
      extremities in self-defence. The moment that Julia exhibited some slight
      improvement, she was summoned to an interview with Perkins, and in this
      interview her mother solemnly swore that she should marry him. The
      base-minded suitor stood by in silence, beheld the loathing of the maiden,
      heard her distinct refusal, yet clung to his victim, and permitted the
      violence of the mother, without rebuke&mdash;that rebuke which the true
      gentleman might have administered in such a case, and which, to forbear,
      was the foulest shame&mdash;the rebuke of his own decided refusal to
      participate in such a sacrifice. But he was not capable of this; and
      Julia, stunned and terrified, was shocked to hear Mrs. Clifford appoint
      the night of the following Thursday for the forced nuptials.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She will consent&mdash;she shall consent, Mr. Perkins,&rdquo; were the vehement
      assurances of the mother, as the craven-spirited suitor prepared to take
      his leave. &ldquo;I know her better than you do, and she knows me. Do you fear
      nothing, but bring Mr&mdash;&rdquo; (the divine) &ldquo;along with you. We shall put
      an end to this folly.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, do not, do not, mother, if you would not drive me mad!&rdquo; was the
      exclamation of the destined victim, as she threw herself at the feet of
      her unnatural parent. &ldquo;You will kill me to wed this man! I can not marry
      him&mdash;I can not love him. Why would you force this matter upon me&mdash;why!
      why!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why will you resist me, Julia? why will you provoke your mother to this
      degree? You have only to consent willingly, and you know how kind I am.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I can not consent!&rdquo; was the gasping decision of the maiden.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You shall! you must! you will!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Never! never! On my knees I say it, mother. God will witness what you
      refuse to believe. I will die before I consent to marry where I do not
      give my heart.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, you talk of dying, as if it was a very easy matter. But you won't
      die. It's more easy to say than do. Do you come, Mr. Perkins. Don't you
      mind&mdash;don't you believe in these denials, and oaths, and promises.
      It's the way with all young ladies. They all make a mighty fuss when
      they're going to be married; but they're all mighty willing, if the truth
      was known. I ought to know something about it. I did just the same as she
      when I was going to marry Mr. Clifford; yet nobody was more willing than I
      was to get a husband. Do you come and bring the parson; she'll sing a
      different tune when she stands up before him, I warrant you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That shall never be, Mr. Perkins!&rdquo; said the maiden solemnly, and somewhat
      approaching the person whom she addressed. &ldquo;I have already more than once
      declined the honor you propose to do me. I now repeat to you that I will
      sooner marry the grave and the winding-sheet than be your wife! My mother
      mistakes me and all my feelings. For your own sake, if not for mine, I beg
      that YOU will not mistake them; for, if the strength is left me for
      speech, I will declare aloud to the reverend man whom you are told to
      bring, the nature of those persecutions to which you have been privy. I
      will tell him of the cruelty which I have been compelled to endure, and
      which you have beheld and encouraged with your silence.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Perkins looked aghast, muttered his unwillingness to prosecute his suit
      under such circumstances, and prepared to take his leave. His mutterings
      and apologies were all swallowed up in that furious storm of abuse and
      denunciation which now poured from the lips of the exemplary mother. These
      we need not repeat. Suffice it that the deep feelings of Julia&mdash;her
      sense of propriety and good taste&mdash;prevailed to keep her silent,
      while her mother, still raving, renewed her assurances to the pettifogger
      that he should certainly receive his wife at her hands on the evening of
      the ensuing Thursday. The unmanly suitor accepted her assurances&mdash;and
      took leave of mother and daughter, with the expression of a simpering
      hope, intended chiefly for the latter, that her objections would resolve
      themselves into the usual maidenly scruples when the appointed time should
      arrive. Julia mustered strength enough to reply in language which brought
      down another storm from her mother upon her devoted head.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do not deceive Perkins&mdash;do not let the assurances of my mother
      deceive you. She does not know me. I can not and will not marry you. I
      will sooner marry the grave&mdash;the winding-sheet&mdash;the worm!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Her strength failed her the moment he left the apartment. She sank in a
      fainting-fit upon the floor, and was thus saved from hearing the bitter
      abuse which her miserable and misguided parent continued to lavish upon
      her, even while undertaking the task of her restoration. The evident
      exhaustion of her frame, her increasing feebleness, the agony of her mind,
      and the possibly fatal termination of her indisposition, did not in the
      least serve to modify the violent and vexing mood of this most unnatural
      woman!
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XII. &mdash; &ldquo;GONE TO BE MARRIED.&rdquo;
     </h2>
    <p>
      These proceedings, the tenor of which was briefly communicated to me in a
      hurried note from Julia, despatched by the hands of the physician, under a
      cover, to the friendly aunt, rendered it imperatively necessary that,
      whatever we proposed to do should be done quickly, if we entertained any
      hope to save.
    </p>
    <p>
      The tone of her epistle alarmed me exceedingly in one respect, as it
      evidently showed that she could not much longer save herself. Her courage
      was sinking with her spirits, which were yielding rapidly beneath the
      continued presence of that persecution which had so long been acting upon
      her. She began now to distrust her own strength&mdash;her very powers of
      utterance to declare her aversion to the proposed marriage, if ever the
      trial was brought to the threatened issue before the holy man.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What am I to do&mdash;what say&mdash;&rdquo; demanded her trembling epistle,
      &ldquo;should they go so far? Am I to declare the truth?&mdash;can I tell to
      strange ears that it is my mother who forces this cruel sacrifice upon me?
      I dread I can not. I fear that my soul and voice will equally fail me. I
      tremble, dear Edward, when I think that the awful moment may find me
      speechless, and my consent may be assumed from my silence. Save me from
      this trial, dearest Edward; for I fear everything now&mdash;and fear
      myself&mdash;my unhappy weakness of nerve and spirit more than all. Do not
      leave me to this trial of my strength&mdash;for I have none. Save me if
      you can!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It may be readily believed that I needed little soliciting to exertion
      after this. The words of this letter occasioned an alarm in my mind,
      little less&mdash;though of a different kind&mdash;than that which
      prevailed in hers. I knew the weakness of hers&mdash;I knew hers&mdash;and
      felt the apprehension that she might fail at the proper moment, even more
      vividly than she expressed it.
    </p>
    <p>
      This letter did not take me by surprise. Before it was received, and soon
      after the first with which she had favored me, by the hands of the
      friendly physician, I had begun my preparations with the view to our
      clandestine marriage. I was only now required to quicken them. The
      obstacle, on the face of it, was, comparatively, a small one. To get her
      from a dwelling, in which, though her steps were watched, she was not
      exactly a prisoner, was scarcely a difficulty, where the lover and the
      lady are equally willing.
    </p>
    <p>
      Our mode of operations was simple. There was a favorite servant&mdash;a
      negro&mdash;who had been raised in the family, had been a playmate with my
      poor deceased cousin and myself, and had always been held in particular
      regard by both of us. He was not what is called a house-servant, but was
      employed in the yard in doing various offices, such as cutting wood,
      tending the garden, going of messages, and so forth. This was in the
      better days of the Clifford family. Since its downfall he had been
      instructed to look an owner, and, opportunely, at this moment, when I was
      deliberating upon the process I should adopt for the extrication of his
      young mistress, he came to me to request that I would buy him. The
      presence of this servant suggested to me that he could assist me
      materially in my plans. Without suffering him to know the intention which
      I had formed I listened to his garrulous harangue. A negro is usually very
      copious, where he has an auditor; and though, from his situation, he could
      directly see nothing of the proceedings in the house of his owner, yet,
      from his fellow-servants he had contrived to gather, perhaps, a very
      correct account of the general condition of things. It appeared from his
      story that the attachment of Miss Julia to myself was very commonly
      understood. The effort of the mother to persuade her to marry Perkins was
      also known to him; but of the arrangement that the marriage should take
      place at the early day mentioned in her note, he told me nothing, and, in
      all probability, this part of her proceedings was kept a close secret by
      the wily dame Peter&mdash;the name of the negro&mdash;went on to add,
      that, loving me, and loving his young mistress, and knowing that we loved
      one another, and believing that we should one day be married, he was
      anxious to have me for his future owner.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I will buy you, Peter, on one condition.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Wha's dat, Mas' Ned?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That you serve me faithfully on trial, for five days, without letting
      anybody know who you serve&mdash;that you carry my messages without
      letting anybody hear them except that person to whom you are sent&mdash;and,
      if I give you a note to carry, that you carry it safely, not only without
      suffering anybody to see the note but the one to whom I send it, but
      without suffering anybody to know or suspect that you've got such a thing
      as a note about you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The fellow was all promises; and I penned a billet to Julia which, in few
      words, briefly prepared her to expect my attendance at her house at three
      in the afternoon of the very day when her nuptials were contemplated. I
      then proceeded to a friend&mdash;Kingsley&mdash;the friend who had served
      me in the meeting with Perkins; a bold, dashing, frank fellow, who loved
      nothing better than a frolic which worried one of the parties; and who, I
      well knew, would relish nothing more than to baffle Perkins in a love
      affair, as we had already done in one of strife. To him I unfolded my plan
      and craved his assistance, which was promised instantly. My female friend,
      the relative of Julia, whose assistance had been already given us, and
      whose quarrel with Mrs. Clifford in consequence, had spiced her
      determination to annoy her still further whenever occasion offered, was
      advised of our plans; and William Edgerton readily undertook what seemed
      to be the most innocent part of all, to procure a priest to officiate for
      us, at the house of the lady in question, and at the appointed time.
    </p>
    <p>
      My new retainer, Peter, brought me due intelligence of the delivery of the
      note, in secret, to Julia, and a verbal answer from her made me sanguine
      of success. The day came, and the hour; and in obedience to our plan, my
      friend, Kingsley, proceeded boldly to the dwelling of Mrs. Clifford, just
      as that lady had taken her seat at the dinner-table, requesting to see and
      speak with her on business of importance. The interview was vouchsafed
      him, though not until the worthy lady had instructed the servant to say
      that she was just then at the dinner-table, and would be glad if the
      gentleman would call again.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the gentleman regretted that he could not call again. He was from
      Kentucky, desirous of buying slaves, and must leave town the next morning
      for the west. The mention of his, occupation, as Mrs. Clifford had slaves
      to sell, was sufficient to persuade her to lay down the knife and fork
      with promptness; and the servant was bade to show the Kentucky gentleman,
      into the parlor. Our arrangement was, that, with the departure of the lady
      from the table Julia should leave it also&mdash;descend the stairs, and
      meet me at the entrance.
    </p>
    <p>
      Trembling almost to fainting, the poor girl came to me, and I received her
      into my arms, with something of a tremor also. I felt the prize would be
      one that I should be very loath to lose; and joy led to anxiety, and my
      anxiety rendered me nervous to a womanly degree. But I did not lose my
      composure and when I had taken her into my arms, I thought it would be
      only a prudent precaution to turn the key in the outer dour, and leave it
      somewhere along the highway. This I did, absolutely forgetting, that, in
      thus securing myself against any sudden pursuit, I had also locked up my
      friend, the Kentucky trader.
    </p>
    <p>
      Fortune favored our movements. Our preparations had been properly laid,
      and Edgerton had the divine in waiting. In less than half an hour after
      leaving the house of her parents, Julia and myself stood up to be married.
      Pale, feeble, sad&mdash;the poor girl, though she felt no reluctance, and
      suffered not the most momentary remorse for the steps she had taken, and
      was about to take, was yet necessarily and naturally impressed with the
      solemnity and the doubts which hung over the event. Young, timid, artless,
      apprehensive, she was unsupported by those whom nature had appointed to
      watch over and protect her; and though they had neglected, and would have
      betrayed their trust, she yet could not but feel that there was an
      incompleteness about the affair, which, not even the solemn accents of the
      priest, the deep requisitions of those pledges which she was called upon
      to make, and the evident conviction which she now entertained, that what
      had been done was necessary to be done, for her happiness, and even her
      life&mdash;could entirely remove. There was an awful but sweet earnestness
      in the sad, intense glance of entreaty, with which she regarded me when I
      made the final response. Her large black eye dilated, even under the dewy
      suffusion of its tears, as it seemed to say:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is to you now&mdash;to you alone&mdash;that I look for that
      protection, that happiness which was denied where I had best right to look
      for it. Ah! let me not look, let me not yield myself to you in vain!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      How imploring, yet how resigned was that glance of tears&mdash;love in
      tears, yet love that trusted without fear! It was the embodiment of
      innocence, struggling between hope and doubt, and only strengthened for
      the future by the pure, sweet faith which grew out of their conflict. I
      look back upon that scene, I recall that glance, with a sinking of the
      heart which is full of terror and terrible reproach. Ah! then, then, I had
      no fear, no thought, that I should see that look, and others, more sad,
      more imploring still, and see them without a corresponding faith and love!
      I little knew, in that brief, blessed hour, how rapidly the blindness of
      the heart comes on, even as the scale over the eyes&mdash;but such a scale
      as no surgeon's knife can cut away.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XIII. &mdash; BAFFLED FURY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      In the first gush of my happiness&mdash;the ceremony being completed, and
      the possession of my treasure certain&mdash;I had entirely forgotten my
      Kentucky friend, whom I had locked up, in confidential TETE-A-TETE with
      madam, my exemplary mother-in-law. He was a fellow with a strong dash of
      humor, and could not resist the impulse to amuse himself at the expense of
      the lady, by making an admirable scene of the proceeding. He began the
      business by stating that he had heard she had several negroes whom she
      wished to sell&mdash;that he was anxious to buy&mdash;he did not care how
      many, and would give the very best prices of any trader in the market. At
      his desire, all were summoned in attendance&mdash;some three or four in
      number, that she had to dispose of&mdash;all but the worthy Peter, who,
      under existing circumstances, was quite too necessary to my proceedings to
      be dispensed with. These were all carefully examined by the trader. They
      were asked their ages, their names, their qualities; whether they were
      willing to go to Kentucky, the paradise of the western Indian, and so
      forth&mdash;all those questions which, in ordinary cases, it is the custom
      of the purchaser to ask. They were, then dismissed, and the Kentuckian
      next discussed with the lady the subject of prices. But let the worthy
      fellow speak for himself:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I was so cursed anxious,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to know whether you had got off and
      in safety, for I was beginning to get monstrous tired of the old cat, that
      I jumped up every now and then to take a peep out of the front window. I
      made an excuse to spit on such occasions&mdash;though sometimes I forgot
      to do so&mdash;and then I would go back and begin again, with something
      about the bargain and the terms, and whether the negroes were honest, and
      sound, and all that. Well, though I looked out as often as I well could
      with civility, I saw nothing of you, and began to fear that something had
      happened to unsettle the whole plan; but, after a while, I saw Peter, with
      his mouth drawn back and hooked up into his ears, with his white teeth
      glimmering like so many slips of moonshine in a dark night, and I then
      concluded that all was as it should be. But seeing me look out so
      earnestly and often, the good lady at length said:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;'I suppose, sir, your horses are in waiting. Perhaps you'd like to have a
      servant to mind them.'
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;'No, ma'am, I'm obliged to you; but I left the hotel on foot.'
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;'Yes, sir,' said she, 'but I thought it might be your horses seeing you
      so often look out.'
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I could scarcely keep in my laughter. It did burst out into a sort of
      chuckle; and, as you were then safe&mdash;I knew THAT from Peter's jaws&mdash;I
      determined to have my own fun out of the old woman. So I said&mdash;pretty
      much in this sort of fashion, for I longed to worry her, and knew just how
      it could be done handsomest&mdash;I said:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;'The truth is, ma'am&mdash;pardon me for the slight&mdash;but really I
      was quite interested&mdash;struck, as I may say, by a very suspicious
      transaction that met my eyes a while ago, when I first got up to spit from
      the window.'
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;'Ah, indeed, sir! and pray, if I may ask, what was it you saw?'
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;'Really very curious; but getting up to spit, and looking out before I
      did so&mdash;necessary caution, ma'am&mdash;some persons might be just
      under the window, you know&mdash;'
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;'Yes, sir, yes.' The old creature began to look and talk mighty eager.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;'An ugly habit, ma'am&mdash;that of spitting. We Kentuckians carry it to
      great excess. Foreigners, I'm told, count it monstrous vulgar&mdash;effect
      of tobacco-chewing, ma'am&mdash;a deuced bad habit, I grant you, but 'tis
      a habit, and there's no leaving it off, even if we would. I don't think
      Kentuckians, as a people, a bit more vulgar than English, or French, or
      Turks, or any other respectable people of other countries.'
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;'No, sir, certainly not; but the transaction&mdash;what you saw.'
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah yes! beg pardon; but, as I was saying, something really quite
      suspicious! Just as I was about to spit, when I went to the window, some
      ten minutes ago&mdash;perhaps you did not observe, but I did not spit.
      Good reason for it, ma'am&mdash;might have done mischief.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How, sir?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah that brings me to the question I want to ask: any handsome young
      ladies living about here, ma'am?&mdash;here, in your neighborood?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, yes, sir,&rdquo; answered the old tabby, with something like surprise;
      &ldquo;there's several&mdash;there's the Masons, just opposite: the Bagbys, next
      door to them below, and Mr. Wilford's daughter: all of them would be
      considered pretty by some persons. On the same side with us, there's Mrs.
      Freeman and her two daughters, but the widow is accounted by many the
      youngest looking and prettiest of the whole, though, to my thinking,
      that's saying precious little for any. Next door to us is a Mr. and Mrs.
      Gibbs, who have a daughter, and she IS rather pretty, but I don't know
      much about them. It might be a mother's vanity, sir, but I think I may be
      proud of having a daughter myself, who is about as pretty as any of the
      best among them; and that's saying a great deal less for her than might be
      said.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, indeed&mdash;you a daughter, ma'am? But she is not grown-up, of
      course&mdash;a mere child?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, I beg your pardon, sir, said the old creature, tickled up to the
      eyes, and looking at me with the sweetest smiles; though it may surprise
      you very much, she is not only no child, but a woman grown; and, what's
      more, I think she will be made a wife this very night.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Egad, then I suspect she's not the only one that's about to be made a
      wife of. I suspect some one of these young ladies, your neighbors, will be
      very soon in the same condition.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Indeed, sir&mdash;pray, who?&mdash;how do you know? and the old tabby
      edged herself along the sofa until she almost got jam up beside me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, said I, I don't KNOW exactly, but I'm deucedly suspicious of it,
      and, more than that, there's some underhand work going on.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      This made her more curious than ever; and her hands and feet, and indeed
      her whole body, got such a fidgeting, that I fancied she began to think of
      getting St. Vitus for a bedfellow. Her eagerness made her ask me two or
      three times what made me think so; and, seeing her anxiety, I purposely
      delayed in order to worry her. I wished to see how far I could run her up.
      When I did begin to explain, I went to work in a round-about way enough&mdash;something
      thus, old Kentuck&mdash;as I began: &ldquo;Well, ma'am, this tobacco-chewing, as
      I said before, carried me, as you witnessed, constantly to the window. I
      don't know that I chew more than many others, but I know I chew too much
      for my good, and for decency, too, ma'am.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, sir, yes; but the young lady, and&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, yes, ma'am. Well, then, going to the window once, twice, or thrice, I
      could not help but see a young man standing beneath it, evidently in
      waiting&mdash;very earnest, very watchful&mdash;seemingly very much
      interested and anxious, as if waiting for somebody.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is it possible?&rdquo; whispered the tabby, full of expectation.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, very possible, ma'am&mdash;very true.&rdquo; There he stood; I could even
      hoar his deep-drawn sighs&mdash;deep, long, as if from the very bottom of
      his heart.'
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Was he so VERY near, sir?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Just under the window&mdash;going to and fro&mdash;very anxious. I was
      almost afraid I had spit on him, he looked up so hard&mdash;so&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What, sir, up at you? at&mdash;at MY windows, sir?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not exactly, ma'am, that was only my notion, for I thought I might have
      spit upon him, and so wakened his anger; but, indeed, he looked all about
      him, as, indeed, it was natural that he should, you know, if he meditated
      anything that wa'n't exactly right. There was a carriage in waiting&mdash;a
      close carriage&mdash;not a hundred yards below, and&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, sir, do tell me what sort of a looking young gentleman was it&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good-looking fellow enough, ma'am&mdash;rather tall, slenderish, but not
      so slender&mdash;wore a black frock.&rdquo; By this time the old creature was up
      at the window&mdash;her long, skinny neck stretched out as far as it could
      go.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;ma'am, you're quite too late, if you expect to see the
      sport. They're off; I saw the last of them when I took my last spit from
      the window. They were then&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, sir, did he&mdash;did you say that this person&mdash;the person you
      spit on&mdash;carried a young lady away with him?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You mistake me, ma'am&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah&rdquo;&mdash;she drew a mighty long breath as if relieved.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I did NOT spit upon him; I only came near doing it once or twice. If I
      hadn't looked, I should very probably have divided my quid pretty equally
      between both of them.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Both! both!&rdquo; she almost screamed. &ldquo;Did she go with him, then?&mdash;was
      there in truth a young woman?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You never saw a creature in such a tearing fidget. Her long nose was
      nearly stuck into my face, and both her hands, all claws extended, seemed
      ready for my cheeks. I felt a little ticklish, I assure you; but I kept up
      my courage, determined to see the game out, and answered very
      deliberately, after I had put a fresh quid into my jaws:&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ay, that she did, ma'am, and seemed deuced glad to go, as was natural
      enough. A mighty pretty girl she was, too; rather thin, but pretty enough
      to tempt a clever fellow to do anything. I reckon they're nigh on to being
      man and wife by this time, let the old people say what they will.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But the old put didn't wait to hear me say all this. Before the words
      were well out of my mouth, she gave a bounce, to the bell-rope first&mdash;I
      thought she'd ha' jerked it to pieces&mdash;and then to the head of the
      stairs.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Excuse me for a moment, sir, if you please,&rdquo; she said, in a considerable
      fidget.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Certainly, ma'am,&rdquo; says I, with a great Kentucky sort of bow and natural
      civility; and then I could hear her squalling from the head of the stairs,
      and at the top of her voice, &ldquo;Julia! Julia! Julia!&rdquo;&mdash;but there was no
      answer from Julia. Then came the servants; then came the outcry; then she
      bounced back into the parlor, and blazed out at me for not telling her at
      once that it was her daughter who had been carried off, without making so
      long a story of it, and putting in so much talk about tobacco.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Lord bless you, my dear woman!&rdquo; says I, &ldquo;innocent enough, was that pretty
      girl your daughter? That accounts for the fellow looking up at the window
      so often; and I to fancy that it was all because I might have given him a
      quid!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You must have seen her THEN!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, ma'am,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I must come again about the negroes. I see you've
      got your hands full.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And, with that, I pushed down stairs, while she blazed out at her
      husband, whom she called an old fool; and me, whom she called a young one;
      and the negroes, whom she ordered to fly in a hundred ways in the same
      breath; and, to make matters worse, she seized her hat and shawl, and
      bounced down the steps after me. Here we were in a fix again, that made
      her a hundred times more furious. The street-door was locked on the
      outside, and the key gone, and I fastened up with the old mad tabby. I
      tried to stand it while the servants were belaboring to break open, but
      the storm was too heavy, and, raising a sash, I went through: and, in good
      faith, I believe she bounced through after me; for, when I got fairly into
      the street and looked round, there she went, bounce, flounce, pell-mell,
      all in a rage, steam up, puffing like a porpoise&mdash;though, thank
      Jupiter! she took another course from myself. I was glad to get out of her
      clutches, I assure you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Such was Kingsley's account of his expedition, told in his particular
      manner; and endued with the dramatic vitality which he was well able to
      give it, it was inimitable. It needs but a few words to finish it. Mrs.
      Clifford, with unerring instinct, made her way to the house of that
      friendly lady who had assisted our proceedings. But she came too late for
      anything but abuse. Julia was irrevocably mine. Bitter was the clamor
      which, in our chamber, assailed us from below.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Edward, how shall I meet her?&rdquo; was the convulsive speech of Julia, as
      she heard the fearful sounds of her mother's voice&mdash;a voice never
      very musical, and which now, stimulated by unmeasured rage&mdash;the rage
      of a baffled and wicked woman&mdash;poured forth a torrent of screams
      rather than of human accents. We soon heard the rush of the torrent up
      stairs, and in the direction of our chamber.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fear nothing, Julia; her power over you is now at an end. You are now
      mine&mdash;mine only&mdash;mine irrevocably!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, she is still my mother!&rdquo; gasped the lovely trembler in my arms. A
      moment more, and the old lady was battering at the door. I had locked it
      within. Her voice, husky but subdued, now called to her daughter&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Julia! Julia! Julia!&mdash;come out!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Who is there? what do you want?&rdquo; I demanded. I was disposed to keep her
      out, but Julia implored me to open the door. She had really no strength to
      reply to the summons of the enraged woman; and her entreaty to me was
      expressed in a whisper which scarcely filled my own ears. She was weak
      almost to fainting. I trembled lest her weakness, coupled with her fears,
      and the stormy scene that I felt might be reasonably anticipated, would be
      too much for her powers of endurance. I hesitated. She put her hand on my
      wrist.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;For my sake, Edward, let her in. Let her see me. We will have to meet
      her, and better now&mdash;now, when I feel all the solemnity of my new
      position, and while the pledges I have just made are most present to my
      thoughts. Do not fear for me. I am weak and very feeble, but I am
      resolute. I feel that I am not wrong.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She could scarcely gasp out these brief sentences. I urged her not to risk
      her strength in the interview.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;As you love me, do as I beg you,&rdquo; she replied, with entreating
      earnestness. &ldquo;It does not become me to keep my mother, under any
      circumstances, thus waiting at the door, and asking entrance.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Meanwhile, the clamors of Mrs. Clifford were continued. Julia's aunt was
      there also, and the controversy was hot and heavy between them. Annoyed as
      I was, and apprehensive for Julia. I yet could not forbear laughing at the
      ludicrousness of my position and the whole scene. I began to think, from
      the equal violence of the two ancient dames without, that they might
      finally get to blows. This was also the fear of Julia, and another reason
      why we should throw open the door. I at length did so; and soon had the
      doubtful satisfaction of transferring to myself all the wrath of the
      disappointed mother. She rushed in, the moment the door turned upon its
      hinges, almost upsetting me in the violence of her onset. Bounding into
      the apartment with a fury that was utterly beyond her own control, I was
      led to fear that she might absolutely inflict violence upon her daughter,
      who by this time had sunk, in equal terror and exhaustion, upon a sofa in
      the remotest corner of the room. I hastily placed myself between them, and
      did not scruple, with extended hands, to maintain a safe interval of space
      between the two. I will not attempt to describe the tigress rage or the
      shrieking violence which ensued on the part of this veteran termagant. It
      was only closed at length, when, Julia having fainted under the storm,
      dead to all appearance, I picked up the assailant VI ET ARMIS, and, in
      defiance of screams and scratches&mdash;for she did not spare the use of
      her talons&mdash;resolutely transported her from the chamber.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XIV. &mdash; ONE DEBT PAID.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Staggering forward under this burden&mdash;a burden equally active and
      heavy&mdash;who should I encounter at the head of the stairs, but the
      liege lord of the lady&mdash;my poor imbecile uncle. As soon as she beheld
      him&mdash;foaming and almost unintelligible in her rage&mdash;she screamed
      for succor&mdash;cried &ldquo;murder&rdquo; &ldquo;rape,&rdquo; &ldquo;robbery,&rdquo; and heaven knows what
      besides. A moment before, though she scratched and scuffled to the utmost,
      she had not employed her lungs. A momentary imprecation alone had broken
      from her, as it were, perforce and unavoidably. Now, nothing could exceed
      the stentorian tumult which her tongue maintained. She called upon her
      husband to put me to death&mdash;to tear me in pieces&mdash;to do anything
      and everything for the punishing of so dreadful an offender as myself. In
      thus commanding him, she did not forbear uttering her own unmeasured
      opinion of the demerits of the man whose performances she required.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If you had the spirit of a man, Clifford&mdash;if you were not a poor
      shoat&mdash;you'd never have submitted so long as you have to this viper's
      insolence. And there you stand, doing nothing&mdash;absolutely still as a
      stock, though you see him beating your wife. Ah! you monster!&mdash;you
      coward!&mdash;that I should ever have married a man that wasn't able to
      protect me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      This is a sufficient sample of her style, and not the worst. I am
      constrained to confess that some portions of the good lady's language
      would better have suited the modes of speech common enough among the
      Grecian housekeepers at the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries. I
      have omitted not a few of the bad words, and forborne the repetition of
      that voluminous eloquence poured out, after the Billingsgate fashion,
      equally upon myself, her daughter, and husband. During the vituperation
      she still kicked and scuffled; my face suffered, and my eyes narrowly
      escaped. But I grasped her firmly; and when her husband, my worthy uncle,
      in obedience to her orders, sprang upon me, with the bludgeon which he now
      habitually carried, I confronted him with the lusty person of his spouse,
      and regret to say, that the first thwack intended for my shoulders,
      descended with some considerable emphasis upon hers. This increased her
      fury, and redoubled her screams. But it did not lessen my determination,
      or make me change my mode of proceeding. I resolutely pushed her before
      me. The husband stood at the head of the stairs and my object was to carry
      her down to the lower story. The stairs were narrow, and by keeping up a
      good watch, I contrived to force him to give ground, using his spouse as a
      sort of battering-RAM&mdash;not to perpetrate a pun at the expense of the
      genders&mdash;which, I happened to know, had always been successful in
      making him give ground on all previous occasions. His habitual deference
      for the dame, assisted me in my purpose. Step by step, however, he
      disputed my advance; but I was finally successful; without any injury
      beyond that which had been inflicted by the talons of the fair lady, and
      perhaps a single and slight stroke upon the shoulder from the club of her
      husband, I succeeded in landing her upon the lower flat in safety. Beyond
      a squeeze or two, which the exigency of the case made something more
      affectionate than any I should have been otherwise pleased to bestow upon
      her, she suffered no hurt at my hands.
    </p>
    <p>
      But, though willing to release her, she was not so willing herself to be
      released. When I set her free, she flew at me with cat-like intrepidity;
      and I found her a much more difficult customer than her husband. Him I
      soon baffled. A moment sufficed to grapple with him and wrench the stick
      from his hands, and then, with a moderate exercise of agility, I contrived
      to spring up the stairway which I had just descended, regain the chamber,
      and secure the door, before they could overtake or annoy me with their
      further movements. My wife's aunt, meanwhile, had been busy with her
      restoratives. Julia was now recovering from the fainting fit; and I had
      the satisfaction of hearing from one of the servants that the baffled
      enemy had gone off in a fury that made their departure seem a flight
      rather than a mere retreat.
    </p>
    <p>
      I should have treated the whole event with indifference&mdash;their rage
      and their regard equally&mdash;but for my suffering and sensitive wife.
      Wronged as she had been, and so persecuted as to render all her subsequent
      conduct justifiable, she yet forgot none of her filial obligations; and,
      in compliance with her earnest entreaties, I had already, the very day
      after this conflict, prepared an elaborate and respectful epistle to both
      father and mother, when an event took place of startling solemnity, which
      was calculated to subdue my anger, and make the feelings of my wife, if
      possible, more accessible than ever to the influences of fear and sorrow.
      Only three days from our marriage had elapsed, when her father was
      stricken speechless in the street. He was carried home for dead. I have
      already hinted that, months before, and just after the threatened
      discovery of those fraudulent measures by which he lost his fortune, his
      mind had become singularly enfeebled; his memory failing, and all his
      faculties of judgment&mdash;never very strong&mdash;growing capricious, or
      else obtuse and unobserving. These were the symptoms of a rapid physical
      change, the catastrophe of which was at hand. How far the excitement
      growing out of his daughter's flight and marriage may have precipitated
      this result, is problematical. It may be said, in this place, that my
      wife's mother charged it all to my account. I was pronounced the murderer
      of her husband. On this head I did not reproach myself. It was necessary,
      however, that a reconciliation should take place between the father and
      his child. To this I had, of course, no sort of objection. But it will
      scarce be believed that the miserable woman, her mother, opposed herself
      to their meeting with the utmost violence of her character. Nothing but
      the outcry of the family and all its friends&mdash;including the excellent
      physician whose secret services had contributed so much toward my
      happiness&mdash;compelled her to give way, though still ungraciously, to
      the earnest entreaty of her daughter for permission to see her father
      before he died! and even then, by the death-bed of the unhappy and almost
      unconscious man, she recommenced the scene of abuse and bitter reproach,
      which, however ample the reader and hearer may have already found it, it
      appears she had left unfinished. It was in the midst of a furious tirade,
      directed against myself, chiefly, and Julia, in part, that the spasms of
      death, unperceived by the mother, passed over the contracted muscles of
      the father's face. The bitter speech of the blind woman&mdash;blind of
      heart&mdash;was actually finished after death had given the final blow to
      the victim. Of this she had no suspicion, until instructed by the piercing
      shrieks of her daughter, who fell swooning upon the corse before her.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XV. &mdash; HONEYMOON PERIOD.
    </h2>
    <p>
      It was supposed by Julia and certain of her friends that an event so
      solemn, so impressive, and so unexpected, as the death of Mr. Clifford,
      would reasonably affect the mind of his widow; and the concessions which I
      had meditated to address to herself and her late husband were now so
      varied as to apply solely to herself. I took considerable pains in
      preparing my letter, with the view to soften her prejudices and
      asperities, as well as to convince her reason. There was one suggestion
      which Julia was disposed to insist on, to which, however, I was singularly
      averse. In the destitution of Mrs. Clifford, her diminished and still
      diminishing resources, not to speak of her loneliness, she thought that I
      ought to tender her a home with us. Had she been any other than the
      captious, cross-grained creature that she was&mdash;bad her misfortunes
      produced only in part their legitimate and desirable effects of subduing
      her perversity&mdash;I should have had no sort of objection. But I knew
      her imperious and unreasonable nature; and I may here add, that, by this
      time, I knew something of my own: I was a man of despotic character. The
      constant conflicts which I had had from boyhood, resulting as they had
      done in my frequent successes and final triumph, had, naturally enough,
      made me dictatorial. Sanguine in temperament, earnest in character,
      resolute in impulse, I was necessarily arbitrary in mood. It was not
      likely that Mrs. Clifford would forget her waywardnesses, and it was just
      as unreasonable that I should submit to her insolences. Besides, one's
      home ought to be a very sacred place. It is necessary that the peace there
      should compensate and console for the strifes without. To hope for this in
      any household where there is more than one master, would bo worse than
      idle. Nay, even if there were peace, the chances are still great that
      there would be some lack of propriety. Domestic regulations would become
      inutile. Children and servants would equally fail of duty and improvement
      under conflicting authorities; and all the sweet social harmonies of
      family would be jarred away by misunderstandings if not bickerings,
      leading to coldness, suspicion, and irremediable jealousies. These things
      seemed to threaten me from the first moment when Julia submitted to me her
      desire that her mother should be invited to take up her abode with us. I
      reasoned with her against it; suggested all the grounds of objection which
      I really felt; and reviewed at length the long history of our connection
      from my childhood up, which had been distinguished by her constant
      hostility and hate. &ldquo;How,&rdquo; I asked, &ldquo;can it be hoped that there will be
      any change for the better now? She is the same woman, I the same man! It
      is not reasonable to think that the result of our reunion will be other
      than it has been.&rdquo; But Julia implored.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I know what you say is reasonable&mdash;is just; but, dear Edward, she is
      my mother, and she is alone.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I yielded to her wishes. Could I else? My letter to her mother concluded
      with a respectful entreaty that she would take apartments in our dwelling,
      and a chair at our table, and lessen, to this extent, the expenses of her
      own establishment.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; exclaimed the frenzied woman to Julia's aunt, to whom the charge
      of presenting the communication was committed&mdash;&ldquo;what! eat the bread
      of that insolent and ungrateful wretch? Never! never!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She flung the epistle from her with disdain; and, to confess a truth,
      though, on Julia's account, I should have wished a reconciliation, I was
      by no means sorry, on my own, that such was her ultimatum. I gave myself
      little further concern about this foolish person, and was happy to see
      that in a short time my wife appeared to recover from the sadness and
      stupor which the death of her father and the temper of her mother had
      naturally induced. The truth is, she had, for so long a period previously
      to her marriage, suffered from the persecutions of the latter, and moaned
      over the shame and imbecility of the former, that her present situation
      was one of great relief, and, for a while, of comparative happiness.
    </p>
    <p>
      We lived in a pleasant cottage in the suburbs. A broad and placid lake
      spread out before our dwelling; and its tiny billows, under the pressure
      of the sweet southwestern breezes, beat almost against our very doors.
      Green and shady groves environed us on three sides, and sheltered us from
      the intrusive gaze of the highway; and never was a brighter collection of
      flowers and blossoms clustered around any habitation of hope and happiness
      before. I rented the cottage on moderate terms, and furnished it neatly,
      but simply, as became my resources. All things considered, the prospect
      was fair and promising before us. Julia had few toils, and ample leisure
      for painting and music, for both of which she had considerable taste; for
      the former art, in particular, she possessed no small talent.
    </p>
    <p>
      Our city, indeed, seemed one peculiarly calculated for these arts. Our sky
      was blue&mdash;deeply, beautifully blue; our climate mild and delightful.
      Our people were singularly endowed with the genius for graceful and
      felicitous performances. Music was an ordinary attribute of the great
      mass; and in no community under the sun was there such an overflow of
      talent in painting and sculpture. It was the grand error of our wise heads
      to fancy that our city could be made one of great trade; and, in a vain
      struggle to give it some commercial superiority over its neighbor
      communities, the wealth of the people was thrown away upon projects that
      yielded nothing; and the arts were left neglected in a region which might
      have been made&mdash;and might still be made&mdash;if not exclusively, at
      least pre-eminently their own. The ordinary look of the women was beauty,
      the ordinary accent was sweetness. The soft moonlight evenings were
      rendered doubly harmonious by the tender tinkling of the wandering guitar,
      or the tones of the plaintive flute; while, from every third dwelling,
      rose the more stately but scarcely sweeter melodies stricken by pliant
      fingers from the yielding soul of the divine piano. The tastes even of the
      mechanic were refined by this language, the purest In which passion ever
      speaks; and an ambition&mdash;the result of the highest tone of
      aristocratic influence upon society&mdash;prompted his desires to purposes
      and a position to which in other regions he is not often permitted to
      aspire. These influences were assisted by the peculiar location of our
      city&mdash;by its suburban freedom from all closeness; its innumerable
      gardens, the appanage of every household; its piazzas, verandahs, porches;
      its broad and minstrel-wooing rivers; and the majestic and evergreen
      forests, which grew and gathered around us on every hand. If ever there
      was a city intended by nature more particularly than another for the
      abodes and the offices of art, it was ours. It will become so yet: the
      mean, money-loving soul of trade can not always keep it from its
      destinies. We may never see it in our day; but so surely as we live, and
      as it shall live, will it become an Athens in our land&mdash;a city of
      empire by the sea, renowned for genius and taste&mdash;and the chosen
      retreat of muses, younger and more vigorous, and not less lovely, than the
      old!
    </p>
    <p>
      Julia was in a very high degree impregnated with the taste and desire for
      art which seemed so generally the characteristic of our people. I speak
      not now of the degree of skill which she possessed. Her teacher was a
      foreigner, and a mere mechanic; but, while he taught her only the ordinary
      laws of painting, her natural endowment wrought more actively in favor of
      her performances. She soon discovered how much she could learn from the
      little which her teacher knew; and when she made this discovery, she
      ceased to have any use for his assistance. Books, the study of the old
      masters, and such of the new as were available to her, served her
      infinitely more in the prosecution of her efforts; and these I stimulated
      by all means in my power: for I esteemed her natural endowments to be very
      high, and very well knew how usual it is for young ladies, after marriage,
      to give up those tastes and accomplishments which had distinguished and
      heightened their previous charms. It was quite enough that I admired the
      art, and tasked her to its pursuit, to make her cling to it with alacrity
      and love. We wandered together early in the morning and at the coming on
      of evening, over all the sweet, enticing scenes which were frequent in our
      suburbs. Environed by two rivers, wide and clear, with deep forests beyond&mdash;a
      broad bay opening upon the sea in front&mdash;lovely islands of gleaming
      sand, strewn at pleasant intervals, seeming, beneath the transparent
      moonlight, the chosen places of retreat for naiads from the deep and
      fairies from the grove&mdash;there was no lack of objects to delight the
      eye and woo the pencil to its performances. Besides, never was blue sky,
      and gold-and-purple sunset, more frequent, more rich, more shifting in its
      shapes and colors, from beauty to superior beauty, than in our latitude.
      The eye naturally turned up to it with a sense of hunger; the mind
      naturally felt the wish to record such hues and aspects for the use of
      venerating love; and the eager spirit, beginning to fancy the vision
      wrought according to its own involuntary wish, seemed spontaneously to cry
      aloud, in the language of the artist, on whom the consciousness of genius
      was breaking with a sun-burst for the first time, &ldquo;I, too, am a painter!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Julia's studio was soon full of beginnings. Fragmentary landscapes were
      all about her. Like most southrons, she did not like to finish. There is
      an impatience of toil&mdash;of its duration at least&mdash;in the southern
      mind, which leaves it too frequently unperforming. This is a natural
      characteristic of an excitable people. People easily moved are always
      easily diverted from their objects. People of very vivid fancy are also
      very capricious. There is yet another cause for the non-performance of the
      southern mind&mdash;its fastidiousness. In a high state of social
      refinement, the standards of taste become so very exacting, that the mind
      prefers not to attempt, rather than to offend that critical judgment which
      it feels to be equally active in its analysis and rigid in its
      requisitions. Genius and ambition must be independent of such restraints.
      &ldquo;Be bold, be bold, be bold!&rdquo; is the language of encouragement in Spenser;
      and when he says, at the end, &ldquo;Be not too bold,&rdquo; we are to consider the
      qualification as simply a quiet caution not to allow proper courage to
      rush into rashness and insane license. The GENIUS that suffers itself to
      be fettered by the PRECISE, will perhaps learn how to polish marble, but
      will never make it live, and will certainly never live very long itself!
    </p>
    <p>
      With books and music, painting and flowers, we passed the happy moments of
      the honeymoon. I yielded as little of myself and my mind to my office and
      clients, in that period, as I possibly could. My cottage was my paradise.
      My habits, as might be inferred from my history, were singularly domestic.
      Doomed, as I had been, from my earliest years, to know neither friends nor
      parents; isolated, in my infancy, from all those tender ties which impress
      upon the heart, for all succeeding years, tokens of the most endearing
      affection; denied the smiles of those who yet filled my constant sight&mdash;my
      life was a long yearning for things of love&mdash;for things to love!
      While the struggle continued between Julia's parents and myself, though
      confiding in her love, I had yet no confidence in my own hope to realize
      and to secure it. Now that it was mine&mdash;mine, at last&mdash;I grew
      uxorious in its contemplation. Like the miser, I had my treasure at home,
      and I hastened home to survey it with precisely the same doubts, and
      hopes, and fears, which the disease of avarice prompts in the unhappy
      heart of its victim To this disease, in chief, I have to attribute all my
      future sorrows; but the time is not yet for that. It is my joys now that I
      have to contemplate and describe. How I dwelt, and how I dreamed! how I
      seemed to tread on air, in the unaccustomed fullness of my spirit! how my
      whole soul, given up to the one pursuit, I fondly fancied had secured its
      object! I fancied&mdash;nay, for the time, I was happy! Surely, I was
      happy!
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
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    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XVI. &mdash; THE HAPPY SEASON.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Surely, I then was happy! I can not deceive myself as to the character of
      those brief Eden moments of security and peace. Even now, lone as I appear
      in the sight of others&mdash;degraded as I feel myself&mdash;even now I
      look back on our low white cottage, by the shores of that placid lake&mdash;its
      little palings gleaming sweetly through its dense green foliage&mdash;recall
      those happy, halcyon days, and feel that we both, for the time, had
      attained the secret&mdash;the secret worth all the rest&mdash;of an
      enjoyment actually felt, and quite as full, flush, and satisfactory, as it
      had seemed in the perspective. Possession had taken nothing of the gusto
      from hope. Truth had not impaired a single beauty of the ideal. I looked
      in Julia's face at morning when I awakened, and her loveliness did not
      fade. My lips, that drank sweetness from hers, did not cease to believe
      the sweetness to be there&mdash;as pure, as warm, as full of richness, as
      when I had only dreamed of their perfections. Our days and nights were
      pure, and gentle, and fond. One twenty-four hours shall speak for all.
    </p>
    <p>
      When we rose at morning, we prepared for a ramble, either into the woods,
      or along the banks of the lovely river that lay west of, and at a short
      distance only from, our dwelling. There, wandering, as the sun rose, we
      imparted to each other's eyes the several objects of beauty which his
      rising glance betrayed. Sometimes we sat beneath a tree, while she
      hurriedly sketched a clump of woods, the winding turn of the shore, its
      occasional crescent form or abrupt headland, as they severally appeared in
      a new light, and at a happy moment of time, beneath our vision. The songs
      of pleasant birds allured us on; the sweet scent of pines and myrtle
      refreshed us; and a gay, wholesome, hearty spirit was awakened in our
      mutual bosoms, as thus, day after day, while, like the d&amp;y, our hearts
      were in their first youth, we resorted to the ever-fresh mansions of the
      sovereign Nature. This habit produces purity of feeling, and continues the
      habit in its earliest simplicity. The childlike laws which it encourages
      and strengthens are those which virtue most loves, and which strained
      forms of society are the first to overthrow. The pure tastes of youth are
      those which are always most dear to humanity; and love is easy of access,
      and peace not often a stranger to the mind, where these tastes preserve
      their ascendency.
    </p>
    <p>
      My profession was something at variance with these tastes and feelings.
      The very idea of law, which presupposes the frequent occurrence of
      injustice, engenders, by its practice, a habit of suspicion. To throw
      doubt upon the fact, and defeat and prevent convictions of the probable,
      are habits which lawyers soon acquire. This is natural from the daily
      encounter with bad and striving men&mdash;men who employ the law as an
      instrument by which to evade right, or inflict wrong; and, this apart, the
      acute mind loves, for its own sake, the very exercise of doubt, by which
      ingenuity is put in practice, and an adroit discrimination kept constantly
      at work.
    </p>
    <p>
      I was saved, however, from something of this danger. The injustice which I
      had been subjected to, in my own boyhood, had filled me with the keenest
      love for the right. The idea of injustice aroused my sternest feelings of
      resistance. I had adopted the law as a profession with something of a
      patriotic feeling. I felt that I could make it an instrument for putting
      down the oppressor, the wrong-doer&mdash;for asserting right, and
      maintaining innocence! I had my admiration, too, at that period, of that
      logical astuteness, that wonderful tenacity of hold and pursuit, and
      discrimination of attribute and subject, which distinguish this profession
      beyond all others, and seem to confirm the assumption made in its behalf,
      by which it has been declared the perfection of human reason. It will not
      be subtracting anything from this estimate, if I express my conviction,
      founded upon my own experience, that, though such may be the character of
      the law as an abstract science, it deserves no such encomium as it is
      ordinarily practised. Lawyers are too commonly profound only in the
      technicalities of the profession; and a very keen study and acquaintance
      with these&mdash;certainly a too great reliance upon them, and upon the
      dicta of other lawyers&mdash;leads to a dreadful departure from elementary
      principles, and a most woful (sic) disregard, if not ignorance, of those
      profounder sources of knowledge without which laws multiply at the expense
      of reason, and not in support of it; and lawyers may be compared to those
      ignorant captains to whom good ships are intrusted, who rely upon
      continual sounding to grope their way along the accustomed shores. Let
      them once leave the shores, and get beyond the reach of their plummets,
      and the good ship must owe its safety to fortune and the favor of the
      winds, for further skill is none.
    </p>
    <p>
      I did not find the practice of the law affect my taste for domestic
      pleasures; on the contrary, it stimulated and preserved them. After
      toiling a whole morning in the courts, it was a sweet reprieve to be
      allowed to hurry off to my quiet cottage, and hear the one dear voice of
      my household, and examine the quiet pictures. These never stunned me with
      clamors; I was never pestered by them to determine the meum et tuum
      between noisy disputants, neither of whom is exactly right. There, my eye
      could repose on the sweetest scenes&mdash;scenes of beauty and
      freshness-the shady verdure of the woods, the rich variety of flowers, and
      pure, calm, transparent waters, hallowed by the meek glances of the matron
      moon. No creature could have been more gentle than my wife. She met me
      with a composed smile, equally bright and meek. I never heard a complaint
      from her lips. The evils of which other men complain&mdash;the complaints
      about servants, scoldings about delay or dinner&mdash;never reached my
      ears. The kindest solicitude that, in my fatigue, or amid the toils of a
      business of which wives can know little, and for which they make too
      little allowance, there should be nothing at home to make me irritable or
      give me disquiet, distinguished equally her sense and her affection. If it
      became her duty to communicate any unpleasant intelligence&mdash;any
      tidings which might awaken anger or impatience&mdash;she carefully waited
      foi the proper time, when the excitement of my blood was overcome, and
      repose of blood and brain had naturally brought about a kindred composure
      of mind.
    </p>
    <p>
      Our afternoons were usually spent in the shade of the garden or piazza.
      Sometimes, I sat by her while she was sketching. At others, she helped me
      to dress and train my garden-vines. Now and then we renewed our rambles of
      the morning, heedfully observing the different aspects of the same scenes
      and object, which had then delighted us, under the mellowing smiles of the
      sun at its decline. With books, music, and chess, our evenings passed away
      without our consciousness; and day melted into night, and night departed
      and gave place to the new-born day, as quietly as if life had, in truth,
      become to us a great instrument of harmony, which bore us over the smooth
      seas of Time, to the gentle beating of fairy and unseen minstrelsy. Truly,
      then, we were two happy children. The older children of this world,
      stimulated by stronger tastes and more lofty indulgences, may smile at the
      infantile simplicity of such resources and modes of enjoyment. They were
      childish, but perhaps not the less wise for that. Infancy lies very near
      to heaven. Childhood is a not unfit study for angels; and happy were it
      for us could we maintain the hearts and the hopes of that innocent period
      for a longer day within our bosoms. In our world we grow too fast, too
      presumptuously. We live on too rich food, moral and intellectual. The
      artifices of our tastes prove most fatally the decline of our reason. But,
      for us&mdash;we two linked hearts, so segregated from all beside&mdash;we
      certainly lived the lives of children for a while. But we were not to live
      thus always. In some worldly respects, <i>I</i> was still a child: I cared
      little for its pomps, its small honors, its puny efforts, its tinselly
      displays. But I had vices of mind&mdash;vices of my own&mdash;sufficient
      to embitter the social world where all seems now so sweet&mdash;where all,
      in truth, WAS sweet, and pure, and worthy&mdash;and which might, under
      other circumstances, have been kept so to the last. I am now to describe a
      change!
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XVII. &mdash; THE EVIL PRINCIPLE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Heretofore, I have spoken of the blind hearts of others&mdash;of Mr.
      Clifford and his wilful wife&mdash;I have yet said little to show the
      blindness of my own. This task is now before me, and, with whatever
      reluctance, the exhibition shall resolutely be made. I have described a
      couple newly wed&mdash;eminently happy&mdash;blessed with tolerable
      independence&mdash;resources from without and within&mdash;dwelling in the
      smiles of Heaven, and not uncheered by the friendly countenance of man. I
      am to display the cloud, which hangs small at first, a mere speck, but
      which is to grow to a gloomy tempest that is to swallow up the loveliness
      of the sky, and blacken with gloom and sorrow the fairest aspects of the
      earth. I am to show the worm in the bud which is to bring blight&mdash;the
      serpent in the garden which is to spoil the Eden. Wo, beyond all other
      woes, that this serpent should be engendered in one's own heart, producing
      its blindness, and finally working its bane! Yet, so it is! The story is a
      painful one to tell; the task is one of self-humiliation. But the truth
      may inform others&mdash;may warn, may strengthen, may save&mdash;before
      their hearts shall be utterly given up to that blindness which must end in
      utter desperation and irretrievable overthrow.
    </p>
    <p>
      If the reader has not been utterly unmindful of certain moral suggestions
      which have been thrown out passingly in my previous narrative, he will
      have seen that, constitutionally, I am of an ardent, impetuous temper&mdash;an
      active mind, ready, earnest, impatient of control&mdash;seeking the
      difficult for its own sake, and delighting in the conquest which is
      unexpected by others.
    </p>
    <p>
      Such a nature is usually frank and generous. It believes in the affections&mdash;it
      depends upon them. It freely gives its own, but challenges the equally
      free and spontaneous gift of yours in return. It has little faith in the
      things which fill the hearts of the mere worldlings. Worldly honors may
      delight it, but not worldly toys. It has no veneration for gewgaws. The
      shows of furniture and of dress it despises. The gorgeous equipage is an
      encumbrance to it; the imposing jewel it would not wear, lest it might
      subtract something from that homage which it prefers should be paid to the
      wearer. It is all selfish&mdash;thoroughly selfish&mdash;but not after the
      world's fashion of selfishness. It hoards nothing, and gives quite as much
      as it asks. What does it ask? What? It asks for love&mdash;devoted
      attachment; the homage of the loved one and the friends; the implicit
      confidence of all around it! Ah! can anything be more exacting? Cruelly
      exacting, if it be not worthy of that it asks!
    </p>
    <p>
      Imagine such a nature, denied from the beginning! The parents of its youth
      are gone!&mdash;the brother and the sister&mdash;the father and the
      friend! It is destitute, utterly, of these! It is also destitute of those
      resources of fortune which are supposed to be sufficient to command them.
      It is thrown upon the protection, the charge of strangers. Not strangers&mdash;no!
      From strangers, perhaps, but little could be expected. It is thrown upon
      the care of relatives&mdash;a father's brother! Could the tie be nearer?
      Not well! But it had been better if strangers had been its guardians. Then
      it might have learned to endure more patiently. At least, it would have
      felt less keenly the pangs inflicted by neglect, contumely, injustice. In
      this situation it grows up, like some sapling torn from its parent forest,
      its branches hacked off, its limbs lacerated! It grows up in a stranger
      soil. The sharp winds assail it from every quarter. But still it lives&mdash;it
      grows. It grows wildly, rudely, ungracefully; but it is strong and tough,
      in consequence of its exposure and its trials. Its vitality increases with
      every collision which shakes and rends it; until, in the pathetic language
      of relatives unhappily burdened with such encumbrances, &ldquo;it seems
      impossible to kill it!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I will not say that mine tried to kill me, but I do say that they took
      precious little care that I was not killed. The effect upon my body was
      good, however&mdash;the effect of their indifference. This roughening
      process is a part of physical training which very few parents understand.
      It is essential&mdash;should be insisted on&mdash;but it must not be
      accompanied with a moral roughening, which forces upon the mind of the
      pupil the conviction that the ordeal is meant for his destruction rather
      than for his good. There will be a recoil of the heart&mdash;a cruel
      recoil from the humanities&mdash;if such a conviction once fills the mind.
      It was this recoil which I felt! With warm affections seeking for objects
      of love&mdash;with feelings of hope and veneration, imploring for altars
      to which to attach themselves&mdash;I was commanded to go alone. The
      wilderness alone was open to me: what wonder if my heart grew wild and
      capricious even as that of the savage who dwells only amid their cheerless
      recesses? With a smile judiciously bestowed&mdash;with a kind word, a
      gentle tone, an occasional voice of earnest encouragement&mdash;my uncle
      and aunt might have fashioned my heart at their pleasure. I should have
      been as clay in the hands of the potter&mdash;a pliant willow in the grasp
      of the careful trainer. A nature constituted like mine is, of all others,
      the most flexible; but it is also, of all others, the most resisting and
      incorrigible. Approach it with a judicious regard to its affections, and
      you do with it what you please. Let it but fancy that it is the victim of
      your injustice, however slight, and the war is an interminable one between
      you!
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus did I learn the first lessons of suspiciousness. They attended me to
      the schoolhouse; they governed and made me watchful there. The
      schoolhouse, the play-places&mdash;the very regions of earnest faith and
      unlimited confidence&mdash;produced no such effects in me. They might have
      done so, had I ceased, on going to school, to see my relatives any longer.
      But the daily presence of my uncle and aunt, with their system of
      continued injustice, at length rendered my suspicious moods habitual. I
      became shy. I approached nobody, or approached them with doubt and
      watchfulness. I learned, at the earliest period, to look into character,
      to analyze conduct, to pry into the mysterious involutions of the working
      minds around me. I traced, or fancied that I traced, the performance to
      the unexpressed and secret motive in which it had its origin. I
      discovered, or believed that I discovered, that the world was divided into
      banditti and hypocrites. At that day I made little allowance for the
      existence of that larger class than all, who happen to be the victims.
      Unless this were the larger class, the other two must very much and very
      rapidly diminish. My infant philosophy did not carry me very deeply into
      the recesses of my own heart. It was enough that I felt some of its
      dearest rights to be outraged&mdash;I did not care to inquire whether it
      was altogether right itself.
    </p>
    <p>
      At length, there was a glimpse of dawn amid all this darkness. The world
      was not altogether evil. All hearts were not shut against me; and in the
      sweet smiles of Julia Clifford, in her kind attentions, soothing
      assurances, and fond entreaties, there was opportunity, at last, for my
      feelings to overflow. Like a mountain-stream long pent up, which at length
      breaks through its confinements, my affections rushed into the grateful
      channel which her pliant heart afforded me. They were wild, and strong,
      and, devoted, in proportion to their long denial and restraint. Was it not
      natural enough that I should love with no ordinary attachment&mdash;that
      my love should be an impetuous torrent&mdash;all-devoted&mdash;struggling,
      striving&mdash;rushing only in the one direction&mdash;believing, in
      truth, that there was none other in the world in which to run?
    </p>
    <p>
      This was a natural consequence of the long sophistication of my feelings.
      I knew nothing of the world&mdash;of society. I had shared in none of its
      trusts; I had only felt its exactions. Like some country-boy, or
      country-girl, for the first time brought into the great world, I
      surrendered myself wholly to the first gratified impulse. I made no
      conditions, no qualifications. I set all my hopes of heart upon a single
      cast of the die, and did not ask what might be the consequences if the
      throw was unfortunate.
    </p>
    <p>
      One of the good effects of a free communication of the young with society
      is, to lessen the exacting nature of the affections. People who live too
      much to themselves&mdash;in their own centre, and for their own single
      objects&mdash;become fastidious to disease. They ask too much from their
      neighbors. Willing to surrender their OWN affections at a glance, they
      fancy the world wanting in sensibility when they find that their readiness
      in this respect fails to produce a corresponding readiness in others. This
      is the natural history of that enthusiasm which is thrown back upon itself
      and is chilled by denial. The complaint of coldness and selfishness
      against the world is very common among very young or very inexperienced
      men. The world gets a bad character, simply because it refuses to lavish
      its affections along the highways&mdash;simply because it is cautious in
      giving its trusts, and expects proofs of service and actual sympathy
      rather than professions. Men like myself, of a warm, impetuous nature,
      complain of the heartlessness of mankind. They fancy themselves peculiarly
      the victims of an unkind destiny in this respect; and finally cut their
      throats in a moment of frenzy, or degenerate into a cynicism that delights
      in contradictions, in sarcasms, in self-torture, and the bitterest
      hostility to their neighbors.
    </p>
    <p>
      Society itself is the only and best corrective of this unhappy
      disposition. The first gift to the young, therefore, should be the gift of
      society. By this word society, however, I do not mean a set, a clique, a
      pitiable little circle. Let the sphere of movement be sufficiently
      extended&mdash;as large as possible&mdash;that the means of observation
      and thought may be sufficiently comprehensive, and no influences from one
      man or one family shall be suffered to give the bias to the immature mind
      and inexperienced judgment. In society like this, the errors, prejudices,
      weaknesses, of one man, are corrected by a totally opposite form of
      character in another. The mind of the youth hesitates. Hesitation brings
      circumspection, watchfulness; watchfulness, discrimination;
      discrimination, choice; and a capacity to choose implies the attainment of
      a certain degree of deliberateness and judgment with which the youth may
      be permitted to go upon his way, supposed to be provided for in the
      difficult respect of being able henceforward to take care of himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      I had no society&mdash;knew nothing of society&mdash;saw it at a distance,
      under suspicious circumstances, and was myself an object of its suspicion.
      Its attractions were desirable to me, but seemed unattainable. It required
      some sacrifices to obtain its entrée, and these sacrifices were the very
      ones which my independence would not allow me to make. My independence was
      my treasure, duly valued in proportion to the constant strife by which it
      was assailed. I had that! THAT could not be taken from me. THAT kept me
      from sinking into the slave the tool, the sycophant, perhaps the brute;
      THAT prompted me to hard study in secret places; THAT strengthened my
      heart, when, desolate and striving against necessity, I saw nothing of the
      smiles of society, and felt nothing of the bounties of life. Then came my
      final emancipation&mdash;my success&mdash;my triumph! My independence was
      assailed no longer. My talents were no longer doubted or denied. My
      reluctant neighbors sent in their adhesion. My uncle forbore his sneers.
      Lastly, and now&mdash;Julia was mine! My heart's desires were all
      gratified as completely as my mind's ambition!
    </p>
    <p>
      Was I happy? The inconsiderate mind will suppose this very probable&mdash;will
      say, I should be. But evil seeds that are planted in the young heart grow
      up with years&mdash;not so rapidly or openly as to offend&mdash;and grow
      to be poisonous weeds with maturity. My feelings were too devoted, too
      concentrative, too all-absorbing, to leave me happy, even when they seemed
      gratified. The man who has but a single jewel in the world, is very apt to
      labor under a constant apprehension of its loss. He who knows but one
      object of attachment&mdash;whose heart's devotion turns evermore but to
      one star of all the countless thousands in the heavens&mdash;wo is he, if
      that star be shrouded from his gaze in the sudden overflow of storms!&mdash;still
      more wo is he, when that star withdraws, or seems to withdraw, its
      corresponding gaze, or turns it elsewhere upon another worshipper! See you
      not the danger which threatened me? See you not that, never having been
      beloved before&mdash;never having loved but the one&mdash;I loved that one
      with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength; and required
      from that one the equal love of heart, soul, strength? See you not that my
      love&mdash;linked with impatient mind, imperious blood, impetuous
      enthusiasm, and suspicious fear&mdash;was a devotion exacting as the grave&mdash;searching
      as fever&mdash;as jealous of the thing whose worship it demands as God is
      said to be of ours?
    </p>
    <p>
      Mine was eminently a jealous heart! On this subject of jealousy, men
      rarely judge correctly. They speak of Othello as jealous&mdash;Othello,
      one of the least jealous of all human natures! Jealousy is a quality that
      needs no cause. It makes its own cause. It will find or make occasion for
      its exercise, in the most innocent circumstances. The PROOFS that made
      Othello wretched and revengeful, were sufficient to have deceived any jury
      under the sun. He had proofs. He had a strong case to go upon. It would
      have influenced any judgment. He did not seek or find these proofs for
      himself. He did not wish to find them. He was slow to see them. His was
      not jealousy. His error was that of pride and self-esteem. He was outraged
      in both. His mistake was in being too prompt of action in a case which
      admitted of deliberation. This was the error of a proud man, a soldier,
      prompt to decide, prompt to act, and to punish if necessary. But never was
      human character less marked by a jealous mood than that of Othello. His
      great self-esteem was, of itself, a sufficient security against jealousy.
      Mine might have been, had it not been so terribly diseased by
      ill-training.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XVIII. &mdash; PRESENTIMENTS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Without apprehending the extent of my own weakness, the forms that it
      would take, or the tyrannies that it would inflict, I was still not
      totally uninformed on the subject of my peculiar character; and, fearing
      then rather that I might pain my wife by some of its wanton
      demonstrations, than that she would ever furnish me with, an occasion for
      them, I took an opportunity, a few evenings after our marriage, to suggest
      to her the necessity of regarding my outbreaks with an indulgent eye.
    </p>
    <p>
      My heart had been singularly softened by the most touching associations.
      We sat together in our piazza, beneath a flood of the richest and balmiest
      moonlight, screened only from its silvery blaze by interposing masses of
      the woodbine, mingled with shoots of oleander, arbor-vitae, and other
      shrub-trees. The mild breath of evening sufficed only to lift quiveringly
      their green leaves and glowing blossoms, to stir the hair upon our cheeks,
      and give to the atmosphere that wooing freshness which seems so necessary
      a concomitant of the moonlight. The hand of Julia was in mine. There were
      few words spoken between us; love has its own sufficing language, and is
      content with that consciousness that all is right which implores no other
      assurances. Julia had just risen from the piano: we had both been touched
      with a deeper sense of the thousand harmonies in nature, by listening to
      those of Rossini; and now, gazing upon some transparent, fleecy, white
      clouds that were slowly pressing forward in the path of the moonlight, as
      if in duteous attendance upon some maiden queen, our mutual minds were
      busied in framing pictures from the fine yet fantastic forms that glowed,
      gathering on our gaze. I felt the hand of Julia trembling in my own. Her
      head sank upon my shoulder; I felt a warm drop fall from her eyes upon my
      hand, and exclaimed&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Julia, you weep! wherefore do you weep, dear wife?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;With joy, my husband! My heart is full of joy. I am so happy, I can only
      weep. Ah! tears alone speak for the true happiness.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! would it last, Julia&mdash;would it last!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, doubt not that it will last. Why should it not t What have we to
      fear?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Mine was a serious nature. I answered sadly, if not gloomily:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Because it is a joy of life that we feel, and it must share the
      vicissitudes of life.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;True, true, but love is a joy of eternal life as well as of this.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a beautiful and consoling truth in this one little sentence,
      which my self-absorption was too great, at the time, to suffer me to see.
      Perhaps even she herself was not fully conscious of the glorious and
      pregnant truth which lay at the bottom of what she said. Love is, indeed,
      not merely a joy of eternal life: it is THE joy of eternal life!&mdash;its
      particular joy&mdash;a dim shadow of which we sometimes feel in this&mdash;pure,
      lasting, comparatively perfect, the more it approaches, in its
      performances and its desires, the divine essence, of which it is so poor a
      likeness. We should so live, so love, as to make the one run into the
      other, even as a small river runs down, through a customary channel, into
      the great deeps of the sea. Death should be to the affections a mere
      channel through which they pass into a natural, a necessary condition,
      where their streams flow with more freedom, and over which, harmoniously
      controlling, as powerful, the spirit of love broods ever with &ldquo;dovelike
      wings outspread.&rdquo; I answered, still gloomily, in the customary world
      commonplaces:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We must expect the storm. It will not be moonlight always. We must look
      for the cloud. Age, sickness, death!&mdash;ah! do these not follow on our
      footsteps, ever unerring, certain always, but so often rapid? Soon, how
      soon, they haunt us in the happiest moments&mdash;they meet us at every
      corner! They never altogether leave us.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Enough, dear husband. Dwell not upon these gloomy thoughts. Ah! why
      should you&mdash;NOW?'
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I will not; but there are others, Julia.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What others? Evils?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sadder evils yet than these.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, no!&mdash;I hope not.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Coldness of the once warm heart. The chill of affection in the loved one.
      Estrangement&mdash;indifference!&mdash;ah, Julia!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Impossible, Edward! This can not, MUST not be, with us You do not think
      that I could be cold to you; and you&mdash;ah! surely YOU will never cease
      to love me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Never, I trust, never!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! you must not&mdash;SHALL not. Oh, Edward, let me die first before
      such a fear should fill my breast. You I love, as none was loved before.
      Without your love, I am nothing. If I can not hang upon you, where can I
      hang?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And she clung to me with a grasp as if life and death depended on it,
      while her sobs, as from a full heart, were insuppressible in spite of all
      her efforts.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fear nothing, dearest Julia: do you not believe that I love you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! if I did not, Edward&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is with you always to make me love you. You are as completely the
      mistress of my whole heart as if it had acknowledged no laws but yours
      from the beginning.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What am I to do, dear Edward?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Forbear&mdash;be indulgent&mdash;pity me and spare me!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What mean you, Edward?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That heart which is all and only yours, Julia, is yet, I am assured, a
      wilful and an erring heart! I feel that it is strange, wayward, sometimes
      unjust to others, frequently to itself. It is a cross-grained, capricious
      heart; you will find its exactions irksome.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, I know it better. You wrong yourself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! In the solemn sweetness of this hour, dear Julia&mdash;now, while all
      things are sweet to our eyes, all things dear to our affections&mdash;I
      feel a chill of doubt and apprehension come over me. I am so happy&mdash;so
      unusually happy&mdash;that I can not feel sure that I am so&mdash;that my
      happiness will continue long. I will try, on my own part, to do nothing by
      which to risk its loss. But I feel that I am too wilful, at times, to be
      strong in keeping a resolution which is so very necessary to our mutual
      happiness. You must help&mdash;you must strengthen me, Julia.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, yes! but how? I will do anything&mdash;be anything.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am capricious, wayward; at times, full of injustice. Love me not less
      that I am so&mdash;that I sometimes show this waywardness to you&mdash;that
      I sometimes do injustice to your love. Bear with me till the dark mood
      passes from my heart. I have these moods, or have had them, frequently. It
      may be&mdash;I trust it will be&mdash;that, blessed with your love, and
      secure in its possession, there will be no room in my heart for such ugly
      feelings. But I know not. They sometimes take supreme possession of me.
      They seize upon me in all places. They wrap my spirit as in a cloud. I sit
      apart. I scowl upon those around me. I feel moved to say bitter things&mdash;to
      shoot darts in defiance at every glance&mdash;to envenom every sentence
      which I speak. These are cruel moods. I have striven vainly to shake them
      off. They have grown up with my growth&mdash;have shared in whatever
      strength I have; and, while they embitter my own thoughts and happiness, I
      dread that they will fling their shadow upon yours!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She replied with gayety, with playfulness, but there was an effort in it.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, you make the matter worse than it is. I suppose all that troubles you
      is the blues. But you will never have them again. When I see them coming
      on I will sit by you and sing to you. We will come out here and watch the
      evening; or you shall read to me, or we will ramble in the garden&mdash;or&mdash;a
      thousand things which shall make you forget that there was ever such a
      thing in the world as sorrow.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Dear Julia&mdash;will you do this?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;More&mdash;everything to make you happy.&rdquo; And she drew me closer in her
      embrace, and her lips with a tremulous, almost convulsive sweetness, were
      pressed upon my forehead; and clinging there, oh! how sweetly did she
      weep!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You will tire of my waywardness&mdash;of my exactions. Ah! I shall force
      you from my side by my caprice.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You can not, Edward, if you would,&rdquo; she replied, in mournful accents like
      my own, &ldquo;I have no remedy against you! I have nobody now to whom to turn.
      Have <i>I</i> not driven all from my side&mdash;all but you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was my task to soothe her now.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nay, Julia, be not you sorrowful. You must continue glad and blest, that
      you may conquer my sullen moods, my dark presentiments. When I tell you of
      the evils of my temper, I tell you of occasional clouds only. Heaven
      forbid that they should give an enduring aspect to our heavens!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She responded fervently to my ejaculation. I continued:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have only sought to prepare you for the management of my arbitrary
      nature, to keep you from suffering too much, and sinking beneath its
      exactions. You will bear with me patiently. Forgive me for my evil hours.
      Wait till the storm has overblown; and find me your own, then, as much as
      before; and let me feel that you are still mine&mdash;that the tempest has
      not separated our little vessels.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Will I not? Ah! do not fear for me, Edward. It is a happiness for me to
      weep here&mdash;here, in your arms. When you are sad and moody, I will
      come as now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What if I repulse you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You will not&mdash;no, no!&mdash;you will not.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But if I do I Suppose&mdash;-&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! it is hard to suppose that. But I will not heed it. I will come
      again.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And again?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And again!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Then you will conquer, Julia. I feel that you will conquer! You will
      drive out the devils. Surely, then, I shall be incorrigible no longer.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Such was my conviction then. I little knew myself.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XIX. &mdash; DISTRUST.
    </h2>
    <p>
      I little knew myself! This knowledge of one's self is the most important
      knowledge, which very few of us acquire. We seldom look into our own
      hearts for other objects than those which will administer to their petty
      vanities and passing triumphs. Could we only look there sometimes for the
      truth! But we are blind&mdash;blind all! In some respects I was one of the
      blindest!
    </p>
    <p>
      I have given a brief glimpse of our honeymoon. Perhaps, as the world goes,
      the picture is by no means an attractive one. Quiet felicity forms but a
      small item in the sources of happiness, now-a-days, among young couples.
      Mine was sufficiently quiet and sufficiently humble. One would suppose
      that he who builds so lowly should have no reason to apprehend the
      hurricane. Social ambition was clearly no object with either of us. We
      sighed neither for the glitter nor the regards of fashionable life.
      Neither upon fine houses, jewels, or equipages, did we set our hearts. For
      the pleasures of the table I had no passion, and never was young woman so
      thoroughly regardless of display as Julia Clifford. To be let alone&mdash;to
      be suffered to escape in our own way, unharming, unharmed, through the dim
      avenues of life&mdash;was assuredly all that we asked from man. Perhaps&mdash;I
      say it without cant&mdash;this, perhaps, was all that we possibly asked
      from heaven. This was all that I asked, at least, and this was much. It
      was asking what had never yet been accorded to humanity. In the vain
      assumption of my heart I thought that my demands were moderate.
    </p>
    <p>
      Let no man console himself with the idea that his chances of success are
      multiplied in degree with the insignificance, or seeming insignificance,
      of his aims. Perhaps the very reverse of this is the truth. He who seeks
      for many objects of enjoyment&mdash;whose tastes are diversified&mdash;has
      probably the very best prospect that some of them may be gratified. He is
      like the merchant whose ventures on the sea are divided among many
      vessels. He may lose one or more, yet preserve the main bulk of his
      fortune from the wreck. But he who has only a single bark&mdash;one
      freightage, however costly&mdash;whose whole estate is invested in the one
      venture&mdash;let him lose that, and all is lost. It does not matter that
      his loss, speaking relatively, is but little. Suppose his shipment, in
      general estimation, to be of small value. The loss to him is so much the
      greater. It was the dearer to him because of its insignificance, and being
      all that he had; is quite as conclusive of his ruin, as would be the
      foundering of every vessel which the rich merchant sent to sea.
    </p>
    <p>
      I was one of these petty traders. I invested my whole capital of the
      affections in one precious jewel. Did I lose it, or simply fear its loss?
      Time must show. But, of a truth, I felt as the miser feels with his
      hoarded treasure. While I watched its richness and beauty, doubts and
      dread beset me. Was it safe? Everything depended upon its security.
      Thieves might break in and steal. Enough, for the present, to say, that
      much of my security, and of the security of all who, like me, possess a
      dear treasure, depends upon our convictions of security. He who apprehends
      loss, is already robbed. The reality is scarcely worse than the hourly
      anticipation of it.
    </p>
    <p>
      My friends naturally became the visitors of my family. Certain of the late
      Mrs. Clifford's friends were also ours. Our circle was sufficiently large
      for those who already knew how to distinguish between the safe pleasures
      of a small set, and the horse-play and heartless enjoyments of fashionable
      jams. Were we permitted in this world to live only for ourselves, we
      should have been perfectly gratified had this been even less. We should
      have been very well content to have gone on from day to day without ever
      beholding the shadow of a stranger upon our threshold.
    </p>
    <p>
      This was not permitted, however. We had a round of congratulatory visits.
      Among those who came, the first were the old, long-tried friends to whom I
      owed so much&mdash;the Edgertons. No family could have been more truly
      amiable than this; and William Edgerton was the most amiable of the
      family. I have already said enough to persuade the reader that he was a
      very worthy man. He was more. He was a principled one. Not very highly
      endowed, perhaps, he was yet an intelligent gentleman. None could be more
      modest in expression&mdash;none less obtrusive in deportment&mdash;none
      more generous in service. The defects in his character were organic&mdash;not
      moral. He had no vices&mdash;no vulgarities. But his temperament was an
      inactive one. He was apt to be sluggish, and when excited was nervous. He
      was not irritable, but easily discomposed. His tastes were active at the
      expense of his genius. With ability, he was yet unperforming. His
      standards were morbidly fastidious. Fearing to fall below them, he
      desisted until the moment of action was passed for ever; and the feeling
      of his own weakness, in this respect, made him often sad, but to do him
      justice, never querulous.
    </p>
    <p>
      With a person so constituted, the delicate tastes and sensibilities are
      like to be indulged in a very high degree. William Edgerton loved music
      and all the quiet arts. Painting was his particular delight. He himself
      sketched with great spirit. He had the happy eye for the tout ensemble in
      a fine landscape. He knew exactly how much to take in and what to leave
      out, in the delineation of a lovely scene. This is a happy talent for
      discrimination which the ordinary artist does not possess. It is the
      capacity which, in the case of orators and poets, informs them of the
      precise moment when they should stop. It is the happiest sort of judgment,
      since, though the artist may be neither very excellent in drawing, nor
      very felicitous in color, it enables him always to bestow a certain
      propriety on his picture which compensates, to a certain degree, for
      inferiority in other respects. To know how to grasp objects with spirit,
      and bestow them with a due regard to mutual dependence, is one of the most
      exquisite faculties of the landscape-painter.
    </p>
    <p>
      William Edgerton, had he been forced by necessity to have made the art of
      painting his profession would have made for himself a reputation of no
      inferior kind. But amateur art, like amateur literature, rarely produces
      any admirable fruits. Complete success only attends the devotee to the
      muse. The worship must be exclusive at her altar; the attendance constant
      and unremitting. There must be no partial, no divided homage. She is a
      jealous mistress, like all the rest. The lover of her charms, if he would
      secure her smiles, must be a professor at her shrine. He can not come and
      go at pleasure. She resents such impertinence by neglect. In plain terms,
      the fine arts must be made a business by those who desire their favor.
      Like law, divinity, physic, they constitute a profession of their own;
      require the same diligent endeavor, close study, fond pursuit! William
      Edgerton loved painting, but his business was the law. He loved painting
      too much to love his profession. He gave too much of his time to the law
      to be a successful painter&mdash;too much time to painting to be a lawyer.
      He was nothing! At the bar he never rose a step after the first day, when,
      together, we appeared in our mutual maiden case; and contenting himself
      with the occasional execution of a landscape, sketchy and bold, but
      without finish, he remained in that nether-land of public consideration,
      unable to grasp the certainties of either pursuit at which he nevertheless
      was constantly striving; striving, however, with that qualified degree of
      effort, which, if it never could secure the prize, never could fatigue him
      much with the endeavor to do so.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was perfectly delighted when he first saw some of the sketches of my
      wife. He had none of that little jealousy which so frequently impairs the
      temper and the worth of amateurs. He could admire without prejudice, and
      praise without reserve. He praised them. He evidently admired them. He
      sought every occasion to see them, and omitted none in which to declare
      his opinion of their merits. This, in the first pleasant season of my
      marriage&mdash;when the leaves were yet green and fresh upon the tree of
      love&mdash;was grateful to my feelings. I felt happy to discover that my
      judgment had not erred in the selection of my wife. I stimulated her
      industry that I might listen to my friend's eulogy. I suggested subjects
      for her pencil. I fitted up an apartment especially as a studio for her
      use. I bought her some fine studies, lay figures, heads in marble and
      plaster; and lavished, in this way, the small surplus fund which had
      heretofore accrued from my professional industry, and that personal
      frugality with which it was accompanied.
    </p>
    <p>
      William Edgerton was now for ever at our house. He brought his own
      pictures for the inspection of my wife. He sometimes painted in her
      studio. He devised rural and aquatic parties with sole reference to
      landscape scenery and delineation; and indifferent to the law always, he
      now abandoned himself almost entirely to those tastes which seemed to have
      acquired of a sudden, the strangest and the strongest impulse.
    </p>
    <p>
      In this&mdash;at least for a considerable space of time&mdash;I saw
      nothing very remarkable. I knew his tastes previously. I had seen how
      little disposed he was to grapple earnestly with the duties of his
      profession; and did not conceive it surprising, that, with family
      resources sufficient to yield him pecuniary independence, he should
      surrender himself up to the luxurious influence of tastes which were
      equally lovely in themselves, and natural to the first desires of his
      mind. But when for days he was missed from his office&mdash;when the very
      hours of morning which are most religiously devoted by the profession to
      its ostensible if not earnest pursuit, were yielded up to the easel&mdash;and
      when, overlooking the boundaries which, according to the conventional
      usage, made such a course improper, he passed many of these mornings at my
      house, during my absence, I began to entertain feelings of disquietude.
    </p>
    <p>
      For these I had then no name. The feelings were vague and indefinable, but
      not the less unpleasant. I did not fancy for a moment that I was wronged,
      or likely to be wronged, but I felt that he was doing wrong. Then, too, I
      had my misgivings of what the world would think! I did not fancy that he
      had any design to wrong me; but there seemed to me a cruel want of
      consideration in his conduct. But what annoyed me most was, that Julia
      should receive him at such periods He was thoughtless, enthusiastic in
      art, and thoughtless, perhaps, in consequence of his enthusiasm. But I
      expected that she should think for both of us in such a case. Women,
      alone, can be the true guardians of appearances where they themselves are
      concerned; and it was matter of painful surprise to me that she should not
      have asked herself the question: &ldquo;What will the neighbors think, during my
      husband's absence, to see a stranger, a young man, coming to visit me with
      periodical regularity, morning after morning?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      That she did not ask herself this question should have been a very strong
      argument to show me that her thoughts were all innocent. But there is a
      terrible truth in what Caesar said of his wife's reputation: &ldquo;She must be
      free from suspicion.&rdquo; She must not only do nothing wrong, but she must not
      suffer or do anything which might incur the suspicion of wrong doing.
      There is nothing half so sensible to the breath of calumny, as female
      reputation, particularly in regions of high civilization, where women are
      raised to an artificial rank of respect, which obviates, in most part, the
      obligations of their dependence upon man, but increases, in due
      proportion, some of their responsibilities to him. Poor Julia had no
      circumspection, because she had no feeling of evil. I believe she was
      purity itself; I equally believe that William Edgerton was quite incapable
      of evil design. But when I came from my office, the first morning that he
      had thus passed at my house in my absence, and she told me that he had
      been there, and how the time had been spent, I felt a pang, like a sharp
      arrow, suddenly rush into my brain. Julia had no reserve in telling me
      this fact. It was a subject she seemed pleased to dwell upon. She narrated
      with the earnest, unseeing spirit of a self-satisfied child, the sort of
      conversation which had taken place between them&mdash;praised Edgerton's
      taste, his delicacy, his subdued, persuasive manners, and showed herself
      as utterly unsophisticated as any Swiss mountain-girl who voluntarily
      yields the traveller a kiss, and tells her mother of it afterward. I
      listened with chilled manners and a troubled mind.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are unwell, Edward,&rdquo; she remarked tenderly, approaching and throwing
      her arms around my neck, as she perceived the gradual gathering of that
      cloud upon my brows.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why do you think so, Julia?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, you look so sad&mdash;almost severe, Edward, and your words are so
      few and cold. Have I offended you, dear Edward?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I was confused at this direct question. I felt annoyed, ashamed. I pleaded
      headache in justification of my manner&mdash;it did ache, and my heart,
      too, but not with the ordinary pang; and I felt a warm blush suffuse my
      cheek, as I yielded to the first suggestion which prompted me to deceive
      my wife.
    </p>
    <p>
      A large leading step was thus taken, and progress was easy afterward.
    </p>
    <p>
      Oh! sweet spirit of confidence, thou only true saint, more needful than
      all, to bind the ties of kindred and affection! why art thou so prompt to
      fly at the approach of thy cold, dark enemy, distrust? Why dost thou yield
      the field with so little struggle? Why, when the things, dearest to thee
      of all in the world's gift&mdash;its most valued treasure, its purest,
      sweetest, and proudest trophies&mdash;why, when these are the stake which
      is to reward thy courage, thy adherence, to compensate thee for trial, to
      console thee for loss and outrage&mdash;why is it that thou art so ready
      to despond of the cause so dear to thee, and forfeit the conquest by which
      alone thy whole existence is made sweet. This is the very suicide of self.
      Fearful of loss, we forsake the prize, which we have won; and hearkening
      to the counsel of a natural enemy, eat of that bitter fruit which banishes
      for ever from our lips the sweet savor which we knew before, and without
      which, no savor that is left is sweet.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XX. &mdash; PROGRESS OF THE EVIL SPIRIT.
    </h2>
    <p>
      If I felt so deeply annoyed at the first morning visit which William
      Edgerton paid to my wife, what was my annoyance when these visits became
      habitual. I was miserable but could not complain. I was ashamed of the
      language of complaint on such a subject. There is something very
      ridiculous in the idea of a jealous husband&mdash;it has always provoked
      the laughter of the world; and I was one of those men who shrunk from
      ridicule with a more than mortal dread. Besides, I really felt no alarm. I
      had the utmost confidence in my wife's virtue. I had not the less
      confidence in that of Edgerton. But I was jealous of her deference&mdash;of
      her regard&mdash;for another. She was, in my eyes, as something sacred,
      set apart&mdash;a treasure exclusively my own! Should it be that another
      should come to divide her veneration with me? I was vexed that she should
      derive satisfaction from another source than myself. This satisfaction she
      derived from the visits of Edgerton. She freely avowed it.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How amiable&mdash;how pleasant he is,&rdquo; she would say, in the perfect
      innocence of her heart; &ldquo;and really, Edward, he has so much talent!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      These praises annoyed me. They were as so much wormwood to my spirit. It
      must be remembered that I was not myself what the world calls an amiable
      man. I doubt if any, even of my best friends, would describe me as a
      pleasant one. I was a man of too direct and earnest a temperament to
      establish a claim, in reasonable degree, to either of these
      characteristics. I was, accordingly, something blunt in my address&mdash;the
      tones of my voice were loud&mdash;my manner was all empressement, except
      when I was actually angry, and then it was cold hard, dry, inflexible. I
      was the last person in the world to pass for an amiable. Now, Julia, on
      the other hand, was quiet, subdued, timorous&mdash;the tones of a strong,
      decided voice startled her&mdash;she shrunk from controversy&mdash;yielded
      always with a happy grace in anticipation of the conflict, and showed, in
      all respects, that nice, almost nervous organization which attaches the
      value of principles and morals to mere manners, and would be as much
      shocked, perhaps, at the expression of a rudeness, as at the commission of
      a sin. Not that such persons would hold a sin to be less criminal or
      innocuous than would we ourselves; but that they regard mere conduct as of
      so much more importance.
    </p>
    <p>
      When, therefore, she praised William Edgerton for those qualities which I
      well knew I did not possess, I could not resist the annoyance. My
      self-esteem&mdash;continually active&mdash;stimulated as it had been by
      the constant moral strife, to which it had been subjected from boyhood&mdash;was
      continually apprehending disparagement. Of the purity of Julia's heart,
      and the chastity of her conduct, the very freedom of her utterance was
      conclusive. Had she felt one single improper emotion toward William
      Edgerton, her lips would never have voluntarily uttered his name, and
      never in the language of applause. On this head I had not then the
      slightest apprehension. It was not jealousy so much as EGOISME that was
      preying upon me. Whatever it was, however, it could not be repressed as I
      listened to the eulogistic language of my wife. I strove, but could not
      subdue, altogether, the evil spirit which was fast becoming predominant
      within me. Yet, though speaking under its immediate influence, I was very
      far from betraying its true nature. My egoisme had not yet made such
      advances as to become reckless and incautious. I surprised her by my
      answer to her eulogies.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have no doubt he is amiable&mdash;he is amiable&mdash;but that is not
      enough for a man. He must be something more than amiable, if he would
      escape the imputation of being feeble&mdash;something more if he would be
      anything!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Julia looked at me with eyes of profound and dilating astonishment. Having
      got thus far, it was easy to advance. The first step is half the journey
      in all such cases.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;William Edgerton is a little too amiable, perhaps, for his own good. It
      makes him listless and worthless. He will do nothing at pictures, wasting
      his time only when he should be at his business.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But did I not understand you, Edward, that he was a man of fortune, and
      independent of his profession?&rdquo; she answered timidly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Even that will not justify a man in becoming a trifler. No man should
      waste his time in painting, unless he makes a trade of it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But his leisure, Edward,&rdquo; suggested Julia, with a look of increasing
      timidity.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;His leisure, indeed, Julia;&mdash;but he has been here all day&mdash;day
      after day. If painting is such a passion with him, let him abandon law and
      take to it. But he should not pursue one art while processing another. It
      is as if a man hankered after that which he yet lacked the courage to
      challenge and pursue openly.'
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't think you love pictures as you used to, Edward,&rdquo; she remarked to
      me, after a little interval passed in unusual silence.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Perhaps it is because I have matters of more consequence to attend to.
      YOU seem sufficiently devoted to them now to excuse my indifference.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Surely, dear Edward, something I have done vexes you. Tell me, husband.
      Do not spare me. Say, in what have I offended?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I had not the courage to be ingenuous. Ah! if I had!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nay, you have not offended,&rdquo; I answered hastily&mdash;&ldquo;I am only worried
      with some unmanageable thoughts. The law, you know, is full of provoking,
      exciting, irritating necessities.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She looked at ne with a kind but searching glance. My soul seemed to
      shrink from that scrutiny. My eyes sunk beneath her gaze.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I wish I knew how to console you, Edward: to make you entirely happy. I
      pray for it, Edward. I thought we were always to be so happy. Did you not
      promise me that you would always leave your cares at your office&mdash;that
      our cottage should be sacred to love and peace only?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She put her arms about my neck, and looked into my face with such a sweet,
      strange, persuasive smile&mdash;half mirth, half sadness&mdash;that the
      evil spirit was subdued within me. I clasped her fervently in my embrace,
      with all my old feelings of confidence and joy renewed. At this moment the
      servant announced Mr. Edgerton, and with a start&mdash;a movement&mdash;scarcely
      as gentle as it should have been, I put the fond and still beloved woman
      from my embrace!
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXI. &mdash; CHANGES OF HOME.
    </h2>
    <p>
      From this time my intercourse with William Edgerton was, on my part, one
      of the most painful and difficult constraint. I had nothing to reproach
      him with; no grounds whatever for quarrel; and could not, in his case&mdash;regarding
      the long intimacy which I had maintained with himself and father, and the
      obligations which were due from me to both&mdash;adopt such a manner of
      reserve and distance as to produce the result of indifference and
      estrangement which I now anxiously desired. I was still compelled to meet
      him&mdash;meet him, too, with an affectation of good feeling and good
      humor, which I soon found it, of all things in the world, the most
      difficult even to pretend. How much would I have given could he only have
      provoked me to anger on any ground&mdash;could he have given me an
      occasion for difference of any sort or to any degree&mdash;anything which
      could have justified a mutual falling off from the old intimacy! But
      William Edgerton was meekness and kindness itself. His confidence in me
      was of the most unobservant, suspicionless character; either that, or I
      succeeded better than I thought in the effort to maintain the external
      aspects of old friendship. He saw nothing of change in my deportment. He
      seemed not to see it, at least; and came as usual, or more frequently than
      usual, to my house, until, at length, the studio of my wife was quite as
      much his as hers&mdash;nay, more; for, after a brief space, whether it was
      that Julia saw what troubled me, or felt herself the imprudence of
      Edgerton's conduct, she almost entirely surrendered it to him. She was not
      now so often to be seen in it.
    </p>
    <p>
      This proceeding alarmed me. I dreaded lest my secret should be discovered.
      I was shocked lest my wife should suppose me jealous. The feeling is one
      which carries with it a sufficiently severe commentary, in the fact that
      most men are heartily ashamed to be thought to suffer from it. But, if it
      vexed me to think that she should know or suspect the truth, how much more
      was I troubled lest it should be seen or suspected by others! This fear
      led to new circumspection. I now affected levities of demeanor and remark;
      studiously absented myself from home of an evening, leaving my wife with
      Edgerton, or any other friend who happened to be present; and, though I
      began no practices of profligacy, such as are common to young scapegraces
      in all times, I yet, to some moderate extent, affected them.
    </p>
    <p>
      A tone of sadness now marked the features of my wife. There was an
      expression of anxiety in her countenance, which, amid all her previous
      sufferings, I had never seen there before. She did not complain; but
      sometimes, when we sat alone together, I reading, perhaps, and she sewing,
      she would drop her work in her lap, and sigh suddenly and deeply, as if
      the first shadows of the upgathering gloom were beginning to cloud her
      young and innocent spirit, and force her apprehensions into utterance.
      This did not escape me, but I read its signification, as witches are said
      to read the Bible, backward. A gloomier fancy filled my brain as I heard
      her unconscious sigh.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is the language of regret. She laments our marriage. She could have
      found another, surely, who could have made her happier. Perhaps, had
      Edgerton and herself known each other intimately before!&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Dark, perverse imagining! It crushed me. I felt, I can not tell, what
      bitterness. Let no one suppose that I endured less misery than I
      inflicted. The miseries of the damned could not have exceeded mine in some
      of the moments when these cruel conjectures filled my mind. Then followed
      some such proofs as these of the presence of the Evil One:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You sigh, Julia. You are unhappy.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Unhappy? no, dear Edward, not unhappy! What makes you think so?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What makes you sigh, then?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I do not know. I am certainly not unhappy. Did I sigh, Edward?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, and seemingly from the very bottom of your heart. I fear, Julia,
      that you are not happy; nay, I am sure you are not! I feel that I am not
      the man to make you happy. I am a perverse&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;'Nay, Edward, now you speak so strangely, and your brow is stern, and
      your tones tremble! What can it be afflicts you? You are angry at
      something, dear Edward. Surely, it can not be with me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And if it were, Julia, I am afraid it would give you little concern.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now, Edward, you are cruel. You do me wrong. You do yourself wrong. Why
      should you suppose that it would give me little concern to see you angry?
      So far from this, I should regard it as the greatest misery which I had to
      suffer. Do not speak so, dearest Edward&mdash;do not fancy such things.
      Believe me, my husband, when I tell you that I know nothing half so dear
      to me as your love&mdash;nothing that I would not sacrifice with a
      pleasure, to secure, to preserve THAT!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! would you give up painting?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Painting! that were a small sacrifice! I worked at it only because you
      used to like it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What, you think I do not like it now?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I KNOW you do not.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you paint still?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! I have not handled brush or pencil for a week. Mr. Edgerton was
      reproaching me only yesterday for my neglect.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, indeed! Well, you promised him to resume, did you not? He is a rare
      persuader! He is so amiable, so mild&mdash;you could not well resist.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was from her face that I formed a rational conjecture of the expression
      that must have appeared in mine. Her eyes dilated with a look of timid
      wonder, not unmixed with apprehension. She actually shrunk back a space;
      then, approaching, laid her hand upon my wrist, as she exclaimed:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;God of heaven, Edward, what strange thought is in your bosom? what is the
      meaning of that look? Look not so again, if you would not kill me!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I averted my face from hers, but without speaking. She threw her arms
      around my neck.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do not turn away from me, Edward. Do not, do not, I entreat you! You must
      not&mdash;no! not till you tell me what is troubling you&mdash;not till I
      soothe you, and make you love me again as much as you did at first.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      When I turned to her again, the tears&mdash;hot, scalding tears&mdash;were
      already streaming down my cheeks.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Julia, God knows I love you! Never woman yet was more devotedly loved by
      man! I love you too much&mdash;too deeply&mdash;too entirely! Alas, I love
      nothing else!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say not that you love me too much&mdash;that can not be! Do I not love
      you&mdash;you only, you altogether? Should I not have your whole love in
      return?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, Julia! but my love is a convulsive eagerness of soul&mdash;a passion
      that knows no limit! It is not that my heart is entirely yours: it is that
      it is yours with a frenzied desperation. There is a fanaticism in love as
      in religion. My love is that fanaticism. It burns&mdash;it commands&mdash;where
      yours would but soothe and solicit.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But is mine the less true&mdash;the less valuable for this, dear Edward?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, perhaps not! It may be even more true, more valuable; it may be only
      less intense. But fanaticism, you know, is exacting&mdash;nothing more so.
      It permits no half-passion, no moderate zeal. It insists upon devotion
      like its own. Ah, Julia, could you but love as I do!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I love you all, Edward, all that I can, and as it belongs in my nature to
      love. But I am a woman, and a timid one, you know. I am not capable of
      that wild passion which you feel. Were I to indulge it, it would most
      certainly destroy me. Even as it sometimes appears in you, it terrifies
      and unnerves me. You are so impetuous!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, you would have only the meek, the amiable!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And thus, with an implied sarcasm, our conversation ended. Julia turned on
      me a look of imploring, which was naturally one of reproach. It did not
      have its proper influence upon me. I seized my hat, and hurried from the
      house. I rushed, rather than walked, through the streets; and, before I
      knew where I was, I found myself on the banks of the river, under the
      shade of trees, with the soft evening breeze blowing upon me, and the
      placid moon sailing quietly above. I threw myself down upon the grass, and
      delivered myself up to gloomy thoughts. Here was I, then, scarcely
      twenty-five years old; young, vigorous; with a probable chance of fortune
      before me; a young and lovely wife, the very creature of my first and only
      choice, one whom I tenderly loved, whom, if to seek again, I should again,
      and again, and only, seek! Yet I was miserable&mdash;miserable in the very
      possession of my first hopes, my best joys&mdash;the very treasure that
      had always seemed the dearest in my sight. Miserable blind heart!
      miserable indeed! For what was there to make me miserable? Absolutely
      nothing&mdash;nothing that the outer world could give&mdash;nothing that
      it could ever take away. But what fool is it that fancies there must be a
      reason for one's wretchedness? The reason is in our own hearts; in the
      perverseness which can make of its own heaven a hell! not often fashion a
      heaven out of hell!
    </p>
    <p>
      Brooding, I lay upon the sward, meditating unutterable things, and as far
      as ever from any conclusion. Of one thing alone I was satisfied&mdash;that
      I was unutterably miserable; that my destiny was written in sable; that I
      was a man foredoomed to wo! Were my speculations strange or unnatural!
      Unnatural indeed! There is a class of surface-skimming persons, who
      pronounce all things unnatural which, to a cool, unprovoked, and perhaps
      unprovokable mind, appear unreasonable: as if a vexed nature and exacting
      passions were not the most unreasonable yet most natural of all moral
      agents. My woes may have been groundless, but it was surely not unnatural
      that I felt and entertained them.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus, with bitter mood, growing more bitter with every moment of its
      unrestrained indulgence, I gloomed in loneliness beside the banks of that
      silvery and smooth-flowing river. Certainly the natural world around me
      lent no color to my fancies. While all was dark within, all was bright
      without. A fiend was tugging at my heart; while from a little white
      cottage, a few hundred yards below, which grew flush with the margin of
      the stream, there stole forth the tender, tinkling strains of a guitar,
      probably touched by fair fingers of a fair maiden, with some enamored boy,
      blind and doting, hovering beside her. I, too, had stood thus and
      hearkened thus, and where am I&mdash;what am I!
    </p>
    <p>
      I started to my feet. I found something offensive in the music. It came
      linked with a song which I had heard Julia sing a hundred times; and when
      I thought of those hours of confidence, and felt myself where I was, alone&mdash;and
      how lone!&mdash;bitterer than ever were the wayward pangs which were
      preying upon the tenderest fibres of my heart.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the next moment I ceased to be alone. I was met and jostled by another
      person as I bounded forward, much too rapidly, in an effort to bury myself
      in the deeper shadow of some neighboring trees. The stranger was nearly
      overthrown in the collision, which extorted a hasty exclamation from his
      lips, not unmingled with a famous oath or two. In the voice. I recognised
      that of my friend Kingsley&mdash;the well-known pseudo-Kentucky gentleman,
      who had acted a part so important in extricating my wife from her mother's
      custody. I made myself known to him in apologizing for my rudeness.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You here!&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;I did not expect to meet you. I have just been to
      your house, where I found your wife, and where I intended to stop a while
      and wait for you. But Bill Edgerton, in the meanwhile, popped in, and
      after that I could hear nothing but pictures and paintings, Madonnas, Ecce
      Homos, and the like; till I began to fancy that I smelt nothing but paint
      and varnish. So I popped out, with a pretty blunt excuse, leaving the two
      amateurs to talk in oil and water-colors, and settle the principles of art
      as they please. Like you, I fancy a real landscape, here, by the water,
      and under the green trees, in preference to a thousand of their painted
      pictures.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It may be supposed that my mood underwent precious little improvement
      after this communication. Dark conceits, darker than ever, came across my
      mind. I longed to get away, and return to that home from which I had
      banished confidence!&mdash;ah, only too happy if there still lingered
      hope! But my friend, blunt, good-humored, and thoughtless creature as he
      was, took for granted that I had come to look at the landscape, to admire
      water-views by moonlight, and drink fresh draughts of sea-breeze from the
      southwest; and, thrusting his arm through mine, he dragged me on, down,
      almost to the threshold of the cottage, whence still issued the tinkle,
      tinkle, of the guitar which had first driven me away.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That girl sings well. Do you know her&mdash;Miss Davison? She's soon to
      be married, THEY say (d&mdash;n 'they say,' however&mdash;the greatest
      scandal-monger, if not mischief-maker and liar, in the world!)&mdash;she
      is soon to be married to young Trescott&mdash;a clover lad who sniffles,
      plays on the flute, wears whisker and imperial on the most cream-colored
      and effeminate face you ever saw! A good fellow, nevertheless, but a
      silly! She is a good fellow, too, rather the cleverest of the twain, and
      perhaps the oldest. The match, if match it really is to be, none of the
      wisest for that very reason. The damsel, now-a-days, who marries a lad
      younger than herself, is laying up a large stock of pother, which is to
      bother her when she becomes thirty&mdash;for even young ladies, you know,
      after forty, may become thirty. A sort of dispensation of nature. She
      sings well, nevertheless.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I said something&mdash;it matters not what. Dark images of home were in my
      eyes. I heard no song&mdash;saw no landscape The voice of Kingsley was a
      sort of buzzing in my ears.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are dull to-night, but that song ought to soothe you. What a cheery,
      light-hearted wench it is! Her voice does seem so to rise in air, shaking
      its wings, and crying tira-la! tira-la! with an enthusiasm which is
      catching! I almost feel prompted to kick up my heels, throw a summerset,
      and, while turning on my axis, give her an echo of tira-la! tira-la!
      tira-la! after her own fashion.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are certainly a happy, mad fellow, Kingsley!&rdquo; was my faint, cheerless
      commentary upon a gayety of heart which I could not share, and the
      unreserved expression of which, at that moment, only vexed me.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And you no glad one, Clifford. That song, which almost prompts me to
      dance, makes no impression on you! By-the-way, your wife used to sing so
      well, and now I never hear her. That d&mdash;-d painting, if you don't
      mind, will make her give up everything else! As for Bill Edgerton, he
      cares for nothing else out his varnish, trees, and umber-hills, and
      streaky water. You shouldn't let him fill your wife's mind with this
      oil-and-varnish spirit&mdash;giving up the piano, the guitar, and that
      sweeter instrument than all, her own voice. D&mdash;n the paintings!&mdash;his
      long talk on the subject almost makes me sick of everything like a
      picture. I now look upon a beautiful landscape like this as a thing that
      is shortly to be desecrated&mdash;taken in vain&mdash;scratched out of
      shape and proportion upon a deal-board, and colored after such a fashion
      as never before was seen in the natural world, upon, or under, or about
      this solid earth. D&mdash;n the pictures, I say again!&mdash;but, for
      God's sake, Clifford, don't let your wife give up the music! Make her
      play, even if she don't like it. She likes the painting best, but I
      wouldn't allow it! A wife is a sort of person that we set to do those
      things that we wish done and can't do for ourselves. That's my definition
      of a wife. Now, if I were in your place, with my present love for music
      and dislike of pictures, I'd put her at the piano, and put the
      paint-saucers, and the oil, and the smutted canvass, out of the window;
      and then&mdash;unless he came to his senses like other people&mdash;I'd
      thrust Bill Edgerton out after them! I'd never let the best friend in the
      world spoil my wife.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The effect of this random chatter of my good-natured friend upon my mind
      may well be imagined. It was fortunate that he was quite too much occupied
      in what he was saying to note my annoyance. In vain, anxious to be let
      off, was I restrained in utterance&mdash;cold, unpliable. The good fellow
      took for granted that it was an act of friendship to try to amuse; and
      thus, yearning with a nameless discontent and apprehension to get home I
      was marched to and fro along the river-bank, from one scene to another&mdash;he,
      meanwhile, utterly heedless of time, and as actively bent on perpetual
      motion as if his sinews were of steel and his flesh iron. Meanwhile, the
      guitar ceased, and the song in the cottage of Miss Davison; the lights
      went out in that and all the other dwellings in sight; the moon waned; and
      it was not till the clock from a distant steeple tolled out the hour of
      eleven with startling solemnity, that Kingsley exclaimed:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, mon ami, we have had a ramble, and I trust I have somewhat
      dissipated your gloomy fit. And now to bed&mdash;what say you?&mdash;with
      what appetite we may!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      With what appetite, indeed! We separated. I rushed homeward, the moment he
      was out of sight&mdash;once more stood before my own dwelling. There the
      lights remained unextinguished and William Edgerton was still a tenant of
      my parlor!
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXII. &mdash; SELF-HUMILIATION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      I had not the courage to enter my own dwelling! My heart sank within me.
      It was as if the whole hope of a long life, an intense desire, a keen
      unremitting pursuit, had suddenly been for ever baffled. Let no one who
      has not been in my situation; who has not been governed by like moral and
      social influences from the beginning; who knows not my sensibilities, and
      the organization&mdash;singular and strange it may be&mdash;of my mind and
      body; let no such person jump to the conclusion that there was any thing
      unnatural, however unreasonable and unreasoning, in the wild passion which
      possessed me. I look back upon it with some surprise myself. The fears
      which I felt, the sufferings I endured, however unreasonable, were yet
      true to my training. That training made me selfish; how selfish let my
      blindness show! In the blindness of self I could see nothing but the thing
      I feared, the one phantom&mdash;phantom though it were&mdash;which was
      sufficient to quell and crush all the better part of man within me, banish
      all the real blessings which were at command around me. I gave but a
      single second glance through the windows of my habitation, and then darted
      desperately away from the entrance! I bounded, without a consciousness,
      through the now still and dreary streets, and found myself, without
      intending it, once more beside the river, whose constant melancholy
      chidings, seemed the echoes-though in the faintest possible degree&mdash;of
      the deep waters of some apprehensive sorrow then rolling through all the
      channels of my soul.
    </p>
    <p>
      What was it that I feared? What was it that I sought? Was it love? Can it
      be that the strange passion which we call by this name, was the source of
      that sad frenzy which filled and afflicted my heart? And was I not
      successful in my love? Had I not found the sought?&mdash;won the withheld?
      What was denied to me that I desired? I asked of myself these questions. I
      asked them in vain. I could not answer them. I believe that I can answer
      now. It was sincerity, earnestness, devotion from her, all speaking
      through an intensity like that which I felt within my own soul.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now, Julia lacked this earnestness, this intensity. Accustomed to
      submission, her manner was habitually subdued. Her strongest utterance was
      a tear, and that was most frequently hidden. She did not respond to me in
      the language in which my affections were wont to speak. Sincerity she did
      not lack&mdash;far from it&mdash;she was truth itself! It is the keener
      pang to my conscience now, that I am compelled to admit this conviction.
      Her modes of utterance were not less true than mine. They were not less
      significant of truth; but they were after a different fashion. In a moment
      of calm and reason, I might have believed this truth; nay, I knew it, even
      at those moments when I was most unjust. It was not the truth that I
      required so much as the presence of an attachment which could equal mine
      in its degree and strength. This was not in her nature. She was one taught
      to subdue her nature, to repress the tendencies of her heart, to submit in
      silence and in meekness. She had invariably done so until the insane
      urgency of her mother made her desperate. But for this desperation she had
      still submitted, perhaps, had never been my wife. In the fervent intensity
      of my own love, I fancied, from the beginning, that there was something
      too temperate in the tone of hers. Were I to be examined now, on this
      point, I should say that her deportment was one which declared the nicest
      union of sensibility and maidenly propriety. But, compared with mine, her
      passions were feeble, frigid. Mine were equally intense and exacting.
      Perhaps, had she even responded to my impetuosity with a like fervor, I
      should have recoiled from her with a feeling of disgust much more rapid
      and much more legitimate, than was that of my present frenzy.
    </p>
    <p>
      Frenzy it was! and it led me to the performance of those things of which I
      shame to speak. But the truth, and its honest utterance now, must be one
      of those forms of atonement with which I may hope, perhaps vainly, to
      lessen, in the sight of Heaven, some of my human offences. I had scarcely
      reached the water-side before a new impulse drove me back. You will
      scarcely believe me when I tell you that I descended to the base character
      of the spy upon my household. The blush is red on my cheek while I record
      the shameful error. I entered the garden, stole like a felon to the
      lattice of the apartment in which my wife sat with her guest, and looked
      in with a greedy fear, upon the features of the two!
    </p>
    <p>
      What were my own features then? What the expression of my eyes? It was
      well that I could not see them; I felt that they must be frightful. But
      what did I expect to see in this espionage? As I live, honestly now, and
      with what degree of honesty I then possessed, I may truly declare that
      when I THOUGHT upon the subject at all, I had no more suspicion that my
      wife would be guilty of any gross crime, than I had of the guilt of the
      Deity himself. Far from it. Such a fancy never troubled me. But, what was
      it to me, loving as I did, exclusive, and selfish, and exacting as I was&mdash;what
      was it to me if, forbearing all crime of conduct, she yet regarded another
      with eyes of idolatry&mdash;if her mind was yielded up to him in deference
      and regard; and thoughts, disparaging to me, filled her brain with his
      superior worth, manners, merits? He had tastes, perhaps talents, which I
      had not. In the forum, in all the more energetic, more imposing
      performances of life, William Edgerton, I knew, could take no rank in
      competition with myself. But I was no ladies' man. I had no arts of
      society. My manners were even rude. My address was direct almost to
      bluntness. I had no discriminating graces, and could make no sacrifice, in
      that school of polish, where the delicacy is too apt to become false, and
      the performances trifling. It is idle to dwell on this; still more idle to
      speculate upon probable causes. It may be that there are persons in the
      world of both sexes, and governed by like influences, who have been guilty
      of like follies; to them my revelations may be of service. My discoveries,
      if I have made any, were quite too late to be of much help to me.
    </p>
    <p>
      To resume, I prowled like a guilty phantom around my own habitation. I
      scanned closely, with the keenest eyes of jealousy, every feature, every
      movement of the two within. In the eyes of Edgerton, I beheld&mdash;I did
      not deceive myself in this&mdash;I beheld the speaking soul, devoted,
      rapt, full of love for the object of his survey. That he loved her was to
      me sufficiently clear. His words were few, faintly spoken, timid. His eyes
      did not encounter hers; but when hers were averted, they riveted their
      fixed glances upon her face with the adherence of the yearning steel for
      the magnet! Bitterly did I gnash my teeth&mdash;bitterly did my spirit
      rise in rebellion, as I noted these characteristics. But, vainly, with all
      my perversity of feeling and judgment, did I examine the air, the look,
      the action, the expression, the tones, the words of my wife, to make a
      like discovery. All was passionless, all seeming pure, in her whole
      conduct. She was gentle in her manner, kind in her words, considerate in
      her attentions; but so entirely at ease, so evidently unconscious, as well
      of improper thoughts in herself as of an improper tendency in him, that,
      though still resolute to be wilful and unhappy, I yet could see nothing of
      which I could reasonably complain. Nay, I fancied that there was a touch
      of listlessness, amounting to indifference, in her air, as if she really
      wished him to be gone; and, for a moment, my heart beat with a returning
      flood of tenderness, that almost prompted me to rush suddenly into the
      apartment and clasp her to my arms.
    </p>
    <p>
      At length, Edgerton departed. When he rose to do so, I felt the
      awkwardness of my situation&mdash;the meanness of which I had been guilty&mdash;the
      disgrace which would follow detection. The shame I already felt; but,
      though sickening beneath it, the passion which drove me into the
      commission of so slavish an act, was still superior to all others, and
      could not then be overcome. I hurried from the window and from the
      premises while he was taking his leave. My mind was still in a frenzy. I
      rambled off, unconsciously, to the most secluded places along the suburbs,
      endeavoring to lose the thoughts that troubled me. I had now a new cause
      for vexation. I was haunted by a conviction of my own shame. How could I
      look Julia in the face&mdash;how meet and speak to her, and hear the
      accents of her voice and my own after the unworthy espionage which I had
      instituted upon her? Would not my eyes betray me&mdash;my faltering
      accents, my abashed looks, my flushed and burning cheeks? I felt that it
      was impossible for me to escape detection. I was sure that every look,
      every tone, would sufficiently betray my secret. Perhaps I should not have
      felt this fear, had I possessed the courage to resolve against the
      repetition of my error. Could I have declared this resolution to myself,
      to forego the miserable proceeding which I had that night begun, I feel
      that I should then have taken one large step toward my own deliverance
      from that formidable fiend which was then raging unmastered in my soul.
      But I lacked the courage for this. Fatal deficiency! I felt impressed with
      the necessity of keeping a strict watch upon Edgerton. I had seen, with
      eyes that could not be deceived, the feeling which had been expressed in
      his. I saw that he loved her, perhaps, without a consciousness himself of
      the unhappy truth. I hurried to the conclusion, accordingly, that he must
      be looked after. I did not so immediately perceive that in looking after
      him, I was, in truth, looking after Julia; for what was my watch upon
      Edgerton but a watch upon her? I had not the confidence in her to leave
      her to herself. That was my error. The true reasoning by which a man in my
      situation should be governed, is comprised in a nutshell. Either the wife
      is virtuous or she is not. If she is virtuous, she is safe without my
      espionage. If she is not, all the watching in the world will not suffice
      to make her so. As for the discovery of her falsehood, he will make that
      fast enough. The security of the husband lies in his wife's purity, not in
      his own eyes. It must be added to this argument that the most virtuous
      among us, man or woman, is still very weak; and neither wife, nor
      daughter, nor son, should be exposed to unnecessary temptation. Do we not
      daily implore in our own prayers, to be saved from temptation?
    </p>
    <p>
      I need not strive to declare what were my thoughts and feelings as I
      wandered off from my dwelling and place of espionage that night. No
      language of which I am possessed could embody to the idea of the reader
      the thousandth part of what I suffered. An insane and morbid resentment
      filled my heart. A close, heavy, hot stupor, pressed upon my brain. My
      limbs seemed feeble as those of a child. I tottered in the streets. The
      stars, bright mysterious watchers, seemed peering down into my face with
      looks of smiling inquiry. The sudden bark of a watch-dog startled and
      unnerved me. I felt with the consciousness of a mean action, all the
      humiliating weakness which belongs to it.
    </p>
    <p>
      It took me a goodly hour before I could muster up courage to return home,
      and it was then midnight. Julia had retired to her chamber, but not yet to
      her couch. She flew to me on my entrance&mdash;to my arms. I shrunk from
      her embraces; but she grasped me with greater firmness. I had never
      witnessed so much warmth in her before. It surprised me, but the solution
      of it was easy. My long stay had made her apprehensive. It was so unusual.
      My coldness, when she embraced me, was as startling to her, as her sudden
      warmth was surprising to me. She pushed me from her&mdash;still, however,
      holding me in her grasp, while she surveyed me. Then she started, and with
      newer apprehensions.
    </p>
    <p>
      Well she might. My looks alarmed her. My hair was dishevelled and moist
      with the night-dews. My cheeks were very pale. There was a quick,
      agitated, and dilating fullness of my eyes, which rolled hastily about the
      apartment, never even resting upon her. They dared not. I caught a hasty
      glance of myself in the mirror, and scarcely knew my own features. It was
      natural enough that she should be alarmed. She clung to me with increased
      fervency. She spoke hurriedly, but clearly, with an increased and novel
      power of utterance, the due result of her excitement. Could that
      excitement be occasioned by love for me&mdash;by a suspicion of the truth,
      namely, that I had been watching her? I shuddered as this last conjecture
      passed into my mind. That, indeed, would be a humiliation&mdash;worse,
      more degrading, by far, than all.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, why have you left me&mdash;so long, so very long? where have you
      been? what has happened?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nothing&mdash;nothing.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, but there is something, Edward. Speak! what is it, dear husband? I
      see it in your eyes, your looks! Why do you turn from me? Look on me! tell
      me! You are very pale, and your eyes are so wild, so strange! You are
      sick, dear Edward; you are surely sick: tell me, what has happened?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Wild and hurried as they were, never did tones of more touching sweetness
      fall from any lips. They unmanned&mdash;nay, I use the wrong word&mdash;they
      MANNED me for the time. They brought me back to my senses, to a conviction
      of her truth, to a momentary conviction of my own folly. My words fell
      from me without effort&mdash;few, hurried, husky&mdash;but it was a sudden
      heartgush, which was unrestrainable.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ask me not, Julia-ask me nothing; but love me, only love me, and all will
      be well&mdash;all is well.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do I not&mdash;ah! do I not love you, Edward?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I believe you&mdash;God be praised, I DO believe you!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, surely, Edward, you never doubted this.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no!&mdash;never!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Such was the fervent ejaculation of my lips; such, in spite of its seeming
      inconsistency, was the real belief within my soul. What was it, then, that
      I did doubt? wherefore, then, the misery, the suspense, the suspicion,
      which grew and gathered, corroding in my heart, the parent of a thousand
      unnamed anxieties? It will be difficult to answer. The heart of man is one
      of those strange creations, so various in its moods, so infinite in its
      ramifications, so subtle and sudden in its transitions, as to defy
      investigation as certainly as it refuses remedy and relief. It is enough
      to say that, with one schooled as mine had been, injuriously, and with
      injustice, there is little certainty in any of its movements. It becomes
      habitually capricious, feeds upon passions intensely, without seeming
      detriment; and, after a season, prefers the unwholesome nutriment which it
      has made vital, to those purer natural sources of strength and succor,
      without which, though it may still enjoy life, it can never know
      happiness.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXIII. &mdash; PROGRESS OF PASSION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, do not leave me another time&mdash;not so long, Edward Do not leave
      me alone. Your business is one thing. THAT you must, of course, attend to;
      but hours&mdash;not of business&mdash;hours in which you do no business&mdash;hours
      of leisure&mdash;your evenings, Edward&mdash;these you must share with me&mdash;you
      must give to me entirely. Ah! will you not? will you not promise me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      These were among the last words which she spoke to me ere we slept that
      night. The next morning, almost at awaking, she resumed the same language.
      I could not help perceiving that she spoke in tones of greater earnestness
      than usual&mdash;an earnestness expressive of anxiety for which I felt at
      some loss to account. Still, the tenor of what she said, at the time, gave
      me pleasure&mdash;a satisfaction which I did not seek to conceal, and
      which, while it lasted, was the sweetest of all pleasures to my soul. But
      the busy devil in my heart made his suggestions also, which were of a kind
      to produce any other but satisfying emotions. While I stood in my wife's
      presence&mdash;in the hearing of her angel-voice, and beholding the pure
      spirit speaking out from her eyes&mdash;he lay dormant, rebuked, within
      his prison-house, crouching in quiet, waiting a more auspicious moment for
      activity. Nor was he long in waiting; and then his cold, insinuating
      doubts&mdash;his inquiries&mdash;begot and startled mine!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Very good&mdash;all very good!&rdquo; Such was the tone of his suggestions.
      &ldquo;She may well compound for the evenings with you, since she gives her
      whole mornings to your rival.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Archimedes asked but little for the propulsion of the world. The jealous
      spirit&mdash;a spirit jealous like mine&mdash;asks still for the moving of
      that little but densely-populous world, the human heart. I forgot the
      sweet tones of my wife's words&mdash;the pure-souled words themselves&mdash;tones
      and words which, while their sounds yet lingered in my ears, I could not
      have questioned&mdash;I did not dare to question. The tempter grew in the
      ascendant the moment I had passed out of her sight; and when I met William
      Edgerton the next day, he acquired greatly-increased power over my
      understanding.
    </p>
    <p>
      William Edgerton had evidently undergone a change. He no longer met my
      glances boldly with his own. Perhaps, had he done so, my eyes would have
      been the first to shrink from the encounter. He looked down, or looked
      aside, when he spoke to me; his words were few, timorous, hesitating, but
      studiously conciliatory; and he lingered no longer in my presence than was
      absolutely unavoidable. Was there not a consciousness in this? and what
      consciousness? The devil at my heart answered, and answered with truth,
      &ldquo;He loves your wife.&rdquo; It would have been well, perhaps, had the cruel
      fiend said nothing farther. Alas! I would have pardoned, nay, pitied
      William Edgerton, had the same chuckling spirit not assured me that she
      also was not insensible to him. I was continually reminded of the words,
      &ldquo;Your business must, of course, be attended to!&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;What a considerate
      wife!&rdquo; said the tempter; &ldquo;how very unusual with young wives, with whom
      business is commonly the very last consideration!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      That very day, I found, on reaching home, that William Edgerton had been
      there&mdash;had gone there almost the moment after he had left me at the
      office; and that he had remained there, obviously at work in the studio,
      until the time drew nigh for my return to dinner. My feelings forbade any
      inquiries. These, facts were all related by my wife herself. I did not ask
      to hear them. I asked for nothing more than she told. The dread that my
      jealousy should be suspected made me put on a sturdy aspect of
      indifference; and that exquisite sense of delicacy, which governed every
      movement of my wife's heart and conduct, forbade her to say&mdash;what yet
      she certainly desired I should know&mdash;that, in all that time, she had
      not seen him, nor he her. She had studiously kept aloof in her chamber so
      long as he remained. Meanwhile, I brooded over their supposed long and
      secret interviews. These I took for granted. The happiness they felt&mdash;the
      mutual smile they witnessed&mdash;the unconscious sighs they uttered! Such
      a picture of their supposed felicity as my morbid imagination conjured up
      would have roused a doubly damned and damning fiend in the heart of any
      mortal.
    </p>
    <p>
      What a task was mine, struggling with these images, these convictions!&mdash;my
      pride struggling to conceal, my feelings struggling to endure. Then, there
      were other conflicts. What friends had the Edgertons been to me&mdash;father,
      mother&mdash;nay, that son himself, once so fondly esteemed, once so
      fondly esteeming! Of course, no ties such as these could have made me
      patient under wrong. But they were such as to render it necessary that the
      wrong should be real, unquestionable, beyond doubt, beyond excuse. This I
      felt, this I resolved.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I will wait! I will be patient! I will endure, though the vulture gnaws
      incessant at my heart! I will do nothing precipitate. No, no: I must
      beware of that! But let me prove them treacherous&mdash;let them once
      falter, and go aside from the straight path, and then&mdash;oh, then!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Such, as in spoken words, was the unspoken resolution of my soul; and this
      resolution required, first of all, that I should carry out the base
      purpose which, without a purpose, I had already begun. I must be a spy
      upon their interviews. They must be followed, watched&mdash;eyes, looks,
      hands! Miserable necessity! but, under my present feelings and
      determination, not the less a necessity. And I, alone, must do it; I,
      alone, must peer busily into these mysteries, the revelation of which can
      result only in my own ruin&mdash;seeking still, with an earnest diligence,
      to discover that which I should rather have prayed for eternal and
      unmitigated blindness, that I might not see! Mine was, indeed, the
      philosophy of the madman.
    </p>
    <p>
      I persevered in it like one. I yielded all opportunities for the meeting
      of the parties&mdash;all opportunities which, in yielding, did not expose
      me to the suspicion of having any sinister object. If, for example, I
      found, or could conjecture, that William Edgerton was likely to be at my
      house this or that evening, I studiously intimated, beforehand, some
      necessity for being myself absent. This carried me frequently from home&mdash;lone,
      wandering, vexing myself with the most hideous conjectures, the most
      self-torturing apprehensions. I sped away, obviously, into the city-to
      alleged meetings with friends or clients&mdash;or on some pretence or
      other which seemed ordinary and natural But my course was to return, and,
      under cover of night, to prowl, around my own premises, like some guilty
      ghost, doomed to haunt the scene of former happiness, in its wantonness
      rendered a scene of ever-during misery. Certainly, no guilty ghost ever
      suffered in his penal tortures a torture worse than mine at these
      humiliating moments. It was torture enough to me that I was sensible of
      all the unhappy meanness of my conduct. On this head, though I strove to
      excuse myself on the score of a supposed necessity, I could not deceive
      myself&mdash;not&mdash;not for the smallest moment.
    </p>
    <p>
      Weeks passed in this manner&mdash;weeks to me of misery&mdash;of annoyance
      and secret suffering to my wife. In this time, my espionage resulted in
      nothing but what has been already shown&mdash;in what was already
      sufficiently obvious to me. William Edgerton continued his insane
      attentions: he sought my dwelling with studious perseverance&mdash;sought
      it particularly at those periods when he fancied I was absent&mdash;when
      he knew it&mdash;though such were not his exclusive periods of visitation.
      He came at times when I was at home. His passion for my wife was
      sufficiently evident to me, though her deportment was such as to persuade
      mo that she did not see it. All that I beheld of her conduct was
      irreproachable. There was a singular and sweet dignity in her air and
      manner, when they were together, that seemed one of the most insuperable
      barriers to any rash or presumptuous approach. While there was no
      constraint about her carriage, there was no familiarity&mdash;nothing to
      encourage or invite familiarity. While she answered freely, responding to
      all the needs of a suggested subject, she herself never seemed to broach
      one; and, after hours of nightly watch, which ran through a period of
      weeks, in which I strove at the shameful occupation of the espial, I was
      compelled to admit that all her part was as purely unexceptionable as the
      most jealous husband could have wished it.
    </p>
    <p>
      But not so with the conduct of William Edgerton. His attentions were
      increasing. His passion was assuming some of the forms of that delirium to
      which, under encouragement, it is usually driven in the end. He now
      passionately watched my wife's countenance, and no longer averted his
      glance when it suddenly encountered hers. His eyes, naturally tender in
      expression, now assumed a look of irrepressible ardency, from which, I now
      fancied&mdash;pleased to fancy&mdash;that hers recoiled! He would linger
      long in silence, silently watching her, and seemingly unconscious, the
      while, equally of his scrutiny and his silence. At such times, I could
      perceive that Julia would turn aside, or her own eyes would be marked by
      an expression of the coldest vacancy, which, but for other circumstances,
      or in any other condition of my mind, would have seemed to me conclusive
      of her indignation or dislike. But, when such became my thought, it was
      soon expelled by some suggestion from the busy devil of my imagination:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They may well put on this appearance now; but are such their looks when
      they meet, sometimes for a whole morning, in the painting-room?&rdquo; Even
      here, the fiend was silenced by a fact which was revealed to me in one of
      my nocturnal watches.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Clifford not at home?&rdquo; said Edgerton one evening as he entered,
      addressing my wife, and looking indifferently around the room. &ldquo;I wished
      to tell him about some pictures which are to be seen at &mdash;&mdash;'s
      room&mdash;really a lovely Guido&mdash;an infant Savior&mdash;and
      something, said to be by Carlo Dolce, though I doubt. You must see them.
      Shall I call for you tomorrow morning?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I thank you, but have an engagement for the morning.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, the next day. They will remain but a few days longer in the city.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am sorry, but I shall not be able to go even the next day, I am so
      busy.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Busy? ah! that reminds me to ask if you have given up the pencil
      altogether? Have you wholly abandoned the studio? I never see you now at
      work in the morning. I had no thought that you had so much of the
      fashionable taste for morning calls, shopping, and the like.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nor have I,&rdquo; was the quiet answer. &ldquo;I seldom leave home in the morning.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; with some doubtfulness of countenance, almost amounting to
      chagrin&mdash;&ldquo;indeed! how is it that I so seldom see you, then?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The cares of a household, I suppose, might be my sufficient excuse. While
      my liege lord works abroad, I find my duties sufficiently urgent to task
      all my time at home.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Really&mdash;but you do not propose to abandon the atelier entirely?
      Clifford himself, with his great fondness for the art, will scarcely be
      satisfied that you should, even on a pretence of work.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I do not know. I do not think that MY HUSBAND&rdquo;&mdash;the last two words
      certainly emphasized&mdash;&ldquo;cares much about it. I suspect that music and
      painting, however much they delighted and employed our girlhood, form but
      a very insignificant part of our duties and enjoyments when we get
      married.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you do not mean to say that a fine landscape, or an exquisite head,
      gives you less satisfaction than before your marriage?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I confess they do. Life is a very different thing before and after
      marriage. It seems far more serious&mdash;it appears to me a possession
      now, and time a sort of property which has to be economized and doled out
      almost as cautiously as money. I have not touched a brush this fortnight.
      I doubt if I have been in the painting-room more than once in all this
      time.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      This conversation, which evidently discomfited William Elgerton, was
      productive to me of no small satisfaction. After a brief interval,
      consumed in silence, he resumed it:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But I must certainly get you to see these pictures. Nay, I must also&mdash;since
      you keep at home&mdash;persuade you to look into the studio tomorrow, if
      it be only to flatter my vanity by looking at a sketch which I have amused
      myself upon the last three mornings. By-the-way, why may we not look at it
      tonight?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We shall not be able to examine it carefully by night,&rdquo; was the answer,
      as I fancied, spoken with unwonted coldness and deliberation.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;So much the better for me,&rdquo; he replied, with an ineffectual attempt to
      laugh; &ldquo;you will be less able to discern its defects.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The same difficulty will endanger its beauties,&rdquo; Julia answered, without
      offering to rise.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, at least, you must arrange for seeing the pictures at &mdash;&mdash;'s.
      They are to remain but a few days, and I would not have you miss seeing
      them for the world. Suppose you say Saturday morning?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If nothing happens to prevent,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;and I will endeavor to
      persuade Mr. Clifford to look at them with us.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, he is so full of his law and clients, that you will hardly succeed.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      This was spoken with evident dissatisfaction. The arrangement, which
      included me, seemed unnecessary. I need not say that I was better pleased
      with my wife than I had been for some time previous; but here the juggling
      fiend interposed again, to suggest the painful suspicion that she knew of
      my whereabouts, of my jealousy, of my espionage; that her words were
      rather meant for my ears than for those of Edgerton; or, if this were not
      the case, her manner to Edgerton was simply adopted, as she had now become
      conscious of her own feelings&mdash;feelings of peril&mdash;feelings which
      would not permit her to trust herself. Ah! she feared herself: she had
      discovered the passion of William Edgerton, and it had taught her the
      character and tendency of her own. Was there ever more self-destroying
      malice than was mine? I settled down upon this last conviction. My wife's
      coldness was only assumed to prevent Edgerton from seeing her weakness;
      and, for Edgerton himself, I now trembled with the conviction that I
      should have to shed his blood.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXIV. &mdash; A GROUP.
    </h2>
    <p>
      This conviction now began to haunt my mind with all the punctuality of a
      shadow. It came to me unconsciously, uncalled for; mingled with other
      thoughts and disturbed them all. Whether at my desk, or in the courts;
      among men in the crowded mart, or in places simply where the idle and the
      thoughtless congregate, it was still my companion. It was, however, still
      a shadow only; a dull, intangible, half-formed image of the mind; the
      crude creature of a fear rather than a desire; for, of a truth, nothing
      could be more really terrible to me than the apparent necessity of taking
      the life of one so dear to me once, and still so dear to the only friends
      I had ever known. I need not say how silently I strove to banish this
      conviction. My struggles on this subject were precisely those which are
      felt by nervous men suddenly approaching a precipice, and, though secure,
      flinging themselves off, in the extremity of their apprehensions of that
      danger which has assumed in their imaginations an aspect so absorbing.
      With such persons, the extreme anxiety to avoid the deed, whether of evil
      or of mere danger, frequently provokes its commission. I felt that this
      risk encountered me. I well knew that an act often contemplated may be
      already considered half-performed; and though I could not rid myself of
      the impression that I was destined to do the deed the very idea of which
      made me shudder, I yet determined, with all the remaining resolution of my
      virtue, to dismiss it from my thought, as I resolved to escape from its
      performance if I could.
    </p>
    <p>
      It would have been easy enough for me to have kept this resolution as it
      was enough for me to make it, had it not clashed with a superior passion
      in my mind; but that blindness of heart under which I labored, impaired my
      judgment, enfeebled my resolution, baffled my prudence, defeated all my
      faculties of self-preservation. I was, in fact, a monomaniac. On one
      subject, I was incapable of thought, of sane reasoning, of fixed purpose.
      I am unwilling to distinguish this madness by the word &ldquo;jealousy.&rdquo; In the
      ordinary sense of the term it was not jealousy. Phrenologists would call
      it an undue development of self-esteem, diseased by frequent provocation
      into an irritable suspiciousness, which influenced all the offices of
      thought. It was certain, to myself, that in instituting the watch which I
      did over the conduct of my wife and William Edgerton, I did not expect to
      discover the commission of any gross act which, in the vulgar acceptation
      of the world, constitutes the crime of infidelity. The pang would not have
      been less to my mind, though every such act was forborne, if I perceived
      that her eyes yearned for his coming, and her looks of despondency took
      note of his absence. If I could see that she hearkened to his words with
      the ears of one who deferred even to devotedness, and found that pleasure
      in his accents which should only have been accorded to mine. It is the low
      nature, alone, which seeks for developments beyond these, to constitute
      the sin of faithlessness. Of looks, words, consideration, habitual
      deference, and eager attention, I was quite as uxorious as I should have
      been of the warm kiss, or the yielding, fond embrace. They were the same
      in my eyes. It was for the momentary glance, the passing word, the
      forgetful sigh, that I looked and listened, while I pursued the unhappy
      espionage upon my wife and her lover. That he was her lover, was
      sufficiently evident&mdash;how far she was pleased with his devotion was
      the question to be asked and&mdash;answered!
    </p>
    <p>
      The self-esteem which produced these developments of jealousy, in my own
      home, was not unexercised abroad. The same exacting nature was busy among
      my friends and mere acquaintance. Of these I had but few; to these I could
      be devoted; for these I could toil; for these I could freely have
      perished! But I demanded nothing less from them. Of their consideration
      and regard I was equally uxorious as I was of the affections of my wife. I
      was an INTENSIFIER in all my relations, and was not willing to divide or
      share my sympathies. I became suspicious when I found any of my
      acquaintance forming new intimacies, and sunk into reserves which
      necessarily produced a severance of the old ties between us. It naturally
      followed that my few friends became fewer, and I finally stood alone. But
      enough of self-analysis, which, in truth, owes its origin to the very same
      mental quality which I have been discussing&mdash;the presence and
      prevalence of EGOISME. Let us hurry our progress.
    </p>
    <p>
      My wife advised me of the visit which William Edgerton had proposed to the
      picture collection.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I will go,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;if you will.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You must go without me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, why? Surely, you can go one morning?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Impossible. The morning is the time for business. THAT must be attended
      to, you know.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you needn't slave yourself at it because it is business, Edward. But
      that I know that you are not a money-loving man, I should suppose,
      sometimes, from the continual plea of business, that you were a miser, and
      delighted in filling old stockings to hide away in holes and chinks of the
      wall. Come, now, Saturday is not usually a busy day with you lawyers;
      steal it this once and go with us. I lose half the pleasure of the sight
      always, when you are not with me, and when I know that you are engaged in
      working for me elsewhere.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, you mistake, Julia. You shall not flatter me into such a faith. You
      lose precious little by my absence.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, Edward, I do; believe me&mdash;it is true.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Impossible! No, no, Julia, when you look on the Carlo Dolce and the
      Guido, you will forget not only the toils of the husband, but that you
      have one at all. You will forget my harsh features in the contemplation of
      softer ones.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Your features are not harsh ones, Edward.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nay, you shall not persuade me that I am not an Orson&mdash;a very wild
      man of the woods. I know I am. I know that I have harsh features; nay, I
      fancy you know it too, by this time, Julia.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I admit the sternness at times, Edward, but I deny the harshness.
      Besides, sternness, you know, is perfectly compatible with the possession
      of the highest human beauty. I am not sure that a certain portion of
      sternness is not absolutely necessary to manly beauty. It seems to me that
      I have never yet seen what I call a handsome man, whose features had not a
      certain sweet gravity, a sort of melancholy defiance, in them which
      neutralized the effect of any effeminacy which mere beauty must have had;
      and imparted to them a degree of character which compelled you to turn
      again and look, and made you remember them, even when they had disappeared
      from sight. Now, it may be the vanity of a wife, Edward, but it seems to
      me that this is the very sort of face which you possess.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! you are very vain of me, I know&mdash;very!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Proud, fond&mdash;not vain!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You deceive yourself still, I suspect, even with your distinctions. But
      you must forego the pleasure of displaying my 'stern beauties,' as your
      particular possession, at the gallery. You must content yourself with
      others not so stern, though perhaps not less beautiful, and certainly more
      amiable. Edgerton will be your sufficient chaperon.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, but I do not wish to be troubling Mr. Edgerton so frequently; and,
      indeed, I would rather forego the pleasure of seeing the pictures
      altogether, than trespass in this way upon his attention and leisure.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Indeed, but I am very sure you do not trespass upon either. He is an
      idle, good fellow, relishes anything better than business, and you know
      has such a passion for painting and pictures that its indulgence seems to
      justify anything to his mind. He will forget everything in their pursuit.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      All this was said with a studious indifference of manner. I was singularly
      successful in concealing the expression of that agony which was gnawing
      all the while upon my heart. I could smile, too, while I was speaking&mdash;while
      I was suffering! Look calmly into her face and smile, with a composure, a
      strength, the very consciousness of which was a source of terrible
      overthrow to me at last. I was surprised to perceive an air of chagrin
      upon Julia's countenance, which was certainly unstudied. She was one of
      those who do not well conceal or cloak their real sentiments. The faculty
      of doing so is usually much more strongly possessed by women than by men&mdash;much
      more easily commanded&mdash;but SHE had little of it. Why should she wear
      this expression of disappointment&mdash;chagrin! Was she really anxious
      that I should attend her? I began to think so&mdash;began to relent, and
      think of promising that I would go with her, when she somewhat abruptly
      laid her hand upon my arm.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Edward, you leave me too frequently. You stay from me too long,
      particularly at evening. Do not forget, dear husband, how few female
      friends I have; how few friends of any sort&mdash;how small is my social
      circle. Besides, it is expected of all young people, newly married, that
      they will be frequently together; and when it is seen that they are often
      separate&mdash;that the wife goes abroad alone, or goes in the company of
      persons not of the family, it begets a suspicion that all is not well&mdash;that
      there is no peace, no love, in the family so divided. Do not think,
      Edward, that I mean this reproachfully&mdash;that I mean complaint&mdash;that
      I apprehend the loss of your love: oh no! I dread too greatly any such
      loss to venture upon its suspicion lightly, but I would guard against the
      conjectures of others&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;So, then, it is not that you really wish my company. It is be-cause you
      would simply maintain appearances.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I would do both, Edward. God knows I care as little for mere appearances,
      so long as the substances, are good, as you do; but I confess I would not
      have the neighbors speak of me as the neglected wife; I would not have you
      the subject of vulgar reproach.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;To what does all this tend?&rdquo; I demanded impatiently.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;To nothing, Edward, if by speaking it I make you angry.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do not speak it, then!&rdquo; was my stern reply.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I will not; do not turn away&mdash;do not be angry:&rdquo; here she sobbed
      once, convulsively; but with an effort of which I had not thought her
      capable, she stifled the painful utterance, and continued grasping my
      wrist as she spoke with both her hands, and speaking in a whisper&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are not going to leave me in anger. Oh, no! Do not! Kiss me, dear
      husband, and forgive me. If I have vexed you, it was only because I was so
      selfishly anxious to keep you more with me&mdash;to be more certain that
      you are all my own!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I escaped from this scene with some difficulty. I should be doing my own
      heart, blind and wilful as it was, a very gross injustice, if I did not
      confess that the sincere and natural deportment of Julia had rendered me
      largely doubtful of the good sense or the good feeling of the course I was
      pursuing. But the effects of it were temporary only. The very feeling,
      thus forced upon me, that I was, and had been, doing wrong, was a
      humiliating one; and calculated rather to sustain my self-esteem, even
      though it lessened the amount of justification which my jealousy may have
      supposed itself possessed of. The disease had been growing too long within
      my bosom. It had taken too deep root&mdash;had spread its fibres into a
      region too rank and stimulating not to baffle any ordinary diligence on
      the part of the extirpator, even if he had been industrious and sincere.
      It had been growing with my growth, had shared my strength from the
      beginning, was a part of my very existence! Still, though not with that
      hearty fondness which her feeling demanded, I returned her caresses,
      folded her to my bosom, kissed the tears from her cheek, and half promised
      myself, though I said nothing of this to her, that I would attend her to
      the picture exhibition.
    </p>
    <p>
      But I did not. Half an hour before the appointed time I resolved to do so;
      but the evil spirit grew uppermost in that brief interval, and suggested
      to me a course more in unison with its previous counsellings. Under this
      mean prompting I prepared to go to the gallery, but not till my wife had
      already gone there under Edgerton's escort. The object of this
      afterthought was to surprise them there&mdash;to enter at the unguarded
      moment, and read the language of their mutual eyes, when they least
      apprehended such scrutiny.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pitiful as was this design, I yet pursued it. I entered the picture room
      at a moment which was sufficiently auspicious for my objects. They were
      the only occupants of the apartment. I learned this fact before I ascended
      the stairs from the keeper of the gallery, who sat in a lower room. The
      stairs were carpeted. I wore light thin pumps, which were noiseless. I may
      add, as a singular moral contradiction, that I not only did not move
      stealthily, but that I set down my feet with greater emphasis than was
      usual with me, as if I sought, in this way to lessen somewhat the meanness
      of my proceeding. My approach, however, was entirely unheard; and I stood
      for a few seconds in the doorway, gazing upon the parties without making
      them conscious of my intrusion.
    </p>
    <p>
      Julia was sitting, gazing, with hand lifted above her eyes, at a Murillo&mdash;a
      ragged Spanish boy, true equally to the life and to the peculiar
      characteristics of that artist&mdash;dark ground-work, keen, arch
      expression, great vivacity, with an air of pregnant humor which speaks of
      more than is shown, and makes you fancy that other pictures are to follow
      in which the same boy must appear in different phases of feeling and of
      fortune.
    </p>
    <p>
      I need not say that the pictures, however, called for a momentary glance
      only from me. My glances were following my thoughts, and they were
      piercing through the only possible avenues, the cheeks, the lips, the
      tell-tale eyes, deep down into the very hearts of the suspected parties.
      They were so placed that, standing at the door, and half hidden from sight
      by a screen, I could see with tolerable distinctness the true expresion in
      each countenance, though I saw but half the face. Julia was gazing upon
      the pictures, but Edgerton was gazing upon her! He had no eyes for any
      other object; and I fancied, from the abstracted and almost vacant
      expression of his looks, that I without startling him from his dream. In
      his features, speaking, even in their obliviousness of all without, was
      one sole, absorbing sentiment of devotion. His eyes were riveted with a
      strenuous sort of gaze upon her, and her only. He stood partly on one
      side, but still behind her, so that, without changing her position, she
      could scarcely have beheld his countenance. I looked in vain, in the brief
      space of time which I employed in surveying them, but she never once
      turned her head; nor did he once withdraw his glance from her neck and
      cheek, a part only of which could have been visible to him where he stood.
      Her features, meanwhile, were subdued and placid. There was nothing which
      could make me dissatisfied with her, had I not been predisposed to this
      dissatisfaction; and when the tones of my voice were heard, she started up
      to meet me with a sudden flash of pleasure in her eyes which illuminated
      her whole countenance.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah I you are come, then. I am so glad!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She little knew why I had come. I blushed involuntarily with the
      conviction of the base motive which had brought me. She immediately
      grasped my arm, drew me to the contemplation of those pictures which had
      more particularly pleased herself, absolutely seeming to forget that there
      was a third person in the room. William Edgerton turned away and busied
      himself, for the first time no doubt, in the examination of a landscape on
      the opposite wall. I followed his movement with my glance for a single
      instant, but his face was studiously averted.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXV. &mdash; THE OLD GOOSE FINDS A YOUNG GANDER.
    </h2>
    <p>
      We will suppose some months to have elapsed in this manner&mdash;months,
      to me, of prolonged torture and suspicion. Circumstances, like petty
      billows of the sea, kept chafing upon the low places of my heart, keeping
      alive the feverish irritation which had already done so much toward
      destroying my peace, and overthrowing the guardian outposts of my pride
      and honor. How long the strife was to bo continued before the
      ocean-torrents should be let in&mdash;before the wild passions should
      quite overwhelm my reason&mdash;was a subject of doubt, but not the less a
      subject of present and of exceeding fear. In these matters, I need not say
      that there was substantially very little change in the character of events
      that marked the progress of my domestic life. William Edgerton still
      continued the course which he had so unwittingly begun. He still sought
      every opportunity to see my wife, and, if possible, to see her alone. He
      avoided me as much as possible; seldom came to the office; absolutely gave
      up his business altogether; and, when we met, though his words and manner
      were solicitously kind, there was a close restraint upon the latter, a
      hesitancy about the former, a timid apprehensiveness in his eye, and a
      generally-shown reluctance to approach me, which I could not but see, and
      could not but perceive, at the same time, that he endeavored with
      ineffectual effort to conceal. He was evidently conscious that he was
      doing wrong. It was equally clear to me that he lacked the manly courage
      to do right. What was all this to end in? The question became momently
      more and more serious. Suppose that he possessed no sort of influence over
      my wife! Even suppose his advances to stop where they were at present&mdash;his
      course already, so far, was a humiliating indignity, allowing that it
      became perceptible to the eyes of others. That revelation once made, there
      could be no more proper forbearance on the part of the husband. The
      customs of our society, the tone of public opinion&mdash;nay, outraged
      humanity itself&mdash;demanded then the interposition of the avenger. And
      that revelation was at hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      Meanwhile, the keenest eyes of suspicion could behold nothing in the
      conduct of Julia which was not entirely unexceptionable. If William
      Edgerton was still persevering in his pursuit, Julia seemed insensible to
      his endeavors. Of course, they met frequently when it was not in my power
      to see them. It was my error to suppose that they met more frequently
      still&mdash;that he saw her invariably in his morning visits to the
      studio, which was not often the case&mdash;and, when they did meet, that
      she derived quite as much satisfaction from the interview as himself. Of
      their meetings, except at night, when I was engaged in my miserable watch
      upon them, I could say nothing. Failing to note anything evil at such
      periods, my jealous imagination jumped to the conclusion that this was
      because my espionage was suspected, and that their interviews at other
      periods were distinguished by less prudence and reserve. And yet, could I
      have reasoned rightly at this period, I must have seen that, if such were
      the case, there would have been no such display of EMPRESSMENT as William
      Edgerton made at these evening visits. Did he expend his ardor in the day,
      did he apprehend my scrutiny at night, he would surely have suppressed the
      eagerness of his glance&mdash;the profound, all-forgetting adoration which
      marked his whole air, gaze, and manner. Nor should I have been so
      wretchedly blind to what was the obvious feeling of discontent and
      disquiet in her bosom. Never did evenings seem to pass with more downright
      dullness to any one party in the world. If Edgerton spoke to her, which he
      did not frequently, his address was marked by a trepidation and hesitancy
      akin to fear&mdash;a manner which certainly indicated anything but a
      foregone conclusion between them; while her answers, on the other hand,
      were singularly cold, merely replying, and calculated invariably to
      discourage everything like a protracted conversation. What was said by
      Edgerton was sufficiently harmless&mdash;nor harmless merely. It was most
      commonly mere ordinary commonplace, the feeble effort of one who feels the
      necessity of speech, yet dares not speak the voluminous passions which
      alone could furnish him with energetic and manly utterance. Had the scales
      not been abundantly thick and callous above my eyes, how easily might
      these clandestine scrutinies have brought me back equally to happiness and
      my senses! But though I thus beheld the parties, and saw the truth as I
      now relate it, there was always then some little trifling circumstance
      that would rise up, congenial to suspicion, and cloud my conclusions, and
      throw me back upon old doubts and cruel jealousies. Edgerton's tone may,
      at moments, have been more faltering and more tender than usual; Julia's
      glance might sometimes encounter his, and then they both might seem to
      fall, in mutual confusion, to the ground. Perhaps she sung some little
      ditty at his instance&mdash;some ditty that she had often sung for me.
      Nay, at his departure, she might have attended him to the entrance, and he
      may have taken her hand and retained his grasp upon it rather longer than
      was absolutely necessary for his farewell. How was I to know the degree of
      pressure which he gave to the hand within his own? That single grasp, not
      unfrequently, undid all the better impressions of a whole evening consumed
      in these unworthy scrutinies. I will not seek further to account for or to
      defend this unhappy weakness. Has not the great poet of humanity said&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
                        &ldquo;Trifles, light as air,
       Are, to the jealous, confirmations strong
       As proofs Of Holy Writ&rdquo;?
</pre>
    <p>
      Medical men tell us of a predisposing condition of the system for the
      inception of epidemic. It needs, after this, but the smallest atmospheric
      changes, and the contagion spreads, and blackens, and taints the entire
      body of society, even unto death. The history of the moral constitution is
      not unanalogous to this. The disease, the damning doubt, once in the mind,
      and the rest is easy. It may sleep and be silent for a season, for years,
      unprovoked by stimulating circumstances; but let the moral atmosphere once
      receive its color from the suddenly-passing cloud, and the dark spot
      dilates within the heart, grows active, and rapidly sends its poisonous
      and poisoning tendrils through all the avenues of mind. Its bitter
      secretions in my soul affected all the objects of my sight, even as the
      jaundiced man lives only in a saffron element. Perhaps no course of
      conduct on the part of my wife could have seemed to me entirely innocent.
      Certainly none could have been entirely satisfactory, or have seemed
      entirely proper. Even her words, when she spoke to me alone, were of a
      kind to feed my prevailing passion. Yet, regarded under just moods, they
      should have been the most conclusive, not simply of her innocence, but of
      the devotedness of her heart to the requisitions of her duty. Her love and
      her sense of right seemed harmoniously to keep together. Gentlest
      reproaches eluded me for leaving her, when she sought for none but myself.
      Sweetest endearments encountered my return, and fondest entreaties would
      have delayed the hour of my departure. Her earnestness, when she implored
      me not to leave her so frequently at night, almost reached intensity, and
      had a meaning, equally expressive of her delicacy and apprehensions, which
      I was unhappily too slow to understand.
    </p>
    <p>
      Six months had probably elapsed from the time of Mr. Clifford's death,
      when, returning from my office one day, who should I encounter in my
      wife's company but her mother? Of this good lady I had been permitted to
      see but precious little since my marriage. Not that she had kept aloof
      from our dwelling entirely. Julia had always conceived it a duty to seek
      her mother at frequent periods without regarding the ill treatment which
      she received; and the latter, becoming gradually reconciled to what she
      could no longer prevent, had at length so far put on the garments of
      Christian charity as to make a visit to her daughter in return. Of course,
      though I did not encourage it, I objected nothing to this renewed
      intercourse; which continued to increase until, as in the present
      instance, I sometimes encountered this good lady on my return from my
      office. On these occasions I treated her with becoming respect, though
      without familiarity. I inquired after her health, expressed myself pleased
      to see her, and joined my wife in requesting her to stay to dinner. Until
      now, she usually declined to do so; and her manner to myself hitherto was
      that of a spoiled child indulging in his sulks. But, this day, to my great
      consternation, she was all smiles and good humor.
    </p>
    <p>
      A change so sudden portended danger. I looked to my wife, whose grave
      countenance afforded me no explanation. I looked to the lady herself, my
      own countenance no doubt sufficiently expressive of the wonder which I
      felt, but there was little to be read in that quarter which could give me
      any clue to the mystery. Yet she chattered like a magpie; her conversation
      running on certain styles of dress, various purchases of silks, and
      satins, and other stuffs, which she had been buying&mdash;a budget of
      which, I afterward discovered, she had brought with her, in order to
      display to her daughter. Then she spoke of her teeth, newly filed and
      plugged, and grinned with frequent effort, that their improved condition
      might be made apparent. Her chatter was peculiarly that of a flippant and
      conceited girl-child of sixteen, whose head has been turned by premature
      bringing out, and the tuition of some vain, silly, wriggling mother. I
      could see, by my wife's looks, that there was a cause for all this, and
      waited, with considerable apprehension, for the moment when we should be
      alone, in order to receive from her an explanation. But little of Mrs.
      Clifford's conversation was addressed to me, though that little was
      evidently meant to be particularly civil. But, a little before she took
      her departure, which was soon after dinner, she asked me with some
      abruptness, though with a considerable smirk of meaning in her face, if I
      &ldquo;knew a Mr. Patrick Delaney.&rdquo; I frankly admitted that I had not this
      pleasure; and with a still more significant smirk, ending in a very
      affected simper, meant to be very pleasant, she informed me, as she took
      her leave, that Julia would make me wiser. I looked to Julia when she was
      gone, and, with some chagrin, and with few words, she unravelled the
      difficulty. Her mother&mdash;the old fool&mdash;was about to be married,
      and to a Mr. Patrick Delaney, an Irish gentleman, fresh from the green
      island, who had only been some eighteen months in America.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You seem annoyed by this affair, Julia; but how does it affect you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, such a match can not turn out well. This Mr. Delaney is a young man,
      only twenty-five, and what can he see in mother to induce him to marry
      her? It can only be for the little pittance of property which she
      possesses.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I shrugged my shoulders while replying:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There must be some consideration in every marriage-contract.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! but, Edward, what sort of a man can it be to whom money is the
      consideration for marrying a woman old enough to be his mother?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And so little money, too. But, Julia, perhaps he marries her as a mother.
      He is a modest youth, who knows his juvenility, and seeks becoming
      guardianship. But the thing does not concern us at all.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She is my mother, Edward.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;True; but still I do not see that the matter should concern us. You do
      not apprehend that Mr. Patrick Delaney will seek to exercise the authority
      of a father over either of us?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! but I fear she will repent.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why should that be a subject of fear which should be a subject of
      gratulation? For my part, I hope she may repent. We are told she can not
      be saved else.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Julia was silent. I continued:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But what brings her here, and makes her so suddenly affable with me? That
      is certainly a matter which looks threatening. Does she explain this to
      you, Julia?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not otherwise than by declaring she is sorry for former differences.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, indeed! but her sorrow comes too late, and I very much suspect has
      some motive. What more? the shaft is not yet shot.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You guess rightly; she invites us to the wedding, and insists that we
      must come, as a proof that we harbor no malice.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is that all?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All, I believe.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She is more considerate than I expected. Well, you promised her?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No; I told her I could say nothing without consulting you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And would you wish to go, Julia?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, surely, dear husband.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We will both go, then.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A week afterward the affair took place, and we were among the spectators.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXXVI. &mdash; THE HEART-FIEND FINDS AN ECHO FROM THE FIEND
      WITHOUT.
    </h2>
    <p>
      And a spectacle it was! Mrs. Clifford, about to become Mrs. Delaney, was
      determined that the change in her situation should be distinguished by
      becoming eclat. Always a silly woman, fond of extravagance and show, she
      prepared to celebrate an occasion of the greatest folly in a style of
      greater extravagance than ever. She accordingly collected as many of her
      former numerous acquaintances as were still willing to appear within a
      circle in which wealth was no longer to be found. Her house was small,
      but, as has been elsewhere stated in this narrative, she had made it
      smaller by stuffing it with the massive and costly furniture which had
      been less out of place in her former splendid mansion, and had there much
      better accorded with her fortunes. She now still further stuffed it with
      her guests. Of course, many of those present, came only to make merry at
      her expense. Her husband was almost entirely unknown to any of them; and
      it was enough to settle his pretensions in every mind, that, in the vigor
      of his youth, a really fine-looking, well-made person of twenty-five, he
      was about to connect himself, in marriage, with a haggard old woman of
      fifty, whose personal charms, never very great, were nearly all gone; and
      whose mind and manners, the grace of youth being no more, were so very
      deficient in all those qualities which might commend one to a husband. So
      far as externals went, Mr. Delaney was a very proper man. He behaved with
      sufficient decorum, and unexpected modesty; and went through the ordeal as
      composedly as if the occurrence had been frequently before familiar; as
      indeed we shall discover in the sequel, was certainly the case. But this
      does not concern us now.
    </p>
    <p>
      Three rooms were thrown open to the company. We had refreshments in
      abundance and great variety, and at a certain hour, we were astounded by
      the clamor of tamborine and fiddle giving due notice to the dancers. Among
      my few social accomplishments, this of dancing had never been included.
      Naturally, I should, perhaps, be considered an awkward man. I was
      conscious of this awkwardness at all times when not excited by action or
      some earnest motive. I was incapable of that graceful loitering, that
      flexibleness of mind and body, which excludes the idea of intensity, of
      every sort, and which constitutes one of the great essentials for success
      in a ball-room. It was in this very respect that my FRIEND, William
      Edgerton, may be said to have excelled most young men of our acquaintance.
      He was what, in common speech, is called an accomplished man. Of very
      graceful person, without much earnestness of character, he had acquired a
      certain fastidiousness of taste on the subjects of costume and manners,
      which, without Brummellizing, he yet carried to an extent which betrayed a
      considerable degree of mental feebleness. This somewhat assimilated him to
      the fashionable dandy. He walked with an air equally graceful, noble, and
      unaffected. He was never on stilts, yet he was always EN REGLE. He had as
      little maurias, honte as maurais ton. In short, whatever might have been
      his deficiencies, he was confessedly a very neat specimen of the fine
      gentleman in its most commendable social sense.
    </p>
    <p>
      William Edgerton was among the guests of Mrs. Clifford. There had been no
      previous intimacy between the Edgerton and Clifford families, yet he had
      been specially invited. Mrs. C. could have had but a single motive for
      inviting him&mdash;so I thought&mdash;that of making her evening a jam.
      She had just that ambition of the lady of small fashion, who regards the
      number rather than the quality of her guests, and would prefer a saloon
      full of Esquimaux or Kanzas, and would partake of their sea-blubber,
      rather than lose the triumph of making more noise than her rival
      neighbors, the Sprigginses or Wigginses.
    </p>
    <p>
      William Edgerton did not seek me; but, when I left the side of my wife to
      pay my respects to some ladies at the opposite end of the room, he
      approached her. A keen pang that rendered me unconscious of everything I
      was saying&mdash;nay, even of the persons to whom I was addressing myself&mdash;shot
      through my heart, as I beheld him crossing the floor to the place that I
      had left. Involuntarily, the gracefulness of his person and carriage
      provoked in my mind a contrast most unfavorable to me, between him and
      myself. It was no satisfaction to me at that time to reflect that I was
      less graceful only because I was more earnest, more sincere. This is
      usually the case, and is reasonably accounted for. Intensity and great
      earnestness of character, are wholly inconsistent with a nice attention to
      forms, carriage, demeanor. But what does a lady care for such distinction?
      Does she even suspect it? Not often. If she could only fancy for a moment
      that the well-made but awkward man who traverses the room before her,
      carried in his breast a soul of such ardency and volume that it subjected
      his very motion arbitrarily to its own excitements, its own convulsions;
      that the very awkwardness which offended her was the result of the most
      deep and passionate feelings&mdash;feelings which, like the buried flame
      in the mountain, are continually boiling up for utterance&mdash;convulsing
      the prison-house which retained them&mdash;shaking the solid earth with
      their pent throes, that will not always be pent! Ah! these things do not
      move ladies' fancies. There are very few endowed with that thoughtful
      pride which disdains surfaces. Julia Clifford was one of these few! But I
      little knew it then.
    </p>
    <p>
      The approach of William Edgerton to my wife was a signal for my torture
      all that evening. From that moment my mind was wandering. I knew little
      what I said, or looked, or did. My chat with those around me became, on a
      sudden, bald and disjointed; and when I beheld the pair, both nobly formed&mdash;he
      tall, graceful, manly&mdash;she, beautiful and bending as a lily&mdash;a
      purity beaming, amid all their brightness, from her eyes&mdash;a purity
      which, I had taught myself to believe, was no longer in her heart&mdash;when
      I beheld them advance into the floor, conspicuous over all the rest, in
      most eyes, as they certainly were in mine&mdash;I can not describe&mdash;you
      may conjecture&mdash;the cold, fainting sickness which overcame my soul. I
      could have lain myself down upon the lone, midnight rocks, and surrendered
      myself to solitude and storm for ever.
    </p>
    <p>
      They entered the stately measures of the Spanish dance But the grace of
      movement which won the murmuring applause of all around me, only increased
      the agony of my afflictions. I saw their linked arms&mdash;the compliant,
      willing movements of their mutual forms&mdash;and dark were the images of
      guilt and hateful suspicion which entered my brain and grew to vivid
      forms, in action before me. I fancied the fierce, passionate yearnings in
      the heart of Edgerton; I trembled when I conjectured what fancies filled
      the heart of Julia. I can not linger over the torturing influence of those
      moments&mdash;moments which seemed ages! Enough that I was maddened with
      the delirium, now almost as its height, which had been for months preying
      upon my brain like some corroding serpent.
    </p>
    <p>
      The dance closed. Edgerton conducted her to a seat and placed himself
      beside her. I kept aloof. I watched them from a distance; and in
      sustaining this watch, I was compelled to recall my senses with a stern
      degree of resolution which should save my feelings from the detection of
      those inquisitive glances which I fancied were all around me. If I was
      weakest among men, in the disease which destroyed my peace, Heaven knows I
      was among the strongest of men in concealing its expression at the very
      moment when every pulsation of my heart was an especial agony. I affected
      indifference, threw myself into the midst of a group of such people as
      talk of their neighbor's bonnets or breeches, the rise of stocks, or the
      fall of rain; and how Mrs. Jenkins has set up her carriage, and Mr.
      Higgins has been compelled to set down, and to sell out his. Interesting
      details, perhaps, without which the nine in ten might as well be
      tongueless or tongue-tied for ever. This stuff I had to hear, and requite
      in like currency, while my brain was boiling, and dim, but terrible images
      of strife, and storm, and agony, were rushing through it with howling and
      hisses. There I sat, thus seemingly engaged, but with an eye ever glancing
      covertly to the two, who, at that moment, absorbed every thought of my
      mind, every feeling of my heart, and filled them both with the bitterest
      commotion. The glances of their mutual eyes, the expression of lip and
      check, I watched with the keenest analysis of suspicion. In Julia, I saw
      sweetness mixed with a delicate reserve. She seemed to speak but little.
      Her eyes wandered from her companion&mdash;frequently to where I sat&mdash;-but
      I gave myself due credit, at such moments, for the ability with which I
      conducted my own espionage. My inference&mdash;equally unjust and
      unnatural&mdash;that her timid glances to my-self denoted in her bosom a
      consciousness of wrong&mdash;seemed to me the most natural and inevitable
      inference. And when I noted the ardency of Edgerton's gaze, his close,
      unrelaxing attentions, the seeming forgetfulness of all around which he
      manifested, I hurried to the conclusion that his words were of a character
      to suit his looks, and betray in more emphatic utterance, the passion
      which they also betrayed.
    </p>
    <p>
      The signal, after a short respite, devoted to fruits, ices, &amp;c., was
      made for the dancers, and William Edgerton rose. I noted his bow to my
      wife, saw that he spoke, and necessarily concluded, that he again
      solicited her to dance. Her lips moved&mdash;she bowed slightly&mdash;and
      he again took his seat beside her. I inferred from this that she declined
      to dance a second time. She was certainly more prudent than himself. I
      assigned to prudence&mdash;to policy&mdash;on her part, what might well
      have been placed to a nobler motive. I went further.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She will not dance with him,&rdquo; said the busy fiend at my shoulder, &ldquo;for
      the very reason that she prefers a quiet seat beside him. In the dance
      they mingle with others; they can not speak with so much ease and safety.
      Now she has him all to herself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I dashed away, forgetful, gloomily, from the knot by which I had been
      encompassed. I passed into the adjoining room, which was connected by
      folding doors, with that I left. The crowd necessarily grouped itself
      around the dancers, and (sic) a window-jamb, I stood absolutely forgetting
      where I was alone among the many&mdash;with my eye stretching over the
      heads of the flying masses, to the remote spot where my wife still sat
      with Edgerton. I was aroused from my hateful dream by a slight touch upon
      my arm. I started with a painful sense of my own weakness&mdash;with a
      natural dread that the secret misery under which I labored was no longer a
      secret. I writhed under the conviction that the cold, the sneering, and
      the worthless, were making merry with my afflictions. I met the gaze of
      the bride&mdash;the mistress of ceremonies&mdash;my wife's mother Mrs.
      Delaney, late Clifford. I shuddered as I beheld her glance. I could not
      mistake the volume of meaning in her smile&mdash;that wretched smile of
      her thin, withered lips, brimful of malignant cunning, which said
      emphatically as such smile could say:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I see you on the rack; I know that you are writhing; and I enjoy your
      tortures.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I started, as if to leave her, with a look of fell defiance, roused, ready
      to burst forth into utterance, upon my own face. But she gently detained
      my arm.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are troubled.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! but you are. Stop awhile. You will feel better.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Thank you; but I feel very well.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no, you do not. You can not deceive me. I know where the shoe
      pinches; but what did you expect? Were you simple enough to imagine that a
      woman would be true to her husband, who was false to her own mother?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fiend!&rdquo; I muttered in her ear.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ha! ha! ha!&rdquo; was the unmeasured response of the bel dame, loud enough for
      the whole house to hear. I darted from her grasp, which would have
      detained me still, made my way&mdash;how I know not&mdash;out of the
      house, and found myself almost gasping for breath, in the open air of the
      street.
    </p>
    <p>
      She, at least, had been sagacious enough to find out my secret
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXVII. &mdash; KINGSLEY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      THE fiendish suggestion of the mother, against the purity of her own
      child, almost divested me, for the moment, of my own rancor&mdash;almost
      deprived me of my suspicions! Could anything have been more thoroughly
      horrible and atrocious! It certainly betrayed how deep was the malignant
      hatred which she had ever borne to myself, and of which her daughter was
      now required to bear a portion. What a volume of human depravity was
      opened on my sight, by that single utterance of this wretched mother.
      Guilt and sin! ye are, indeed, the masters everywhere! How universal is
      your dominion! How ye rage&mdash;how ye riot among souls, and minds, and
      fancies&mdash;never utterly overthrown anywhere&mdash;busy always&mdash;everywhere&mdash;sovereign
      in how many hapless regions of the heart! Who is pure among men? Who can
      be sure of himself for a day&mdash;an hour? Precious few! None, certainly,
      who do not distrust their own strength with a humility only to be won from
      prayer&mdash;prayer coupled with moderate desires, and the presence of a
      constant thought, which teaches that time is a mere agent of eternity, and
      he who works for the one only, will not even be secure of peace during the
      period for which he works. Truly, he who lives not for the future is the
      very last who may reasonably hope to enjoy the blessings of the present.
    </p>
    <p>
      But this was not the season, nor was mine the mood, for moral reflections
      of any sort. My secret was known! That was everything. When the conduct of
      William Edgerton had become such, as to awaken the notice of third
      persons, I was justified in exacting from him the heavy responsibility he
      had incurred. The vague, indistinct conviction had long floated before my
      mind, that I would be required to take his life. The period which was to
      render this task necessary, was that which had now arrived&mdash;when it
      had been seen by others&mdash;not interested like myself&mdash;that he had
      passed the bounds of propriety. Of course, I was arguing in a circle, from
      which I should have found it impossible to extricate myself. Thousands
      might have seen that I was jealous, without being able to see any just
      cause for my jealousy. It was, however, quite enough for a proud spirit
      like my own, that its secret fear should be revealed. It did not much
      matter, after this, whether my suspicions were, or were not causeless. It
      was enough that they were known&mdash;that busy, meddling women, and men
      about town, should distinguish me with a finger&mdash;should say: &ldquo;His
      wife is very pretty and&mdash;very charitable!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ha! ha! ha!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I, too, could laugh, under such musings, and in the spirit of Mrs. Delaney&mdash;late
      Clifford.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ha! ha! ha!&rdquo; The street echoed, beneath the windows of that reputable
      lady, with my involuntary, fiendish laughter. I stood there&mdash;and the
      music rang through my senses like the cries of exulting demons. She was
      there&mdash;of my wife the thoughts ran thus, she was there, whirling,
      perchance, in the mazes of that voluptuous dance, then recently become
      fashionable among us; his arm about her waist&mdash;her form inclining to
      his, as if seeking support and succor&mdash;and both of them forgetting
      all things but the mutual intoxication which swallowed up all things and
      thoughts in the absorbing sensuality of one! Or, perhaps, still apart,
      they sat to themselves&mdash;her ear fastened upon his lips&mdash;her
      consciousness given wholly to his discourse; and that discourse!&mdash;&ldquo;Ha!
      ha! ha!&rdquo;&mdash;I laughed again, as I hurried away from the spot, with
      gigantic strides, taking the direction which led to my own lonely
      dwelling.
    </p>
    <p>
      All was stillness there, but there was no peace. I entered the piazza,
      threw myself into a chair, and gazed out upon the leaves and waters,
      trying to collect my scattered thoughts&mdash;trying to subdue my blood,
      that my thoughts might meet in deliberation upon the desolating prospect
      which was then spread before me. But I struggled for this in vain. But one
      thought was mine at that hour. But one fearful image gathered in
      completeness and strength before my mind; and that was one calculated to
      banish all others and baffle all their deliberations.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The blood of William Edgerton must be shed, and by these hands! My
      disgrace is known! There is no help for it!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I had repeatedly resolved this gloomy conviction in my mind. It was now to
      receive shape and substance. It was a thing no longer to be thought upon.
      It was a thing to be done! This necessity staggered me. The kindness of
      the father, the kindness and long true friendship of the son himself, how
      could I requite this after such a fashion? How penetrate the peaceful home
      of that fond family with an arm of such violence, as to tend their
      proudest offspring from the parental tree, and, perhaps, in destroying it,
      blight for ever the venerable trunk upon which it was borne? Let it not be
      fancied that these feelings were without effect. Let it not be supposed
      that I weakly, willingly, yielded to the conviction of this cruel
      necessity&mdash;that I determined, without a struggle, upon this seemingly
      necessary measure! Verily, I then, in that dreary house and hour, wrestled
      like a strong man with the unbidden prompter, who counselled me to the
      deed of blood. I wrestled with him as the desperate man, knowing the
      supernatural strength of his enemy, wrestles with a demon. The strife was
      a fearful one. I could not suppress my groans of agony; and the cold sweat
      gathered and stood upon my forehead in thick, clammy drops.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the struggle was vain to effect my resolution. It had been too long
      present as a distinct image before my imagination. I had already become
      too familiar with its aspects. It had the look of a fate to my mind. I
      fancied myself&mdash;as probably most men will do, whose self-esteem is
      very active&mdash;the victim of a fate. My whole life tended to confirm
      this notion. I was chosen out from the beginning for a certain work, in
      which, my-self a victim, I was to carry out the designs of destiny in the
      ease of other victims. I had struggled long not to believe this&mdash;not
      to do this work. But the struggle was at last at an end. I was convinced,
      finally. I was ready for the work. I was resigned to my fate. But oh! how
      grateful once had one of these victims seemed in my eyes! How beautiful,
      and still how dear was the other!
    </p>
    <p>
      I rose from my seat and struggle, with the air of one strengthened by
      thoughtful resolution for any act. Prayer could not have strengthened me
      more. I felt a singular degree of strength. I can well understand that of
      fanaticism from my own feelings. Nothing, in the shape of danger, could
      have deterred me from the deed. I positively had no remaining fear. But,
      how was it to be done? With this inquiry in my mind, still unanswered, I
      took a light, went into my study, and drew from my escritoir the few small
      weapons which I had in possession. These are soon named. One was a neat
      little dirk&mdash;broad in blade, double-edged, short&mdash;sufficient for
      all my purposes. I examined my pistols and loaded them&mdash;a small, neat
      pair, the present of Edgerton himself. This fact determined me not to use
      them. I restored them to the escritoir; put the dagger between the folds
      of my vest, and prepared to leave the house.
    </p>
    <p>
      At this moment a heavy knocking was heard at the gate I resumed my seat in
      the piazza until the servant should report the nature of the interruption.
      He was followed in by my friend Kingsley.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am glad to find you home,&rdquo; said he abruptly, grasping my hand; &ldquo;home,
      and not a-bed. The hour is late, I know, but the devil never keeps
      ordinary hours, and men, driven by his satanic majesty, have some excuse
      for following his example.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      This exordium promised something unusual. The manner of Kingsley betrayed
      excitement. Nay, it was soon evident he had been taking a superfluous
      quantity of wine. His voice was thick, and he spoke excessively loud in
      order to be intelligible. There was something like a defying desperation
      in his tones, in the dare-devil swagger of his movement, and the almost
      iron pressure of his grasp upon my fingers. I subdued my own passions&mdash;nay,
      they were subdued&mdash;singularly so, by the resolution I had made before
      his entrance, and was able, therefore, to appear calm and smooth as summer
      water in his eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's the matter?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;You seem excited. No evil, I trust?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Evil, indeed! Not much; but even if it were, I tell you Ned Clifford, I
      am just now in the mood to say, 'Evil be thou my good!' I have reason to
      say it; and, by the powers, it will not be said only. I will make evil my
      good after a fashion of my own; but how much good or now little evil, will
      be yet another question.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I was interested, in spite of myself, by the vehemence and unusual
      seriousness of my companion's manner. It somewhat harmonized with my own
      temper, and in a measure beguiled me into a momentary heedlessness of my
      particular griefs. I urged him to a more frank statement of the things
      that troubled him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Can I serve you in anything?&rdquo; was the inquiry which concluded my
      assurance that I was sufficiently his friend to sympathize with him in his
      afflictions.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You can serve me, and I need your service. You can serve me in two
      respects; nay, if you do not, I know not which side to turn for service.
      In the first place, then, I wish a hundred dollars, and I wish it
      to-night. In the next place, I wish a companion&mdash;a man not easily
      scared, who will follow where I lead him, and take part in a 'knock down
      and drag out,' if it should become necessary, without asking the why and
      the wherefore.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You shall have the money, Kingsley.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Stay! Perhaps I may never pay it you again.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I shall regret that, for I can ill afford to lose any such sum; but, even
      to know that would not prevent me from lending you in your need. It is
      enough that you are in want. You tell me you are.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am; but my wants are not such as a pure moralist, however strong might
      be his friendship, would be disposed to gratify. I shall stake that money
      on the roll of the dice.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Impossible! You do not game!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;True as a gospel! Hark you, Clifford, and save us the homily. I am a
      ruined man&mdash;ruined by the d&mdash;-d dice and the deceptive cards. I
      shall pay you back the hundred dollars, but I shall have precious little
      after that.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, surely, I was not misinformed. You were rich a few years ago.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A few months! But the case is the same. I am poor now. My riches had
      wings. I am reduced to my tail-feathers; but I will flourish with these to
      the last. I have fallen among thieves. They have clipped my plumage&mdash;close!
      close! They have stripped me of everything, but some small matters which,
      when sold, will just suffice to get me horse or halter. Some dirty acres
      in Alabama, are all I absolutely have remaining of any real value. But
      there is one thing that I may have, if I stake boldly for it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You will only lose again. The hope of a gamester rises, in due degree,
      with the increasing lightness of his pockets.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do not mistake me. I hope nothing from your hundred dollars; indeed,
      fifty will answer. I propose to employ it only as a pretext. I expect to
      lose it, and lose it this very night. But it will give me an opportunity
      to ascertain what I have suspected&mdash;too late, indeed, to save myself&mdash;that
      I have been the victim of false dice and figured cards. You say you will
      let me have the money&mdash;will you go with me&mdash;Will you see me
      through?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He extended his hand as he spoke, I grasped it. He shook it with a hearty
      feeling, while a bright smile almost, dissipated the cloud from his face.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are a man, Clifford; and now, would you believe it, our excellent,
      immaculate young friend, Mr. William Edgerton, refused me this money.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Strange! Edgerton is not selfish&mdash;he is not mean! From THAT vice he
      is certainly free.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By G-d, I don't know that! He refused me the money; refused to go with
      me. I saw him at eight o'clock, at his own room, where he was rigging
      himself out for some d&mdash;-d tea-drinking; told him my straits, my
      losses, my object and all; and what was his plea, think you? Why, he
      disapproved of gambling; couldn't think of lending me a sixpence for any
      such purpose; and, as for going into such a suspected quarter as a
      gambling-house&mdash;wouldn't do it for the world! Was there ever such a
      puritan&mdash;such a humbug!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I did William Edgerton only justice in my reply;&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I've no doubt, Kingsley, that such are his real principles. He would have
      lent you thrice the money, freely, had not your object been avowed.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But what a devil sort of despotism is that! Can't a friend get drunk, or
      game, or swagger? may he not depart from the highway, and sidle into an
      alley, without souring his friend's temper and making him stingy? I don't
      understand it at all. I'm glad, at least, to find you are of another sort
      of stuff.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nay, Kingsley, I will lend you the money&mdash;go with you, as you
      desire; but, understand me, I do not, no more than Edgerton, approve of
      this gambling.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Tut, tut! I don't want you to preach, though I could hear you with a
      devilish sight better temper than him. There's a hundred things that one's
      friend don't approve of, but shall he desert him for all that? Leave him
      to be plucked, and kicked, and abandoned; and, moralizing, with a grin
      over his fain, say, 'I told you so!' No! no! Give me the fellow that'll
      stand by me&mdash;keep me out of evil, if he can, but stand by me,
      nevertheless, at all events; and not suffer me to be swallowed up at the
      last moment, when an outstretched finger might save!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, am I to think, Kingsley, that my help can do this?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! not exactly&mdash;it may&mdash;but if it does not, what then? I shall
      lose the money, but you shan't. But, truth to speak, Clifford, I do not
      propose to myself the recovery of what is lost. I know I have been the
      prey of sharpers. That is to say, I have every reason to believe so, and I
      have had a hint to that effect. I have a spice of the devil in me,
      accordingly&mdash;a mocking, mortifying devil, that jeers me with my d&mdash;-d
      simplicity; and I propose to go and let the swindlers know, in a way as
      little circuitous as possible, that I am not blind to the fact that they
      have made an ass of me. There will be some satisfaction, in that. I will
      write myself down an ass, for their benefit, only to enjoy the
      satisfaction of kicking a little like one. I invite you on a kicking
      expedition.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I felt for my dagger in my bosom, as I answered: &ldquo;Very good! Have you
      weapons?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hickory! You see! a moderate axe-handle, that'll make its sentiments
      understood You are warned; you see what you are to expect. I will not take
      you in. Are you ready for a scratch?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Allons!&rdquo; I replied indifferently. The truth is, my bosom was full of a
      recklessness of a far more sweeping character than his own. I was in the
      mood for strife. It promised only the more thoroughly to prepare me for
      the darker trial which was before me, and which my secret soul was
      meditating all the while with an intense and gloomy tenacity of purpose.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXVIII. &mdash; MORALS OF ENTERPRISE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      I got him the money he required; and we were about to set forth, when he
      exclaimed abruptly:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Put money in thy own purse, Clifford. It may be necessary to practise a
      little ruse de guerre. In playing my game, it may be important that you
      should deem to play one also. You have no scruples to fling the dice or
      flirt the cards for the nonce.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;None! But I should like to know your plans. Tell me, in the first place,
      your precise object.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Simply to detect certain knaves, and save certain fools. The knaves have
      ruined me, and I make no lamentations; but there are others in their
      clutches still, quite as ignorant as myself, who may be saved before they
      are stripped entirely. The object is not a bad one; for the rest, trust to
      me. I mean no harm; a little mischief only; and, at most, a tweak of one
      proboscis or more. There's risk, of a certainty, as there is in sucking an
      egg; but you are a man! Not like that d&mdash;d milksop, who gives up his
      friend as soon as he gets poor, and proffers him a sermon by way of
      telling him&mdash;precious information, truly&mdash;that he's in a fair
      way to the devil. The toss of a copper for such friendship.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The humor of Kingsley tallied somewhat with my own. It had in it a spice
      of recklessness which pleased me. Perhaps, too, it tended somewhat to
      relieve and qualify the intenseness of that excitement in my brain, which
      sometimes rose to such a pitch as led me to apprehend madness. That I was
      a monomaniac has been admitted, perhaps not a moment too soon for the
      author's candor. The sagacity of the reader made him independent of the
      admission.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Your beggar,&rdquo; said he, somewhat abruptly, &ldquo;has the only true feeling of
      independence. Absolutely, I never knew till now what it was to be
      thoroughly indifferent to what might come to-morrow. I positively care for
      nothing. I am the first prince Sans Souci. That shall be my title when I
      get among the Cumanches. I will have a code of laws and constitution to
      suit my particular humor, and my chief penalties shall be inflicted upon
      your fellows who grunt. A sigh shall incur a week's solitary confinement;
      a sour look, pillory; and for a groan, the hypochondriac shall lose his
      head! My prime minister shall be the fellow who can longest use his tongue
      without losing his temper; and the man who can laugh and jest shall always
      have his plate at my table. Good-humored people shall have peculiar
      privileges. It shall be a certificate in one's favor, entitling him to so
      many acres, that he takes the world kindly. Such a man shall have two
      wives, provided he can keep them peacefully in the same house. His
      daughters shall have dowries from government. The prince of Sans Souci
      will himself provide for them.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I made some answer, half jest, half earnest, in a mood of mocking
      bitterness, which, perhaps, more truly accorded with the temper of both of
      us. He did not perceive the bitterness, however.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You jest, but mine is not altogether jest. Half-serious glimpses of what
      I tell you float certainly before my eyes. Such things may happen yet, and
      the southwest is the world in which you are yet to see many wondrous
      things. The time must come when Texas shall stretch to Mexico. These
      miserable slaves and reptiles&mdash;mongrel Spaniards and mongrel Indians&mdash;can
      not very long bedevil that great country. It must fall into other hands.
      It must be ours; and who, when that time comes, will carry into the field
      more thorough claims than mine. Master of myself, fearing nothing, caring
      for nothing; with a gallant steed that knows my voice, and answers with
      whinny and pricked ears to my encouragement; with a rifle that can clip a
      Mexican&mdash;dollar or man&mdash;at a hundred yards, and a heart that can
      defy the devil over his own dish, and with but one spoon between us&mdash;and
      who so likely to win his principality as myself? Look to see it, Clifford,
      I shall be a prince in Mexico; and when you hear of the prince Sans Souci
      be assured you know the man. Seek me then, and ask what you will. You have
      CARTE BLANCHE from this moment.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I shall certainly keep it in mind, prince.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do so: laugh as you please; it is only becoming that you should laugh in
      the presence of Sans Souci; but do not laugh in token of irreverence. You
      must not be too skeptical. It does not follow because I am a dare-devil
      that I am a thoughtless one. I have been so, perhaps, but from this moment
      I go to work! I shall be fettered by fortune no longer. Thank Heaven, that
      is now done&mdash;gone&mdash;lost; I am free from its incumbrance! I feel
      myself a prince, indeed; a man, every inch of me. This night I devote as a
      fitting finish to my old lifeless existence.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hear me!&rdquo; he continued; &ldquo;you laugh again, Clifford&mdash;very good! Laugh
      on, but hear me. You shall hear more of me in time to come. I fancy I
      shall be a fellow of considerable importance, not in Texas simply, or in
      Mexico, but here&mdash;here in your own self-opinionated United States.
      Suppose a few things, and go along with me while I speak them. That Texas
      must stretch to Mexico I hold to be certain. A very few years will do
      that. It needs only thirty thousand more men from our southern and
      southwestern States, and the brave old English tongue shall arouse the
      best echoes in the city of Montezuma! That done, and floods of people pour
      in from all quarters. It needs nothing but a feeling of security and peace&mdash;a
      conviction that property will be tolerably safe, under a tolerably stable
      government&mdash;in other words, an Anglo-Saxon government&mdash;to tempt
      millions of discontented emigrants from all quarters of the world. Will
      this result have no results of its own, think you? Will the immense
      resources of Mexico and Texas, represented, as they then will be, by a
      stern, pressing, performing people, have no effect upon these states of
      yours? They will have the greatest; nay, they will become essential to
      balance your own federal weight, and keep you all in equilibrio. For look
      you, the first hubbub with Great Britain gives you Canada, at the expense
      of some of your coast-towns, a few millions of treasure, and the loss of
      fifty thousand men. A bad exchange for the south; for Canada will make six
      ponderous states, the policy and character of which will be New England
      all over. To balance this you will have your Florida territory, {Footnote:
      Florida, since admitted, but unhappily, as a single state.} of which two
      feeble states may be made. Not enough for your purposes. But the same war
      with England will render it necessary that your fleet should take
      possession of Cuba; which, after a civil apology to Spain for taking such
      a liberty with her possessions, and, perhaps, a few million by way of hush
      money, you carve into two more states, and, in this manner, try to bolster
      up your federal relations. How many of her West India islands Great
      Britain will be able to keep after such a war, is another problem, the
      solution of which will depend upon the relative strength of fleets and
      success of seamanship. These islands, which should of right be ours, and
      without which we can never be sure against any maritime power so great and
      so arrogant as England, once conquered by our arms, find their natural,
      moral, and social affinities in the southern states entirely; and, so far,
      contribute to strengthen you in your congressional conflicts. But these
      are not enough, for the simple reason that the population of states,
      purely agricultural, never makes that progress which is made in this
      respect by a commercial and manufacturing people. With the command of the
      gulf, the possession of an independent fleet by the Texans, the political
      characteristics of the states of Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama,
      Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, must undergo certain marked changes,
      which can only be neutralized by the adoption, on the part of these
      states, of a new policy corresponding with their change of interests. How
      far the cultivation of cotton by Texas will lead to its abandonment in
      Carolina and Georgia, is a question which the next ten years must solve.
      That they will be compelled to abandon it is inevitable, unless they can
      succeed in raising the article at six cents; a probability which no
      cotton-planter in either of these states will be willing to contemplate
      now for an instant. Meanwhile, Texas is spreading herself right and left.
      She conquers the Cumanches, subdues the native mongrel Mexicans. Her
      Hoestons and Lamars are succeeded by other and abler men, under whose
      control the evils of government, which followed the sway of such small
      animals as the Guerreros, and the Bolivars, the Bustamentes, and Sant'
      Annas, are very soon eradicated; and the country, the noblest that God
      ever gave to man in the hands of men, becomes a country!&mdash;a great and
      glorious country&mdash;stretching from the gulf to the Pacific, and
      providing the natural balance, which, in a few years, the southern state
      of this Union will inevitably need, by which alone your great confederacy
      will be kept together. You see, therefore, why I speed to Texas. Should I
      not, with my philosophy, my horse and my rifle&mdash;not to speak of stout
      heart and hand&mdash;reasonably aspire to the principality of Sans Souci?
      Laugh, if you please, but be not irreverent. You shall have carte blanche
      then if you will have a becoming faith now, on the word of a prince. I say
      it, It is written&mdash;Sans Souci.&rdquo; {Footnote: All these speculations
      were written in 1840-'41. I need not remark upon those which have since
      been verified.}
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Altissimo, excellentissimo, serenissimo!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Bravissimo, you improve; you will make a courtier&mdash;but mum now about
      my projects. We must suppress our dignities here. We are at the entrance
      of our hell!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      We had reached the door of a low habitation in a secluded street. The
      house was of wood&mdash;an ordinary hovel of two stories. A cluster of
      similar fabrics surrounded it, most of which I afterward discovered&mdash;though
      this fact could not be conjectured by an observer from the street&mdash;were
      connected by blind alleys, inner courts, and chambers and passages running
      along the ground floors. We stopped an instant, Kingsley having his hand
      upon the little iron knocker, a single black ring, that worked against an
      ordinary iron knob.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Before I knock,&rdquo; said he, in a whisper, &ldquo;before I knock, Clifford, let me
      say that if you have any reluctance&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;None! none! knock!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You will meet with some dirty rascals, and you must not only meet them
      with seeming civility, but as if you shared in their tastes&mdash;sought
      the same objects only&mdash;the getting of money&mdash;the only object
      which alone is clearly comprehensible by their understanding.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Go ahead! I will see you through.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A word more! Get yourself in play at a different table from me. You will
      find rogues enough around, ready to relieve you of your Mexicans. Leave me
      to my particular enemy; you will soon see whose shield I touch&mdash;but
      keep an occasional eye upon us; and all that I ask farther at your hands,
      should you see us by the ears, is to keep other fingers from taking hold
      of mine.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A heavy stroke of the knocker, followed by three light ones and a second
      heavy stroke, produced us an answer from within. The door unclosed, and by
      the light of a dim lamp, I discovered before me, as a sort of warden, a
      little yellow, weather-beaten, skin-dried Frenchman, whom I had frequently
      before seen at a fruit-shop in another part of the city. He looked at me,
      however, without any sign of recognition&mdash;with a blank, dull,
      indifferent countenance; motioned us forward in silence, and reclosing the
      door, sunk into a chair immediately behind it. I followed my companion
      through a passage which was unfathomably dark, up a flight of stairs,
      which led us into a sort of refreshment room. Tables were spread, with
      decanters, glasses, and tumblers upon them, that appeared to be in
      continual use. In a recess, stood that evil convenience of most American
      establishments, whether on land or sea, a liquor bar; its shelves crowded
      with bottles, all of which seemed amply full, and ready to complete the
      overthrow of the victim, which the other appliances of such a dwelling
      must already have actively begun.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here you may take in the Dutch courage, Clifford, should you lack the
      native. This, I know, is not the case with you, and yet the novelty of
      one's situation frequently overcomes a sensitive mind like fear. Perhaps a
      julep may be of use.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;None for me. I need no farther stimulant than the mere sense of movement.
      I take fire, like a wheel, by my own progress.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Pretty much the same case with myself. But I have been in the habit of
      drinking here, of late, and too deeply. To-night, however, as I said
      before, ends all these habits. If there is honey in the carcass, and
      strength from the sleep, there is wisdom from the folly, and virtue from
      the vice. There is a moral as well as a physical recoil, that most
      certainly follows the overcharge; and really, speaking according to my
      sincere conviction I never felt myself to be a better man, than just at
      this moment when I am about to do that which my own sense of morality
      fails altogether to justify. I do not know that I make you understand my
      feelings; I scarcely understand them myself; but of this sort they are,
      and I am really persuaded that I never felt in a better disposition to be
      a good man and a working man than just at the close of a career which has
      been equally profligate and idle.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I think my companion can be understood. There seems, in fact very little
      mystery in his moral progress. I understood him, but did not answer. I was
      not anxious to keep up the ball of conversation which he had begun with a
      spirit so mixed up of contradictions&mdash;so earnest yet so playful. A
      deep sense of shame unquestionably lurked beneath his levity; and yet I
      make no question that he felt in truth, and for the first time, that
      degree of mental hardihood of which he boasted.
    </p>
    <p>
      He advanced through the refreshment-room, to a door which led to an
      apartment in an adjoining tenement. It was closed, but unfastened. The
      sound of voices, an occasional buzz, or a slight murmur, came to our ears
      from within; that of rattling dice and rolling balls was more regular and
      more intelligible. Kingsley laid his hand upon the latch, and looked round
      to me. His eye was kindled with a playful sort of malicious light. A smile
      of pleasant bitterness was on his lips. He said to me in a whisper:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Stake your money slowly. A Mexican is the lowest stake. Keep to that, and
      lose as little as possible. You will soon see me sufficiently busy, and I
      will endeavor to urge my labors forward, so as to make your purgatory a
      short one. I shall only wait till I feel myself cheated in the game, to
      begin that which I came for. See that I have fair play in THAT, MON AMI,
      and I care very little about the other.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He lifted the latch as he concluded, and I followed him into the
      apartment.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXIX. &mdash; THE HELL.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The scene that opened upon us was, to me, a painfully interesting one. It
      was a mere hell, without any of those attractive adjuncts which, in a
      diseased state of popular refinement, such as exists in the fashionable
      atmospheres of London and Paris, provides it with decorations, and
      conceals its more discouraging and offensive externals. The charms of
      music, lovely women, gay lights, and superb drapery and furniture, were
      here entirely wanting. No other arts beyond the single passion for hazard,
      which exists, I am inclined to think, in a greater or less degree in every
      human breast, were here employed to beguile the young and unsuspecting
      mind into indulgence. The establishment into which I had fallen, seemed to
      presuppose an acquaintance, already formed, of the gamester with his
      fascinating vice. It was evidently no place to seduce the uninitiate. The
      passion must have been already awakened&mdash;the guardianship of the good
      angel lulled into indifference or slumber&mdash;before the young mind
      could be soon reconciled to the moral atmosphere of such a scene.
    </p>
    <p>
      The apartment was low and dimly lighted. Groups of small tables intended
      for two persons were all around. In the centre of the floor were tables of
      larger size, which were surrounded by the followers of Pharo. Unoccupied
      tables, here and there, were sprinkled with cards and domino; while, as if
      to render the characteristics of the place complete, a vapor of smoke and
      a smell of beer assailed our senses as we entered.
    </p>
    <p>
      There were not many persons present&mdash;I conjectured, at a glance, that
      there might be fifteen; but we heard occasional voices from an inner room,
      and a small door opening in the rear discovered a retreat like that we
      occupied, in the dim light of which I perceived moving faces and shadows,
      and Kingsley informed me that there were several rooms all similarly
      occupied with ours.
    </p>
    <p>
      An examination of the persons around me, increased the unpleasant feelings
      which the place had inspired. With the exception of a few, the greater
      number were evidently superior to their employments. Several of them were
      young men like my companion&mdash;men not yet lost to sensibility, who
      looked up with some annoyance as they beheld Kingsley accompanied by a
      stranger. Two or three of the inmates were veteran gamesters. You could
      see THAT in their business-like nonchalance&mdash;their rigid muscles&mdash;the
      manner at once demure and familiar. They were evidently &ldquo;habitues del
      l'enfer&rdquo;&mdash;men to whom cards and dice were as absolutely necessary
      now, as brandy and tobacco to the drunkard. These men were always at play.
      Even the smallest interval found them still shuffling the cards, and
      looking up at every opening of the door, as if in hungering anticipation
      of the prey. At such periods alone might you behold any expression of
      anxiety in their faces. This disappeared entirely the moment that they
      were in possession of the victim. That imperturbable composure which
      distinguished them was singularly contrasted with the fidgety eagerness
      and nervous rapidity by which you could discover the latter; and I glanced
      over the operations of the two parties, as they were fairly shown in
      several sets about the room, with a renewed feeling of wonder how a man so
      truly clever and strong, in some things, as Kingsley, should allow himself
      to be drawn so deeply into such low snares; the tricks of which seemed so
      apparent, and the attractions of which, in the present instance, were
      obviously so inferior and low. I little knew by what inoffensive and
      gradual changes the human mind, having once commenced its downward
      progress, can hurry to the base; nor did I sufficiently allow for that
      love of hazard itself, in games of chance, which I have already expressed
      the opinion, is natural to the proper heart of man, belongs to a rational
      curiosity, and arises, most probably, from that highest property of his
      intellect, namely, the love of art and intellectual ingenuity. It would be
      very important to know this fact, since then, instead of the blind
      hostility which is entertained for sports of this description, by certain
      classes of moralists among us, we might so employ their ministry as to
      deprive them of their hurtfulness and make them permanently beneficial in
      the cause of good education.
    </p>
    <p>
      Kingsley seemed to conjecture my thoughts. A smile of lofty significance
      expressing a feeling of mixed scorn and humility, rose upon his
      countenance&mdash;as if admitting his own feebleness, while insisting upon
      his recovered strength, A sentence which he uttered to me in a whisper, at
      this moment, was intended to convey some such meaning.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It was only when thrown to the earth, Clifford, that the wrestler
      recovered his strength.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That fable,&rdquo; I replied, &ldquo;proves that he was no god, at least. Of the
      earth, earthy, he found strength only in his sphere. The moment he aspired
      above it the god crushed him. I doubt if Hercules could have derived any
      benefit from the same source.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! I am no Hercules, but you will also find that I am no Antaeus. I
      fall, but I rise again, and I am not crushed. This is peculiarly the
      source of HUMAN strength.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Better not to fall.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! you are too late from Utopia. But&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      We were interrupted; a voice at my elbow&mdash;a soft, clear, insinuating
      voice addressed my companion:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, Monsieur Kingsley, I rejoice to see you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Kingsley gave me a single look, which said everything, as he turned to
      meet the new-comer. The latter continued:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Though worsted in that last encounter, you do not despair, I see.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! why should I?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;True, why? Fortune baffles skill, but what of that? She is capricious.
      Her despotism is feminine; and in her empire, more certainly than any
      other, it may be said boldly, that, with change of day there is change of
      doom. It is not always rain.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Perhaps not, but we may have such a long spell of it that everything is
      drowned. 'It's a long lane,' says the proverb, 'that has no turn;' but a
      man be done up long before he gets to the turning place.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The other replied by some of the usual commonplaces by which, in
      condescending language, the gamester provoked and stimulates his
      unconscious victim. Kingsley, however, had reached a period of experience
      which enabled him to estimate these phrases at their proper worth.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You would encourage me,&rdquo; he said quietly, and in tones which, to the
      unnoteful ear, would have seemed natural enough, but which, knowing him as
      I did, were slightly sarcastic, and containing a deeper signification than
      they gave out: &ldquo;but you are the better player. I am now convinced of that.
      Something there is in fortune, doubtless; my self-esteem makes me willing
      to admit that; and yet I do not deceive myself. You have been too much for
      me&mdash;you are!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The difference is trifling, very trifling, I suspect. A little more
      practice will soon reconcile that.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ha! ha! you forget the practice is to be paid for.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;True, but it is the base spirit only that scruples at the cost of its
      accomplishments.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Surely, surely!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are fresh for the encounter to-night?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Pleasantly put! Is the query meant for the player or his purse?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good, very good! Why, truly, there is no necessary affinity between
      them.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And yet the one without the other would scarcely be able to commend
      himself to so excellent an artist as Mr. Latour Cleveland. Clifford, let
      me introduce you to my ENEMY; Mr. Cleveland, my FRIEND.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In this manner was I introduced. Thus was I made acquainted with the
      particular individual whom it was the meditated purpose of Kingsley to
      expose. But, though thus marked in the language of his introduction, there
      was nothing in the tone or manner of my companion, at all calculated to
      alarm the suspicions of the other. On the contrary, there was a sort of
      reckless joviality in the air of ABANDON, with which he presented me and
      spoke. A natural curiosity moved me to examine Cleveland more closely. He
      was what we should call, in common speech, a very elegant young man. He
      was probably thirty or thirty-five years of age, tall, graceful, rather
      slenderish, and of particular nicety in his dress. All his clothes were
      disposed with the happiest precision. White kid-gloves covered his taper
      fingers. Withdrawn, a rich diamond blazed upon one hand, while a
      seal-ring, of official dimensions, with characters cut in lava, decorated
      the other. His movements betrayed the same nice method which distinguished
      the arrangement of his dress. His evolutions might all have been performed
      by trumpet signal, and to the sound of measured music. He was evidently
      one of those persons whose feelings are too little earnest, ever to affect
      their policy; too little warm ever to disparage the rigor of their
      customary play; one of those cold, nice men, who, without having a single
      passion at work to produce one condition of feeling higher than another,
      are yet the very ideals of the most narrow and concentrated selfishness.
      His face was thin, pale, and intelligent. His lips were thick, however&mdash;the
      eyes bright, like those of a snake, but side-looking, never direct, never
      upward, and always with a smiling shyness in their glance, in which a
      suspicious mind like my own would always find sufficient occasion for
      distrust.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Cleveland bestowed a single keen glance upon me while going through
      the ordeal of introduction. But his scrutiny labored under one
      disadvantage. His eyes did not encounter mine! One loses a great deal, if
      his object be the study of human nature, if he fails in this respect.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Much pleasure in making your acquaintance, Mr. Clifford; I trust,
      however, you will find me no worse enemy than your friend has done.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If he find YOU no worse, he will find himself no better. He will pay for
      his enmity, whatever its degree, as I have done, and be wiser, by reason
      of his losses.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! you think too much of your ill fortunes. That is bad. It takes from
      your confidence and so enfeebles your skill. You should think of it less
      seriously. Another cast, and the tables change. You will have your
      revenge.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I WILL!&rdquo; said Kingsley with some emphasis, and a gravity which the other
      did not see. He evidently heard the words only as he had been accustomed
      to hear them&mdash;from the lips of young gamesters who perpetually delude
      themselves with hopes based upon insane expectations. A benignant smile
      mantled the cheeks of the gamester.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, well! I am ready; but if you think me too much for you&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He paused. The taunt was deliberately intended. It was the customary taunt
      of the gamester. On the minds of half the number of young men, it would
      have had the desired effect&mdash;of goading vanity, and provoking the
      self-esteem of the conceited boy into a sort of desperation, when the
      powers of sense and caution become mostly suspended, and no unnecessary
      suspicion or watchfulness then interferes to increase the difficulty of
      plucking the pigeon. I read the smile on Kingsley's lip. It was brief,
      momentary, pleasantly contemptuous. Then, suddenly, as if he had newly
      recollected his policy, his countenance assumed a new expression&mdash;one
      more natural to the youth who has been depressed by losses, vexed at
      defeat, but flatters himself that the atonement is at hand. Perhaps,
      something of the latent purpose of his mind increased the intense
      bitterness in the manner and tones of my companion.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Too much for me, Mr. Cleveland! No, no! You are willing, I see, to rob
      good fortune of some of her dues. You crow too soon. I have a shrewd
      presentiment that I shall be quite too much FOR YOU to-night.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A pleasant and well-satisfied smile of Cleveland answered the speaker.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I like that,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;it proves two things, both of which please me.
      Your trifling losses have not hurt your fortunes nor the adverse run of
      luck made you despond of better success hereafter. It is something of a
      guaranty in favor of one's performance that he is sure of himself. In such
      case he is equally sure of his opponent.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Look to it, then, for I have just that sort of self-guaranty which makes
      me sure of mine. I shall play deeply, that I may make the most of my
      presentiments. Nay, to show you how confident I am, this night restores me
      all that I have lost, or leaves me nothing more to lose.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The eyes of the other brightened.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That is said like a man. I thank you for your warning. Shall we begin?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ready, ay, ready!&rdquo; was the response of Kingsley, as he turned to one of
      the tables. Quietly laying down upon it the short, heavy stick which he
      carried, he threw off his gloves, and rubbed his hands earnestly together,
      laughing the while without restraint, as if possessed suddenly of some
      very pleasant and ludicrous fancy.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They laugh who win,&rdquo; remarked Cleveland, with something of coldness in
      his manner.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ha! ha! ha!&rdquo; was the only answer of Kingsley to this remark. The other
      continued&mdash;and I now clearly perceived that his purpose was
      provocation:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is certainly a pleasure to win your money, Kingsley&mdash;you bear it
      with so much philosophy. Nay, it seems to give you pleasure, and thus
      lessens the pain I should otherwise feel in receiving the fruits of my
      superiority.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ha! ha! ha!&rdquo; again repeated Kingsley. &ldquo;Excuse me, Mr. Cleveland. I am
      reminded of your remark, 'They laugh who win.' I am laughing, as it were,
      anticipatively. I am so certain that I shall have my revenge to-night.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Cleveland looked at him for a moment with some curiosity, then called:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Philip!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He was answered by a young mulatto&mdash;a tall, good-looking fellow, who
      approached with a mixed air of equal deference and self-esteem, plaited
      frills to a most immaculately white shirt-collar, a huge bulbous breastpin
      in his bosom, chains and seals, and all the usual equipments of Broadway
      dandyism. The fellow approached us with a smile; his eyes looking
      alternately to Cleveland and Kingsley, and, as I fancied, with no
      unequivocal sneer in their expression, as they settled on the latter. A
      significance of another kind appeared in the look of Cleveland as he
      addressed him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Get us the pictures, Philip&mdash;the latest cuts&mdash;and bring&mdash;ay,
      you may bring the ivories.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In a few moments, the preliminaries being despatched, the two were seated
      at a table, and a couple of packs of cards were laid beside them. Kingsley
      drew my attention to the cards. They were of a kind that my experience had
      never permitted me to see before. In place of ordinary kings and queens
      and knaves, these figures were represented in attitudes and costumes the
      most indecent&mdash;such as the prolific genius of Parisian bawdry alone
      could conceive and delineate. It seems to be a general opinion among
      rogues that knavery is never wholly triumphant unless the mind is
      thoroughly degraded; and for this reason it is, perhaps, that
      establishments devoted to purposes like the present, have, in most
      countries, for their invariable adjuncts, the brothel and the bar-room. If
      they are not in the immediate tenement, they are sufficiently nigh to make
      the work of moral prostitution comparatively easy, in all its
      ramifications, with the young and inconsiderate mind. Kingsley turned over
      the cards, and I could see that while affecting to show me the pictures he
      was himself subjecting the cards to a close inspection of another kind.
      This object was scarcely perceptible to myself, who knew his suspicions,
      and could naturally conjecture his policy. It did not excite the alarm of
      his antagonist.
    </p>
    <p>
      The parties sat confronting each other. Kingsley drew forth a wallet,
      somewhat ostentatiously, which he laid down beside him. The sight of his
      wallet staggered me. By its bulk I should judge it to have held thousands;
      yet he had assured me that he had nothing beside, the one hundred dollars
      which he had procured from me. My surprise increased as I saw him open the
      wallet, and draw from one of its pockets the identical roll which I had
      put into his hands. The bulk of the pocket-book seeemed (sic) scarcely to
      be diminished. My suspicions were beginning to be roused. I began to think
      that he had told me a falsehood; but he looked up at this instant, and a
      bright manly smile on his deep purposeful countenance, reassured me. I
      felt that there was some policy in the business which was not for me then
      to fathom. The cards were cut. A box of dice was also in the hands of
      Cleveland.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Spots or pictures?&rdquo; said Cleveland.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Pictures first, I suppose,&rdquo; said Kingsley, &ldquo;till the blood gets up. The
      ivories then as the most rapid. But these pictures are really so tempting.
      A new supply, Philip!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Just received, sir,&rdquo; said the other.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And how shall we begin?&rdquo; demanded Cleveland, drawing a handful of bills,
      gold, and silver, from his pocket; &ldquo;yellow, white, or brown?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was thus, I perceived, that gold, silver, and paper money, were
      described.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Shall it be child's play, or&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Man's, man's!&rdquo; replied Kingsley, with some impatience &ldquo;I am for beginning
      with a cool hundred,&rdquo; and, to my consternation, he unfolded the roll he
      had of me, counted out the bills, refolded them and placed them in a
      saucer, where they were soon covered with a like sum by his antagonist. I
      was absolutely sickened, and stared aghast upon my reckless companion. He
      looked at me with a smile.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;To your own game, Clifford. You will find men enough for your money in
      either of the rooms. Should you run short, come to me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Thus confidently did he speak; yet he had actually but the single hundred
      which he had so boldly staked on the first issue. I thought him lost; but
      he better knew his game than I. He also knew his man. The eyes of
      Cleveland were on the huge wallet in reserve, of which the &ldquo;cool hundred&rdquo;
       might naturally be considered a mere sample. I had not courage to wait for
      the result, but wandered off, with a feeling not unallied to terror, into
      an adjoining apartment.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXX. &mdash; FALSE LUCK.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Though confounded with what I had seen of the proceedings of Kingsley, I
      was yet willing to promote, so far as I could, the purpose for which we
      came. I felt too, that, unless I played, that purpose, or my own, might
      reasonably incur suspicion. To rove through the several rooms of a
      gambling-house, surveying closely the proceedings of others, without
      partaking, in however slight a degree, in the common business of the
      establishment, was neither good policy nor good manners. Unless there to
      play, what business had I there? Accordingly I resolved to play. But of
      these games I knew nothing. It was necessary to choose among them, and,
      without a choice I turned to one of the tables where the genius of
      Roulette presided. A motley group, none of whom I knew, surrounded it. I
      placed my dollar upon one of the spots, red or black, I know not which,
      and saw it, in a moment after, spooned up with twenty others by the
      banker. I preferred this form of play to any other, for the simple reason
      that it did not task my own faculties, and left me free to bestow my
      glances on the proceedings of my friend. But I soon discovered that the
      contagion of play is irresistible; and so far from putting my stake down
      at intervals, and with philosophic indifference, I found myself, after a
      little while, breathlessly eager in the results. These, after the first
      few turns of the machine, had ceased to be unfavorable. I was confounded
      to discover myself winning. Instead of one I put down two Mexicans.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Put down ten,&rdquo; said one of the bystanders, a dark, sulky-looking little
      yellow man, who seemed a veteran at these places. &ldquo;You are in luck&mdash;make
      the most of it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The master of the ceremonies scowled upon the speaker; and this determined
      me to obey his suggestions. I did so, and doubled the money; left my
      original stake and the winnings on the same spot, and doubled that also;
      and it was not long before, under this stimulus of success, and the
      novelty of my situation, I found myself as thoroughly anxious and
      intensely interested, as if I had gone to the place in compliance with a
      natural passion. I know not how long I had continued in this way, but I
      was still fortunate. I had doubled my stakes repeatedly, and my pockets
      were crammed with money.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Stop now, if you are wise,&rdquo; whispered the same sulky-looking little man
      who had before urged me to go on more boldly, as he sidled along by me for
      this object; &ldquo;never ride a good horse to death. There's a time to stop
      just as there's a time to push. You had better stop now. Stake another
      dollar and you lose all your winnings.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Let the gentleman play his own game, Brinckoff. I don't see why you come
      here to spoil sport.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Such was the remark of the keeper of the table. He had overheard my
      counsellor. He felt his losses, and was angry. I saw that, and it
      determined me. I took the counsel of the stranger. I was the more willing
      to do so, as I reproached myself for my inattention to my friend. It was
      time to see what had been his progress, and I prepared to leave the
      theatre of my own success. Before doing so, I turned to my counsellor, and
      thus addressed him: &ldquo;Your advice has made me win; I trust I will not
      offend a gentleman who has been so courteous, by requesting him to take my
      place upon a small capital.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I put twenty pieces into his hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am but a young beginner,&rdquo; I continued, &ldquo;and I owe you for my first
      lesson.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are too good,&rdquo; he said, but his hand closed over the dollars. The
      keeper of the table renewed his murmurs of discontent as he saw me turn
      away.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! bah! Petit, what's the use to grumble?&rdquo; demanded my representative.
      &ldquo;Do you suppose I will give up my sport for yours? When would I get a
      sixpence to stake, if it were not that I was kind to young fellows just
      beginning? There; growl no more; the twenty Mexicans upon the red!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The next minute my gratuity was swallowed up in the great spoon of the
      banker. I was near enough, to see the result. I placed another ten pieces
      in the hand of the unsuccessful gambler.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Very good,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;very much obliged to you; but if you please, I will
      do no more to-night. It's not my lucky night. I've lost every set.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;As you please&mdash;when you please.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are a gentleman,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;the sooner you go home the better. A
      young beginner seldom wins in the small hours.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      This was said in another whisper. I thanked him for his further
      suggestion, and turned away, leaving him to a side squabble with the
      banker, who finally concluded by telling him that he never wished to see
      him at his table.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The more fool you, Petit,&rdquo; said Brinckoff; &ldquo;for the youngster that wins
      comes back, and he does not always win. You finish him in the end as you
      finished me, and what more would you have?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The rest, and there was much more, was inaudible to me. I hurried from the
      place somewhat ashamed of my success. I doubt whether I should have had
      the like feelings had I lost. As it was, never did possession seem more
      cumbrous than the mixed gold, paper, and silver, with which my pockets
      were burdened. I gladly thought of Kingsley, to avoid thinking of myself.
      It was certain, I fancied, that he had not lost, else how could he have
      continued to play? My anxiety hurried me into the room where I had left
      him.
    </p>
    <p>
      They sat together, he and Cleveland, as before. I observed that there was
      now an expression of anxiety&mdash;not intense, but obvious enough&mdash;upon
      the countenance of the latter. Philip, too, the mulatto, stood on one
      side, contemplating the proceedings with an air of grave doubt and
      uncertainty in his countenance. No such expression distinguished the face
      of Kingsley. Never did a light-hearted, indifferent, almost mocking
      spirit, shine out more clearly from any human visage. At times he chuckled
      as with inward satisfaction. Not unfrequently he laughed aloud, and his
      reckless &ldquo;Ha! ha! ha!&rdquo; had more than once reached and startled me in the
      midst of my own play, in the adjoining room. The opponents had discarded
      their &ldquo;pictures,&rdquo; They were absolutely rolling dice for their stakes. I
      saw that the wallet of Kingsley lay untouched, and quite as full as ever,
      in the spot where he had first laid it down. A pile of money lay open
      beside him; the gold and silver pieces keeping down the paper. When he saw
      me approach, he laughed aloud, as he cried out:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Have they disburdened you, Clifford? Help yourself. I am punishing my
      enemy famously. I can spare it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A green, sickly smile mantled the lips of Cleveland. He replied in low,
      soft tones, such as I could only partly hear; and, a moment after, he
      swept the stake before the two, to his own side of the table. The amount
      was large, but the features of Kingsley remained unaltered, while his
      laugh was renewed as heartily as if he really found pleasure in the loss.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ha! ha! ha! that is encouraging; but the end is not yet. The tug is yet
      to come!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I now perceived that Kingsley took up his wallet with one hand while he
      spread his handkerchief on his lap with the other. Into this he drew the
      pile of money which he had loose before on his side of the table, and
      appeared to busy himself in counting into it the contents of the wallet.
      This he did with such adroitness, that, though I felt assured he had
      restored the wallet to his bosom with its bulk undiminished, yet I am
      equally certain that no such conclusion could have been reached by any
      other person. This done, he lifted the handkerchief, full as it was, and
      dashed it down upon the table.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There! cover that, if you be a man!&rdquo; was his speech of defiance.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How much?&rdquo; huskily demanded Cleveland.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, all. I know not the number of dollars, cents, or sixpences, but face
      it with your winnings: there need be no counting. It is loss of time. Stir
      the stuff with your fingers, and you will find it as good, and as much, as
      you have here to put against it. On that hangs my fate or yours. Mine for
      certain! I tell you, Mr. Cleveland, it is all!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Cleveland lifted the ends of the handkerchief, as if weighing its
      contents; and then, without more scruple, flung into it a pile not unlike
      it in bulk and quality: a handful of mixed gold paper, and silver.
      Kingsley grasped the dice before him, and with a single shake dashed them
      out upon the table.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Six, four, two,&rdquo; cried Philip with a degree of excitement which did not
      appear in either of the active opponents. Meanwhile my heart was in my
      mouth. I looked on Kingsley with a sentiment of wonder. Every muscle of
      his face was composed into the most quiet indifference. He saw my glance,
      and smilingly exclaimed:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I trust to my star, Clifford. Sans Souci&mdash;remember!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      No time was allowed for more. The moment was a breathless one. Cleveland
      had taken up the dice. His manner was that of the most singular
      deliberation. His eyes were cast down upon the table. His lips strongly
      closed together; and now it was that I could see the keen, piercing look
      which Kingsley addressed to every movement of the gambler. I watched him
      also. He did not immediately throw the dice, and I was conscious of some
      motion which he made with his hands before he did so. What that motion
      was, however, I could neither have said nor conceived. But I saw a grim
      smile, full of intelligence, suddenly pass over Kingsley's lips. The dice
      descended upon the table with a sound that absolutely made me tremble.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Five, four, six!&rdquo; cried Philip, loudly, with tones of evident exultation.
      I felt a sense like that of suffocation, which was unrelieved even by the
      seemingly unnatural laughter of my companion. He did laugh, but in a
      manner to render less strange and unnatural that in which he had before
      indulged. Even as he laughed he rose and possessed himself of the dice
      which the other had thrown down.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The stakes are mine,&rdquo; cried Cleveland, extending his hand toward the
      handkerchief.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; said Kingsley, with a voice of thunder, and as he spoke, he handed
      me the kerchief of money, which I grasped instantly, and thrust with some
      difficulty into my bosom. This was done instinctively; I really had no
      thoughts of what I was doing. Had I thought at all I should most probably
      have refused to receive it.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How!&rdquo; exclaimed Cleveland, his face becoming suddenly pale. &ldquo;The cast is
      mine&mdash;fifteen to twelve!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ay, scoundrel, but the game I played for is mine! As for the cast, you
      shall try another which you shall relish less. Do you see these?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He showed the dice which he had gathered from the table. The gambler made
      an effort to snatch them from his hands.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Try that again,&rdquo; said Kingsley, &ldquo;and I lay this hickory over your pate,
      in a way that shall be a warning to it for ever.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      By this time several persons from the neighboring tables and the adjoining
      rooms, hearing the language of strife, came rushing in. Kingsley beheld
      their approach without concern. There were several old gamblers among
      them, but the greater number were young ones.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; said Kingsley, &ldquo;I am very glad to see you. You come at a good
      time. I am about to expose a scoundrel to you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You shall answer for this, sir,&rdquo; stammered Cleveland, in equal rage and
      confusion.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Answer, shall I? By Jupiter! but you shall answer too! And you shall have
      the privilege of a first answer, shall you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Kingsley, what is the meaning of this?&rdquo; was the demand of a tall,
      dark-featured man, who now made his appearance from an inner room, and
      whom I now learned, was, in fact, the proprietor of the establishment.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! Radcliffe&mdash;but before another word is wasted put your fingers
      into the left breeches pocket of that scoundrel there, and see what you
      will find.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Cleveland would have resisted. Kingsley spoke again to Radcliffe, and this
      time in stern language, which was evidently felt by the person to whom it
      was addressed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Radcliffe, your own credit&mdash;nay, safety&mdash;will depend upon your
      showing that you have no share in this rogue's practice. Search him, if
      you would not share his punishment.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The fellow was awed, and obeyed instantly. Himself, with three others,
      grappled with the culprit. He resisted strenuously, but in vain. He was
      searched, and from the pocket in question three dice were produced.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Very good,&rdquo; said Kingsley; &ldquo;now examine those dice, gentlemen, and see if
      you can detect one of my initials, the letter 'K,' which I scratched with
      a pin upon each of them.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The examination was made, and the letter was found, very small and very
      faint, it is true, but still legible, upon the ace square of each of the
      dice.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Very good,&rdquo; continued Kingsley; &ldquo;and now, gentlemen, with your leave&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He opened his hand and displayed the three dice with which Cleveland had
      last thrown.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here you see the dice with which this worthy gentleman hoped to empty my
      pockets. These are they which he last threw upon the table. He counted
      handsomely by them! I threw, just before him, with those which you have in
      your hand. I had contrived to mark them previously, this very evening, in
      order that I might know them again. Why should he put them in his pocket,
      and throw with these? As this question is something important, I propose
      to answer it to your satisfaction as well as my own; and, for this reason,
      I came here, as you see, prepared to make discoveries.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He drew from his pocket, while he spoke, a small saddler's hammer and
      steel-awl. Fixing with the sharp point of the awl in the ace spot of the
      dice, he struck it a single but sudden blow with the hammer, split each of
      the dice in turn, and disclosed to the wondering, or seemingly wondering,
      eyes of all around, a little globe of lead in each, inclining to the
      lowest numeral, and necessarily determining the roll of the dice so as to
      leave the lightest section uppermost.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here, gentlemen,&rdquo; continued Kingsley, &ldquo;you see by what process I have
      lost my money. But it is not in the dice alone. Look at these cards. Do
      you note this trace of the finger-nail, here, and there, and there&mdash;scarcely
      to be seen unless it is shown to you, but clear enough to the person that
      made it, and is prepared to look for it. Radcliffe, your fellow, Philip,
      has been concerned in this business. You must dismiss him, or your
      visitors will dismiss you. Neither myself nor my friends will visit you
      again&mdash;nay, more, I denounce you to the police. Am I understood?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Radcliffe assented without scruple, evidently not so anxious for justice
      as for the safety of his establishment. But it appeared that there were
      others in the room not so well pleased with the result. A hubbub now took
      place, in which three or four fellows made a rush upon Kingsley&mdash;Cleveland
      urging and clamoring from the rear, though without betraying much real
      desire to get into the conflict.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the assailants had miscalculated their forces. The youngsters in the
      establishment, regarding Kingsley's development as serving the common
      cause, were as soon at his side as myself. The scuffle was over in an
      instant. One burly ruffian was prostrated by a blow from Kingsley's club;
      I had my share in the prostration of a second, and some two others took to
      their heels, assisted in their progress by a smart application from every
      foot and fist that happened to be convenient enough for such a service.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Cleveland alone remained. Why he had not shared the summary fate of
      the rest it would be difficult to say, unless it was because he had kept
      aloof from the active struggle to which he had egged them on. Perhaps,
      too, a better reason&mdash;he was reserved for some more distinguishing
      punishment. Why he had shown no disposition for flight himself, was
      answered as soon as Kingsley laid down his club, which he did with a laugh
      of exemplary good-nature the moment he had felled with it his first
      assailant. The flight of his allies left the path open between himself and
      Cleveland, and, suddenly darting upon him, the desperate gambler aimed a
      blow at his breast with a dirk which he had drawn that instant from his
      own. He exclaimed as he struck:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here is something that escaped your search. Take this! this!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Kingsley was just lifting up the cap, which he had worn that night, from
      the table to his brows. Instinctively he dashed it into the face of his
      assassin, and his simple evolution saved him. The next moment the fearless
      fellow had grappled with his enemy, torn the weapon from his grasp, and,
      seizing him around the body as if he had been an infant, moved with him to
      an open window looking out upon a neighboring court. The victim struggled,
      yelled for succor, but before any of us could interpose, the resolute and
      powerful man in whose hold he writhed and struggled vainly, with the gripe
      of a master, had thrust him through the opening, his heels, in their
      upward evolutions, shattering a dozen of the panes as he disappeared from
      sight below. We all concluded that he was killed. We were in an upper
      chamber, which I estimated to be twenty or thirty feet from the ground. I
      was too much shocked for speech, and rushed to the window, expecting to
      behold the mangled and bloody corpse of the miserable criminal beneath.
      The laughter of Radclifle half reassured me.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He will not suffer much hurt,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;there is something to break his
      fall.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I looked down, and there the unhappy wretch was seen squatting and
      clinging to the slippery shingles of an old stable, unhurt, some twelve
      feet below us, unable to reascend, and very unwilling to adopt the only
      alternative which the case presented&mdash;-that of descending softly upon
      the rank bed of stable-ordure which the provident care of the gardener had
      raised up on every hand, the reeking fumes of which were potent enough to
      expel us very soon from our place of watch at the window. Of the further
      course of the elegant culprit we took no heed. The ludicrousness of his
      predicament had the effect of turning the whole adventure into merriment
      among those who remained in the establishment; and availing ourselves of
      the clamorous mirth of the parties, we made our escape from the place with
      a feeling, on my part, of indescribable relief.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXXI. &mdash; HOW THE GAME WAS PLAYED
    </h2>
    <p>
      &ldquo;WELL, we may breathe awhile,&rdquo; said Kingsley, as we found ourselves once
      more in the pure air, and under the blue sky of midnight. &ldquo;We have got
      through an ugly task with tolerable success. You stood by me like a man,
      Clifford. I need not tell you how much I thank you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I heartily rejoice that you are through with it, Kingsley; but I am not
      so sure that we can deliberately approve of everything that we may have
      been required by the circumstances of the case to do.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What! you did not relish the playing? I respect your scruples, but it
      does not follow that it must become a habit. You played to enable a friend
      to get back from a knave what he lost as a fool, and to punish the knavery
      that he could not well hope to reform. I do not see, considering the
      amount of possible good which we have done, that the evil is wholly
      inexcusable.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Perhaps not; but this heap of money which I have in my bosom&mdash;should
      you have taken it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And why not? Whose should it be, if not mine?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You took with you but one hundred dollars. I should say you have more
      than a thousand here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I trust I have,&rdquo; said he coolly. &ldquo;What of that? I won it fairly, and he
      played fairly, until the last moment when everything was at stake. His
      false dice were then called in&mdash;and would you have me yield to his
      roguery what had been the fruits of a fair conflict? No! no! friend of
      mine! no! no! all these things did I consider well before I took you with
      me to-night. I have been meditating this business for a week, from the
      moment when a friendly fellow hinted to me that I was the victim of
      knavery.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But that wallet of money, Kingsley? You assured me that you were
      pennyless.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All! that wallet bedevilled Mr. Latour Cleveland, as it seems to have
      bedevilled you. There, by the starlight, look at the contents of this
      precious wallet, and see how much further your eyes can pierce into the
      mystery of my proceedings.'&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He handed me the wallet, which I opened. To my great surprise, I found it
      stuffed with old shreds of newspaper, bits of rag, even cotton, but not a
      cent of money.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There! ara you satisfied? You shall have that wallet, with all its
      precious contents, as a keepsake from me. It will remind you of a strange
      scene. It will have a history for you when you are old, which you will
      tell with a chuckle to your children.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Children!&rdquo; I involuntarily murmured, while my voice trembled, and a tear
      started to my eye. That one word recalled me back, at once, to home, to my
      particular woes&mdash;to all that I could have wished banished for ever,
      even in the unwholesome stews and steams of a gaming-house. But Kingsley
      did not suffer me to muse over my own afflictions. He did not seem to hear
      the murmuring exclamation of my lips. He continued:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have no mysteries from you, and you need, as well as deserve, an
      explanation. All shall be made clear to you. The reason of this wallet,
      and another matter which staggered you quite as much&mdash;my audacious
      bet of a cool hundred&mdash;your own disconsolate hundred&mdash;as a first
      stake! I have no doubt you thought me mad when you heard me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I confessed as much. He laughed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;As I tell you, I had studied my game beforehand, even in its smallest
      details. By this time, I knew something of the play of most gamblers, and
      of Mr. Latour Cleveland, in particular. These people do not risk
      themselves for trifles. They play fairly enough when the temptation is
      small. They cheat only when the issues are great. I am speaking now of
      gamesters on the big figure, not of the petty chapmen who rule over their
      pennies and watch the exit of a Mexican, with the feelings of one who sees
      the last wave of a friend's handkerchief going upon the high seas. My big
      wallet and my hundred dollar bet, were parts of the same system. The heavy
      stake at the beginning led to the inference that I had corresponding
      resources. My big wallet lying by me, conveniently and ostentatiously,
      confirmed this impression. The cunning gambler was willing that I should
      win awhile. His policy was to encourage me; to persuade me on and on, by
      gradual stimulants, till all was at stake. Well! I knew this. All was at
      stake finally, and I had then to call into requisition all the moral
      strength of which I was capable, so that eye and lip and temper should not
      fail me at those moments when I would need the address and agency of all.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The task has been an irksome one; the trial absolutely painful. But I
      should have been ashamed, once commencing the undertaking, not to have
      succeeded. He, too, was not impregnable. I found out his particular
      weakness. He was a vain man; vain of his bearing, which he deemed
      aristocratic; his person, which he considered very fine. I played with
      these vanities. Failing to excite him on the subject of the game, I made
      HIMSELF my subject. I chattered with him freely; so as to prompt him to
      fancy that I was praising his style, air, appearance; anon, by some queer
      jibe, making him half suspicious that I was quizzing him. My frequent
      laughter, judiciously disposed, helped this effect; and, to a certain
      extent, I succeeded. He became nervous, and was excited, though you may
      not have seen it. I saw it in the change of his complexion, which became
      suddenly quite bilious. I found, too, that he could only speak with some
      effort, when, if you remember, before we began to play, his tongue, though
      deliberate, worked pat enough. I felt my power over him momently increase;
      and I sometimes won where he did not wish it. I do verily believe that he
      ceased to see the very marks which he himself had made upon the cards.
      Nervous agitation, on most persons, produces a degree of blindness quite
      as certainly as it affects the speech. Well, you saw the condition of our
      funds when you re-appeared. I had determined to bring the business to a
      close. I had marked the dice, actually before his face, while we took a
      spell of rest over a bottle of porter. I had scratched them quietly with a
      pin which I carried in my sleeve for that purpose, while he busied himself
      with a fidgety shuffling of the cards. My leg, thrown over one angle of
      the table, partly covered my operations, and I worked upon the dice in my
      lap. You may suppose the etching was bad enough, doing precious little
      credit to the art of engraving in our country. But the thing was
      thoroughly done, for I had worked myself into a rigorous sort of
      philosophic desperation which made me as cool as a cucumber. To seem to
      empty the contents of the wallet into my lap was my next object, and this
      I succeeded in, without his suspecting that my movement was a sham only.
      The purse thus made up, I emphatically told him was all I had&mdash;this
      was the truth&mdash;and then came the crisis. His trick was to be employed
      now or never. It was employed, but he had become so nervous, that I caught
      a sufficient glimpse of his proceedings. I saw the slight o'hand movement
      which he attempted, and&mdash;you know the rest. I regard the money as
      honestly mine&mdash;so far as good morals may recognise the honesty of
      getting money by gambling;&mdash;and thinking so, my dear Clifford, I have
      no scruple in begging you to share it with me. It is only fit that you,
      who furnished all the capital&mdash;you see I say nothing of the wallet
      which should, however, be priceless in our eyes&mdash;should derive at
      least a moiety of the profit. It is quite as much yours as mine. I beg you
      so to consider it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I need not say, however, that I positively refused to accept this offer. I
      would take nothing but the hundred which I had lent him, and placed the
      handkerchief with all its contents into his hands.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And now, Clifford, I must leave you. You have yet to learn another of my
      secrets. I take the rail-car at daylight in the morning. I am off for
      Alabama; and considering my Texan and Mexican projects, I leave you,
      perhaps, for ever.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;So soon?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, everything is ready. There need be no delay. I have no wife nor
      children to cumber me. My trunks are already packed; my resolve made; my
      last business transacted I have some lands in Alabama which I mean to
      sell. This done, I am off for the great field of performance, south and
      southwest. You shall hear of me, perhaps may wish to hear FROM me. Here is
      my address, meanwhile, in Alabama. I shall advise you of my further
      progress, and shall esteem highly a friendly scrawl from you. If you
      write, do not fail to tell me what you may hear of Mr. Latour Cleveland,
      and how he got down from the muck-heap. Write me all about it, Clifford,
      and whatever else you can about our fools and knaves, for though I leave
      them without a tear, yet, d&mdash;n 'em, I keep 'em in my memory, if it's
      only for the sake of the old city whom they bedevil.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Enough of our dialogue that night. Kingsley was a fellow of every
      excellent and some very noble qualities. We did not sympathize in sundry
      respects, but I parted from him with regret; not altogether satisfied,
      however, that there were not some defects in that reasoning by which he
      justified our proceedings with the gamblers. I turned from him with a sad,
      sick heart. In his absence the whole feeling of my domestic doubts and
      difficulties rushed back upon me freshly and with redoubled force.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Children!&rdquo; I murmured mournfully, as I recalled one of his remarks;
      &ldquo;children! children! these, indeed, were blessings; but if we only had
      love, truth, peace. If that damning doubt were not there!&mdash;that wild
      fear, that fatal, soul-petrifying suspicion!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I groaned audibly as I traversed the streets, and it seemed as if the
      pavements groaned hollowly in answer beneath my hurrying footsteps. In a
      moment more I had absolutely forgotten the recent strife, the strange
      scene, the accents of my friend; for but that one.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Children! children! These might bind her to me; might secure her erring
      affections; might win her to love the father, when he himself might
      possess no other power to tempt her to love. Ah! why has Providence denied
      me the blessing of a child?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Alas! it was not probable that Julia should ever have children. This was
      the conviction of our physician. Her health and constitution seemed to
      forbid the hope; and the gloomy despair under which I suffered was
      increased by this reflection. Yet, even at that moment, while thus I mused
      and murmured, my poor wife had been unexpectedly and prematurely delivered
      of an infant son&mdash;a tiny creature, in whom life was but a passing
      gleam, as of the imperfect moonlight, and of whom death took possession in
      the very instant of its birth.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXXII. &mdash; SUDDEN LESSON AND NEW SUSPICIONS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      While I had been wasting the precious hours of midnight in a gaming-house,
      my poor Julia had undergone the peculiar pangs of a mother! While I had
      been reproaching her in my secret soul for a want of ardency and
      attachment, she had been giving me the highest proof that she possessed
      the warmest. These revelations, however, were to reach me slowly; and
      then, like those of Cassandra, they were destined to encounter disbelief.
    </p>
    <p>
      Leaving Kingsley, I turned into the street where my wife's mother lived.
      But the house was shut up&mdash;the company gone. I had not been heedful
      of the progress of the hours. I looked up at the tall, white, and graceful
      steeple of our ancient church, which towered in serene majesty above us;
      but, in the imperfect light I failed to read the letters upon the
      dial-plate. At that moment its solemn chimes pealed forth the hour, as if
      especially in answer to my quest. How such sounds speak to the very soul
      at midnight! They seem the voice from Time himself, informing, not man
      alone, but Eternity, of his progress to that lone night, in which his
      minutes, hours, days, and years, are equally to be swallowed up and
      forgotten.
    </p>
    <p>
      Sweet had been those bells to me in boyhood. Sad were they to me now. I
      had heard them ring forth merry peals on the holydays of the nation; and
      peals on the day of national mourning; startling and terrifying peals in
      the hour of midnight danger and alarm; but never till then had they spoken
      with such deep and searching earnestness to the most hidden places of my
      soul. That 'one, two, three, four,' which they then struck, as they
      severally pronounced the thrilling monotones, seemed to convey the burden
      of four impressive acts in a yet unfinished tragedy. My heart beat with a
      feeling of anxiety, such as overcomes us, when we look for the curtain to
      rise which is to unfold the mysterious progress of the catastrophe.
    </p>
    <p>
      That fifth act of mine! what was it to be? Involuntarily my lips uttered
      the name of William Edgerton! I started as if I had trodden upon a viper.
      The denouement of the drama at once grew up before my eyes. I felt the
      dagger in my grasp; I actually drew it from my bosom. I saw the victim
      before me&mdash;a smile upon his lips&mdash;a fire in his glance&mdash;an
      ardor, an intelligence, that looked like exulting passion; and my own eyes
      grew dim. I was blinded; but, even in the darkness, I struck with fatal
      precision. I felt the resistance, I heard the groan and the falling body;
      and my hair rose, with a cold, moist life of its own, upon my clammy and
      shrinking temples.
    </p>
    <p>
      I recovered from the delusion. My dagger had been piercing the empty air;
      but the feeling and the horror in my soul were not less real because the
      deed had been one of fancy only. The foregone conclusion was in my mind,
      and I well knew that fate would yet bring the victim to the altar.
    </p>
    <p>
      I know not how I reached my dwelling, but when there I was soon brought to
      a sober condition of the senses. I found everything in commotion. Mrs.
      Delaney, late Clifford, was there, busy in my wife's chamber, while her
      husband, surly with such an interruption to his domestic felicity, even at
      the threshold, was below, kicking his heels in solemn disquietude in the
      parlor. The servants had been despatched to bring her and to seek me, in
      the first moments of my wife's danger. She had consciousness enough for
      that, and Mrs. Delaney had summoned the physician. He too&mdash;the
      excellent old man, who had assisted us in our clandestine marriage&mdash;he
      too was there; sad, troubled, and regarding me with looks of apprehension
      and rebuke which seemed to ask why I was abroad at that late hour, leaving
      my wife under such circumstances. I could not meet his glance with a manly
      eye. They brought me the dead infant&mdash;poor atom of mortality&mdash;no
      longer mortal; but I turned away from the spectacle. I dared not look upon
      it. It was the form of a perished hope, ended in a dream! And such a
      dream! The physician gave me a brief explanation of the condition of
      things.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Your wife is very ill. It is difficult to say what will happen. Make up
      your mind for the worst. She has fever&mdash;has been delirious. But she
      sleeps now under the effect of some medicine I have given her. She will
      not sleep long; and everything will depend upon her wakening. She must be
      kept very quiet.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I asked if he could conjecture what should bring about such an event.
      &ldquo;Though delicate, Julia was not out of health. She had been well during
      the evening when I left her.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You have left her long. This is a late hour, Mr. Clifford, for a young
      husband to be out. Nothing but matter of necessity could excuse&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I interrupted him with some gravity:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Suppose then it was a matter of necessity&mdash;of seeming necessity, at
      least.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He observed my emotion.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do not be angry with me. I assisted your dear wife into the world,
      Clifford. I would not see her hurried out of it. She is like a child of my
      own; I feel for her as such.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I said something apologetic, I know not what, and renewed my question.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She has been alarmed or excited, perhaps; possibly has fallen while
      ascending the stair. A very slight accident will sometimes suffice to
      produce such a result with a constitution such as hers. She needs great
      watchfulness, Clifford; close attention, much solicitude. She needs and
      deserves it, Clifford.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I saw that the old man suspected me of indifference and neglect. Alas!
      whatever might be my faults in reference to my wife, indifference was not
      among them. What he had said, however, smote me to the heart. I felt like
      a culprit. I dared not meet his eye when, at daylight, he took his
      departure, promising to return in a few hours.
    </p>
    <p>
      My excellent mother-in-law was more capable and copious in her details.
      From her I learned that Julia, though anxious to depart for some time
      before, had waited for my return until the last of her guests were about
      to retire. Among these happened to be Mr. William Edgerton!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He offered his carriage, but Julia put off accepting for a long time,
      saying you would soon return. But at last he pressed her so, and seeing
      everybody else gone, she concluded to go, and Mr. Delaney helped her into
      the carriage, and Mr. Edgerton got in too, to see her home; and off they
      drove, and it was not an hour after, when Becky (the servant-girl) came to
      rout us up, saying that her mistress was dying. I hurried on my clothes,
      and Delaney&mdash;dear good man&mdash;he was just as quick; and off we
      came, and sure enough, we found her in a bad way, and nobody with her but
      the servants; and I sent off after you, and after the doctor; and he just
      came in time to help her; but she went on wofully; was very lightheaded;
      talked a great deal about you; and about Mr. Edgerton; I suppose because
      he had just been seeing her home; but didn't seem to know and doesn't know
      to this moment what has happened to her.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I have shortened very considerably the long story which Mrs. Delaney made
      of it. Rambling as it was&mdash;full of nonsense&mdash;with constant
      references to her &ldquo;dear good man,&rdquo; and her party, the company, herself,
      her fashion, and frivolities&mdash;there was yet something to sting and
      trouble me at the core of her narration. Edgerton and my wife linger to
      the last&mdash;Edgerton rides home with her&mdash;he and she in the
      carriage, alone, at midnight;&mdash;and then this catastrophe, which the
      doctor thought was a natural consequence of some excitement or alarm.
    </p>
    <p>
      These facts wrought like madness in my brain. Then, too, in her delirium
      she raves of HIM! Is not that significant? True, it comes from the lips of
      that malicious old woman! she, who had already hinted to me that my wife&mdash;her
      daughter&mdash;was likely to be as faithless to me as she had been to
      herself. Still, it is significant, even if it be only the invention of
      this old woman. It showed what she conjectured&mdash;what she thought to
      be a natural result of these practices which had prompted her suspicions
      as well as my own.
    </p>
    <p>
      How hot was the iron-pressure upon my brain&mdash;how keen and scorching
      was that fiery arrow in my soul, when I took my place of watch beside the
      unconscious form of my wife, God alone can know. If I am criminal&mdash;if
      I have erred with wildest error&mdash;surely I have struggled with deepest
      misery. I have been misled by wo, not temptation! Sore has been my
      struggle, sore my suffering, even in the moment of my greatest fault and
      folly. Sore!&mdash;-how sore!
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXXIII. &mdash; STILL THE CLOUD.
    </h2>
    <p>
      For three days and nights did I watch beside the sick bed of my wife. In
      all this time her fate continued doubtful. I doubt if any anxiety or
      attention could have exceeded mine; as it was clear to myself that, in
      spite of jealousy and suspicion, my love for her remained without
      diminution. Yet this watch was not maintained without some trials far more
      severe and searching than those which it produced upon the body. Her mind,
      wandering and purposeless, yet spoke to mine, and renewed all its racking
      doubts, and exaggerated all its nameless fears. Her veins burned with
      fever. She was fitfully delirious. Words fell from her at spasmodic
      moments&mdash;strange, incoherent words, but all full of meaning in my
      ears. I sat beside the bed on one hand, while, on one occasion, her mother
      occupied a seat upon that opposite. The eyes of my wife opened upon both
      of us&mdash;turned from me, convulsively, with an expression, as I
      thought, of disgust, then closed&mdash;while her lips, taking up their
      language, poured forth a torrent of threats and reproaches.
    </p>
    <p>
      I can not repeat her words. They rang in my ears, understood, indeed, but
      so wildly and thrillingly, that I should find it a vain task to endeavor
      to remember them. She spoke of persecution, annoyance, beyond propriety,
      beyond her powers of endurance. She threatened me&mdash;for I assumed
      myself to be the object of her denunciation&mdash;with the wrath of some
      one capable to punish&mdash;nay, to rescue her, if need be, by violence,
      from the clutches of her tyrant. Then followed another change in her
      course of speech. She no longer threatened or denounced. She derided.
      Words of bitter scorn and loathing contempt issued from those bright, red,
      burning, and always beautiful lips, which I had never supposed could have
      given forth such utterance, even if her spirit could have been supposed
      capable of conceiving it. Keen was the irony which she expressed&mdash;irony,
      which so well applied to my demerits in one great respect, that I could
      not help making the personal application.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How manly and generous,&rdquo; she proceeded, &ldquo;was this sort of persecution of
      one so unprotected, so dependent, so placed, that she must even be silent,
      and endure without speech or complaint, in the dread of dangers which,
      however, would not light upon her head. Oh, brave as generous!&rdquo; she
      exclaimed, with a burst of tremendous delirium, terminating in a shriek;
      &ldquo;oh, brave as generous!&mdash;scarcely lion-like, however, for the noble
      beast rushes upon his victim. He does not prowl, and skulk, and sneak,
      watching, cat-like; crouching and base, in stealth and darkness. Very
      noble, but mousing spirit! Beware! Do I not know you now! Fear you not
      that I will show your baseness, and declare the truth, and guide other
      eyes to your stealthy practice? Beware! Do not drive me into madness!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Thus she raved. My conscience applied these stinging words of scorn, which
      seemed particularly fitted to the mean suspicious watch which I had kept
      upon her. I could have no thought that they were meant for any other ears
      than my own, and the crimson flush upon my cheeks was the involuntary
      acknowledgment which my soul made of the demerits of my unmanly conduct. I
      fancied that Julia had detected my espionage, and that her language had
      this object in reference only. But there were other words; and, passing
      with unexpected transition from the language of dislike and scorn, she now
      indulged in that of love&mdash;language timidly suggestive of love, as if
      its utterance were restrained by bashfulness, as if it dreaded to be
      heard. Then a deep sigh followed, as if from the bottom of her heart,
      succeeded by convulsive sobs, at last ending in a gushing flood of tears.
    </p>
    <p>
      For the space of half an hour I had been an attentive but suffering
      listener to this wild raving. My pangs followed every sentence from her
      lips, believing, as I did, that they were reproachful of myself, and
      associated with a now unrestrained expression of passion for another.
      Gradually I had ceased, in the deep interest which I felt, to be conscious
      that Mrs. Delaney was present. I leaned across the couch; I bent my ear
      down toward the lips of the speaker, eager to drink up every feeble sound
      which might help to elucidate my doubts, and subdue or confirm my
      suspicions. Then, as the accumulating conviction formed itself, embodied
      and sharp, like a knife, into my soul, I groaned aloud, and my teeth were
      gnashed together in the bitterness of my emotion! In that moment I caught
      the keen gray eyes of my mother-in-law fixed upon me, with a jibing
      expression, which spoke volumes of mockery. They seemed to say, &ldquo;Ah! you
      have it now! The truth is forced upon you at last! You can parry it no
      longer. I see the iron in your soul. I behold and enjoy your contortions!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Fiend language! She was something of a fiend! I started from the bedside,
      and just then a flood of tears came to the relief of my wife, and lessened
      the excitement of her brain. The tears relieved her. The paroxysm passed
      away. She turned her eyes upon me, and closed them involuntarily, while a
      deep crimson tint passed over her cheek, a blush, which seemed to me to
      confirm substantially the tenor of that language in which, while
      delirious, she had so constantly indulged. It did not lessen the seeming
      shame and dislike which her countenance appeared at once to embody, that a
      soft sweet smile was upon her lips at the same moment, and she extended to
      me her hand with an air of confidence which staggered and surprised me.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What is the matter, dear husband? And you here, mother? Have I been sick?
      Can it be?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; said the mother. &ldquo;You have been sick ever since the night of my
      marriage.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; she exclaimed with an air of anxiety and pain, while pressing her
      hand upon her eyes, &ldquo;Ah! that night!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A shudder shook her frame as she uttered this simple and short sentence.
      Simple and short as it was, it seemed to possess a strange signification.
      That it was associated in her mind with some circumstances of peculiar
      import, was sufficiently obvious. What were these circumstances? Ah! that
      question! I ran over in my thought, in a single instant, all that array of
      events, on that fatal night, which could by any possibility distress me,
      and confirm my suspicions. That waltz with Edgerton&mdash;that long
      conference between them&mdash;that lonely ride together from the home of
      Mrs. Delaney, in a close carriage&mdash;and the subsequent disaster&mdash;her
      unconscious ravings, and the strong, strange language which she employed,
      clearly full of meaning as it was, but in which I could discover one
      meaning only! all these topics of doubt and agitation passed through my
      brain in consecutive order, and with a compact arrangement which seemed as
      conclusive as any final issue. I said nothing; but what I might have said,
      was written in my face. Julia regarded me with a gaze of painful anxiety.
      What she read in my looks must have been troublously impressive. Her
      cheeks grew paler as she looked. Her eyes wandered from me vacantly, and I
      could see her thin soft lips quivering faintly like rose-leaves which an
      envious breeze has half separated from the parent-flower. Mrs. Delaney
      watched our mutual faces, and I left the room to avoid her scrutiny. I
      only re-entered it with the physician. He administered medicine to my
      wife.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She will do very well now, I think,&rdquo; he said to me when leaving the
      house; &ldquo;but she requires to be treated very tenderly. All causes of
      excitement must be kept from her. She needs soothing, great care, watchful
      anxiety. Clifford, above all, you should leave her as little as possible.
      This old woman, her mother, is no fit companion for her&mdash;scarcely a
      pleasant one. I do not mean to reproach you; ascribe what I say to a real
      desire to serve and make you happy; but let me tell you that Mrs. Delaney
      has intimated to me that you neglect your wife, that you leave her very
      much at night; and she further intimates, what I feel assured can not well
      be the case, that you have fallen into other and much more evil habits.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The hag!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She is all that, and loves you no better now than before. Still, it is
      well to deprive such people of their scandal-mongering, of the meat for it
      at least. I trust, Clifford, for your own sake, that you were absent of
      necessity on Wednesday night.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It will be enough for me to think so, sir,&rdquo; was my reply.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Surely, if you DO think so; but I am too old a man, and too old a friend
      of your own and wife's family, to justify you in taking exception to what
      I say. I hope you do not neglect this dear child, for she is one too
      sweet, too good, too gentle, Clifford, to be subjected to hard usage and
      neglect. I think her one of earth's angels&mdash;a meek creature, who
      would never think or do wrong, but would rather suffer than complain. I
      sincerely hope, for your own sake, as well as hers, that you truly
      estimate her worth.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I could not answer the good old man, though I was angry with him. My
      conscience deprived me of the just power to give utterance to my anger. I
      was silent, and he forbore any further reference to the subject. Shortly
      after he took his leave, and I re-ascended the stairs. Wearing slippers, I
      made little noise, and at the door of my wife's chamber I caught a
      sentence from the lips of Mrs. Delaney, which made me forget everything
      that the doctor had been saying.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But Julia, there must have been some accident&mdash;something must have
      happened. Did your foot slip? perhaps, in getting out of the carriage, or
      in going up stairs, or&mdash;. There must have been something to frighten
      you, or hurt you. What was it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I paused; my heart rose like a swelling, struggling mass in the gorge of
      my throat. I listened for the reply. A deep sigh followed; and then I
      heard a reluctant, faint utterance of the single word, &ldquo;Nothing!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nothing?&rdquo; repeated the old lady. &ldquo;Surely, Julia, there was something.
      Recollect yourself. You know you rode home with Mr. Edgerton. It was past
      one o'clock&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No more&mdash;no more, mother. There was nothing&mdash;nothing that I
      recollect. I know nothing of what happened. Hardly know where I am now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I felt a momentary pang that I had lingered at the entrance. Besides,
      there was no possibility that she would have revealed anything to the
      inquisitive old woman. Perhaps, had this been probable, I should not have
      felt the scruple and the pang. The very questions of Mrs. Delaney were as
      fully productive of evil in my mind, as if Julia had answered decisively
      on every topic. I entered the room, and Mrs. Delaney, after some little
      lingering, took her departure, with a promise to return again soon. I
      paced the chamber with eyes bent upon the floor.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come to me, Edward-come sit beside me.&rdquo; Such were the gentle words of
      entreaty which my wife addressed to me. Gentle words, and so spoken&mdash;so
      sweetly, so frankly, as if from the very sacredest chamber of her heart.
      Could it be that guilt also harbored in that very heart&mdash;that it was
      the language of cunning on her lips&mdash;the cunning of the serpent? Ah!
      how can we think that with serpent-like cunning, there should be dove-like
      guilelessness? My soul revolted at the idea. The sounds of the poor girl's
      voice sounded like hissing in my ears. I sat beside her as she requested,
      and almost started, as I felt her fingers playing with the hair upon my
      temples.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are cold to me, dear husband; ah! be not cold. I have narrowly
      escaped from death. So they tell me&mdash;so I feel! Be not cold to me.
      Let me not think that I am burdensome to you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why should you think so, Julia?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! your words answer your question, and speak for me. They are so few&mdash;they
      have no warmth in them; and then, you leave me so much, dear husband&mdash;why,
      why do you leave me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You do not miss me much, Julia.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do I not! ah! you do me wrong. I miss nothing else but you. I have all
      that I had when we were first married&mdash;all but my husband!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do not deceive yourself, Julia; these fine speeches do not deceive me. I
      am afraid that the love of woman is a very light thing. It yields readily
      to the wind. It does not keep in one direction long, any more than the
      vane on the house-top.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You do NOT think so, Edward. Such is not MY love. Alas! I know not how to
      make it known to you, husband, if it be not already known; and yet it
      seems to me that you do not know it, or, if you do, that you do not care
      much about it. You seem to care very little whether I love you or not.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I exclaimed bitterly, and with the energy of deep feeling.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Care little! <i>I</i> care little whether you love me or no! Psha! Julia,
      you must think me a fool!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It did seem to me a sort of mockery, knowing my feelings as <i>I</i> did&mdash;knowing
      that all my folly and suffering came from the very intensity of my passion&mdash;that
      I should be reproached, by its object, with indifference! I forgot, that,
      as a cover for my suspicion, I had been striving with all the industry of
      art to put on the appearance of indifference. I did not give myself
      sufficient credit for the degree of success with which I had labored, or I
      might have suddenly arrived at the gratifying conclusion, that, while I
      was impressed and suffering with the pangs of jealousy, my wife was
      trembling with fear that she had for ever lost my affections. My language,
      the natural utterance of my real feelings, was not true to the character I
      had assumed. It filled the countenance of the suffering woman with
      consternation. She shrunk from me in terror. Her hand was withdrawn from
      my neck, as she tremulously replied:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, do not speak to me in such tones. Do not look so harshly upon me.
      What have I done?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ay! ay!&rdquo; I muttered, turning away.
    </p>
    <p>
      She caught my hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do not go&mdash;do not leave me, and with such a look! Oh! husband, I may
      not live long. I feel that I have had a very narrow escape within these
      few days past. Do not kill me with cruel looks; with words, that, if cruel
      from you, would sooner kill than the knife in savage hands. Oh! tell me in
      what have I offended? What is it you think? For what am I to blame? What
      do you doubt&mdash;suspect?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      These questions were asked hurriedly, apprehensively, with a look of vague
      terror, her cheeks whitening as she spoke, her eyes darting wildly into
      mine, and her lips remaining parted after she had spoken.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; I exclaimed, keenly watching her. Her glance sank beneath my gaze. I
      put my hand upon her own.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What do I suspect I What should I suspect? Ha!&rdquo;&mdash;Here I arrested
      myself. My ardent anxiety to know the truth led me to forget my caution;
      to exhibit a degree of eagerness, which might have proved that I did
      suspect and seriously. To exhibit the possession of jealousy was to place
      her upon her guard&mdash;such was the suggestion of that miserable policy
      by which I had been governed&mdash;and defeat the impression of that
      feeling of perfect security and indifference, which I had been so long
      striving to awaken. I recovered myself, with this thought, in season to
      re-assume this appearance.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Your mind still wanders, Julia. What should I suspect? and whom? You do
      not suppose me to be of a suspicious nature, do you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not altogether&mdash;not always&mdash;no! But, of course, there is
      nothing to suspect. I do not know what I say. I believe I do wander.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      This reply was also spoken hurriedly, but with an obvious effort at
      composure. The eagerness with which she seized upon my words, insisting
      upon the absence of any cause of suspicion, and ascribing to her late
      delirium, the tacit admissions which her look and language had made, I
      need not say, contributed to strengthen my suspicions, and to confirm all
      the previous conjectures of my jealous spirit.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Be quiet,&rdquo; I said with an air of sang froid. &ldquo;Do not worry yourself in
      this manner. You need sleep. Try for it, while I leave you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do not leave me; sit beside me, dear Edward. I will sleep so much better
      when you are beside me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, believe me. Ah! that I could always keep you beside me!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What! you are for a new honeymoon?&rdquo; I said this in a TONE of merriment,
      which Heaven knows, I little felt.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do not speak of it so lightly, Edward. It is too serious a matter. Ah!
      that you would always remain with me; that you would never leave me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Pshaw! What sickly tenderness is this! Why, how could I earn my bread or
      yours?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I do not mean that you should neglect your business, but that when
      business is over, you should give me all your time as you used to.
      Remember, how pleasantly we passed the evenings after our marriage. Ah!
      how could you forget?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I do not, Julia.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you do not care for them. We spend no such evenings now!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! but it is no fault of mine!&rdquo; I said gloomily; then, interrupting her
      answer, as if dreading that she might utter some simple but true remark,
      which might refute the interpretation which my words conveyed, that the
      fault was hers, I enjoined silence upon her.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You scarcely speak in your right mind yet, Julia. Be quiet, therefore,
      and try to sleep.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, if you will sit beside me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I will do so, since you wish for it; but where's the need?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! do not ask the need, if you still love me,&rdquo; was all she said, and
      looked at me with such eyes&mdash;so tearful, bright, so sad, soliciting&mdash;that,
      though I did not less doubt, I could no longer deny. I resumed the seat
      beside her. She again placed her fingers in my hair, and in a little while
      sunk into a profound slumber, only broken by an occasional sob, which
      subsided into a sigh.
    </p>
    <p>
      Were she guilty&mdash;such was the momentary suggestion of the good angel&mdash;could
      she sleep thus?&mdash;thus quietly, confidingly, beside the man she had
      wronged&mdash;her fingers still paddling in his hair&mdash;her sleeping
      eyes still turning in the direction of his face?
    </p>
    <p>
      To the clear, open mind, the suggestion would have had the force of a
      conclusive argument; but mine was no longer a clear, open mind. I had the
      disease of the blind heart upon me, and all things came out upon my vision
      as through a glass, darkly. The evil one at my elbow jeered when the good
      angel spoke.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fool! does she not see that she can blind you still!&rdquo; Then, in the vanity
      and vexation of my spirit, I mused upon it further, and said to myself:&mdash;&ldquo;Ay,
      but she will find, ere many days, that I am no longer to be blinded!&rdquo; The
      scales were never thicker upon my sight than when I boasted in this
      foolish wise.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXXIV. &mdash; A FATHER'S GRIEFS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      She continued to improve, but slowly. Her organization was always very
      delicate. Her frame was becoming thin, almost to meagreness; and this last
      disaster, whatever might be its cause, had contributed still more to
      weaken a constitution which education and nature had never prepared for
      much hard encounter. But, though I saw these proofs of feebleness&mdash;of
      a feebleness that might have occasioned reasonable apprehensions of
      premature decay, and possibly very rapid decline&mdash;there were little
      circumstances constantly occurring&mdash;looks shown, words spoken&mdash;which
      kept up the irritation of my soul, and prevented me from doing justice to
      her enfeebled condition. My sympathies were absorbed in my suspicions. My
      heart was the debateable land of self. The blind passion which enslaved
      it, I need scarce say, was of a nature so potent, that it could easily
      impregnate, with its own color, all the objects of its survey. Seen
      through the eyes of suspicion, there is no truth, no virtue; the smile is
      that of the snake; the tear, that of the crocodile; the assurance, that of
      the traitor. There is no act, look, word, of the suspected object, however
      innocent, which, to the diseased mind of jealousy, does not suggest
      conjectures and arguments, all conclusive or confirmatory of its doubts
      and fears. It is not necessary to say that I shrunk from Julia's
      endearment, requited her smiles with indifference; and, though I did not
      avoid her presence&mdash;I could not, in the few days when her case was
      doubtful&mdash;yet exhibited, in all respects, the conduct of one who was
      in a sort of Coventry.
    </p>
    <p>
      But one fact may be stated&mdash;one of many&mdash;which seemed to give a
      sanction to my suspicions, will help to justify my course, and which, at
      the time, was terribly conclusive, to my reason, of the things which I
      feared. She spoke audibly the name of Edgerton, twice, thrice, while she
      slept beside me, in tones very faint, it is true, but still distinct
      enough. The faintness of her utterance, gave the tones an emphasis of
      tenderness which perhaps was unintended. Twice, thrice, that fatal name;
      and then, what a sigh from the full volume of a surcharged heart. Let any
      one conceive my situation&mdash;with my feelings, intense on all subjects&mdash;my
      suspicions already so thoroughly awakened; and then fancy what they must
      have been on hearing that utterance; from the unguarded lips of slumber;
      from the wife lying beside him; and of the name of him on whom suspicion
      already rested. I hung over the sleeper, breathless, almost gasping,
      finally, in the effort to contain my breath&mdash;in the hope to hear
      something, however slight, which was to confirm finally, or finally end my
      doubts. I heard no more; but did more seem to be necessary? What jealous
      heart had not found this sufficiently conclusive? And that deep-drawn
      sigh, sobbing, as of a heart breaking with the deferred hope, and the
      dream of youth baffled at one sweeping, severing blow.
    </p>
    <p>
      I rose. I could no longer subdue my emotions to the necessary degree of
      watchfulness. I trod the chamber till daylight. Then, I dressed myself and
      went out into the street. I had no distinct object. A vague persuasion
      only, that I must do something&mdash;that something must be done&mdash;that,
      in short, it was necessary to force this exhausting drama to its fit
      conclusion. Of course William Edgerton was my object. As yet, how to bring
      about the issue, was a problem which my mind was not prepared to solve.
      Whether I was to stab or shoot him; whether we were to go through the
      tedious processes of the duel; to undergo the fatigue of preliminaries, or
      to shorten them by sudden reencounter; these were topics which filled my
      thoughts confusedly; upon which I had no clear conviction; not because I
      did not attempt to fix upon a course, but from a sheer inability to think
      at all. My whole brain was on fire; a chaotic mass, such as rushes up from
      the unstopped vents of the volcano&mdash;fire, stones, and lava&mdash;but
      dense smoke enveloping the whole.
    </p>
    <p>
      In this frame of mind I hurried through the streets. The shops were yet
      unopened. The sun was just about to rise. There was a humming sound, like
      that of distant waters murmuring along the shore, which filled my ears;
      but otherwise everything was silent. Sleep had not withdrawn with night
      from his stealthy watch upon the household. It seemed to me that I alone
      could not sleep. Even guilt&mdash;if my wife were really guilty&mdash;even
      guilt could sleep. I left her sleeping, and how sweetly! as if the dream
      which had made her sob and sigh, had been succeeded by others, that made
      all smiles again. I could not sleep, and yet, who, but a few months
      before, had been possessed of such fair prospects of peace and prosperity?
      Fortune held forth sufficient promise; fame&mdash;so far as fame can be
      accorded by a small community&mdash;had done something toward giving me an
      honorable repute; and love&mdash;had not love been seemingly as liberal
      and prompt as ever young passions could have desired? I was making money;
      I was getting reputation; the only woman whom I had ever loved or sought,
      was mine; and mine, too, in spite of opposition and discouragements which
      would have chilled the ardor of half the lovers in the world. And yet I
      was not happy. It takes so small an amount of annoyance to produce misery
      in the heart of selfesteem, when united with suspicion, that it was
      scarcely possible that I should be happy. Such a man has a taste for
      self-torture; as one troubled with an irritating humor, is never at rest,
      unless he is tearing the flesh into a sore; he may then rest as he may.
    </p>
    <p>
      I took the way to my office. It was not often that I went thither before
      breakfast. But William Edgerton had been in the habit of doing so. He
      lived in the neighborhood, and his father had taught him this habit during
      the period when he was employed in studying the profession. It might be
      that I should find him there on the present occasion. Such was my notion.
      What farther thought I had I know not; but a vague suggestion that, in
      that quiet hour&mdash;there&mdash;without eye to see, or hand to
      interpose, I might drag from his heart the fearful secret&mdash;I might
      compel confession, take my vengeance, and rid myself finally of that cruel
      agony which was making me its miserable puppet. Crude, wild notions these,
      but very natural.
    </p>
    <p>
      I turned the corner of the street. The window of my office was open. &ldquo;He
      is then there,&rdquo; I muttered to myself; and my teeth clutched each other
      closely. I buttoned my coat. My heart was swelling. I looked around me,
      and up to the windows. The street was very silent&mdash;the grave not more
      so. I strode rapidly across, threw open the door of the office which stood
      ajar, and beheld, not the person whom I sought, but his venerable father.
    </p>
    <p>
      The sight of that white-headed old man filled me with a sense of shame and
      degradation. What had he not done for me? How great his assistance, how
      kind his regards, how liberal his offices. He had rescued me from the
      bondage of poverty. He had put forth the hand of help, with a manly grasp
      of succor at the very moment when it was most needed; had helped to make
      me what I was; and, for all these, I had come to put to death his only
      son. A revulsion of feeling took place within my bosom. These thoughts
      were instantaneous&mdash;a sort of lightning-flash from the moral world of
      thought. I stood abashed; brought to my senses in an instant, and was
      scarcely able to conceal my discomfiture and confusion. I stood before him
      with the feeling, and must have worn the look, of a culprit. Fortunately,
      he did not perceive my confusion. Poor old man! Cares of his own&mdash;cares
      of a father, too completely occupied his mind, to suffer his senses to
      discharge their duties with freedom.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am glad to see you, Clifford, though I did not expect it. Young men of
      the present day are not apt to rise so early.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I must confess, sir, it is not my habit.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Better if it were. The present generation, it seems to me, may be
      considered more fortunate, in some respects, than the past, though they
      are scarcely wiser. They seem to me exempt from such necessities as
      encountered their fathers. Their tasks are fewer&mdash;their labor is
      lighter&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Are their cares the lighter in consequence?&rdquo; I demanded.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That is the question,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;For myself, I think not. They grow
      gray the sooner. They have fewer tasks, but heavier troubles. They live
      better in some respects. They have luxuries which, in my day, youth were
      scarcely permitted to enjoy; and which, indeed, were not often enjoyed by
      age. But they have little peace:-and, look at the bankruptcies of our
      city. They are without number&mdash;they produce no shame&mdash;do not
      seem to affect the credit of the parties; and, certainly, in no respect
      diminish their expenditures. They live as if the present day were the last
      they had to live; and living thus, they must live dishonestly. It is
      inevitable. The moral sense is certainly in a much lower condition in our
      country, than I have ever known it. What can be the reason?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The facility of procuring money, perhaps. Money is the most dangerous of
      human possessions.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There can be none other. Clifford!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I change the subject abruptly. Have you seen my son lately, Clifford?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The question was solemnly, suddenly spoken. It staggered me. What could it
      mean? That there was a meaning in it&mdash;a deep meaning&mdash;was
      unquestionable. But of what nature? Did the venerable man suspect my
      secret&mdash;could he by any chance conjecture my purpose? It is one
      quality of a mind not exactly satisfied of the propriety of its
      proceedings, to be suspicious of all things and persons&mdash;to fancy
      that the consciousness which distresses itself, is also the consciousness
      of its neighbors. Hence the blush upon the cheek&mdash;the faltering
      accents&mdash;the tremulousness of limb, and feebleness of movement. For a
      moment after the old man spoke&mdash;troubled with this consciousness, I
      could not answer. But my self-esteem came to my relief&mdash;nay, it had
      sufficed to conceal my disquiet. My looks were subdued to a seeming calm&mdash;my
      voice was un-broken, while I answered:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have seen him within a few days, sir&mdash;a few nights ago we were at
      Mrs. Delaney's party. But why the question, sir?&mdash;what troubles you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Strange that you have not seen! Did you not remark the alteration in his
      appearance?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I must confess, sir, I did not; but, perhaps, I did not remark him
      closely among the crowd.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He is altered&mdash;terribly altered, Clifford. It is very strange that
      you have not seen it. It is visible to myself&mdash;his mother&mdash;all
      the family, and some of its friends We tremble for his life. He is a mere
      skeleton&mdash;moves without life or animation, feebly&mdash;his cheeks
      are pale and thin, his lips white, and his eyes have an appearance which,
      beyond anything besides, distresses me&mdash;either lifelessly dull, or
      suddenly flushed up with an expression of wildness, which occurs so
      suddenly as to distress us with the worst apprehensions of his sanity.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Indeed, sir!&rdquo; I exclaimed with natural surprise.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;So it appears to us, his mother and myself, though, as it has escaped
      your eyes, I trust that we have exaggerated it. That we have not imagined
      all of it, however, we have other proofs to show. His manner is changed of
      late, and most of his habits. The change is only within the last six
      months; so suddenly made that it has been forced upon our sight. Once so
      frank, he is now reserved and shrinking to the last degree; speaks little;
      is reluctant to converse; and, I am compelled to believe, not only avoids
      my glance, but fears it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is very strange that he should do so, sir. I can think of no reason
      why he should avoid YOUR glance. Can you sir? Have you any suspicions?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ha! have you indeed?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The old man drew his chair closer to me, and, putting his hand on mine,
      with eyes in which the tears, big, slow-gathering, began to fill&mdash;trickling
      at length, one by one, through the venerable furrows of his cheeks&mdash;he
      replied in faltering accents:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A terrible suspicion, Clifford. I am afraid he drinks; that he frequents
      gambling-houses; that, in short, he is about to be lost to us, body and
      soul, for ever.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Deep and touching was the groan that followed from that old man's bosom. I
      hastened to relieve him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am sure, sir, that you do your son great injustice. I cannot conceive
      it possible that he should have fallen into these habits.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He is out nightly&mdash;late&mdash;till near daylight. But two hours ago
      he returned home. Let me confess to you, Clifford, what I should be loath
      to confess to anybody else. I followed him last night. He took the path to
      the suburbs, and I kept him in sight almost till he reached your dwelling.
      Then I lost him. He moved too rapidly then for my old limbs, and
      disappeared among those groves of wild orange that fill your neighborhood.
      I searched them as closely as I could in the imperfect starlight, but
      could see nothing of him. I am told that there are gambling-houses,
      notorious enough, in the suburbs just beyond you. I fear that he found
      shelter in these&mdash;that he finds shelter in them nightly.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I scarcely breathed while listening to the unhappy father's, narrative.
      There was one portion of it to which I need not refer the reader, as
      calculated to confirm my own previous convictions. I struggled with my
      feelings, however, in respect for his. I kept them down and spoke.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In this one fact, Mr. Edgerton, I see nothing to alarm you. Your son may
      have been engaged far more innocently than you imagine. He is young&mdash;you
      know too well the practices of young men. As for the drinking he is
      perhaps the very last person whom I should suspect of excess. I have
      always thought his temperance unquestionable.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Until recently, I should have had no fears myself. But connecting one
      fact with another&mdash;his absence all night, nightly&mdash;the
      stealthiness with which he departs from home after the family has retired&mdash;the
      stealthiness with which he returns just before day&mdash;his visible
      agitation when addressed&mdash;and, oh Clifford! worst of all signs, the
      shrinking of his eye beneath mine and his mother's&mdash;the fear to meet,
      and the effort to avoid us&mdash;these are the signs which most pain me,
      and excite my apprehensions But look at his face and figure also. The
      haggard misery of the one, sign of sleeplessness and late watching&mdash;the
      attenuated feebleness of the other, showing the effects of some practices,
      no matter of what particular sort, which are undermining his constitution,
      and rapidly tending to destroy him. If you but look in his eye as I have
      done, marking its wildness, its wandering, its sensible expression of
      shame&mdash;you can hardly fail to think with me that something is morally
      wrong. He is guilty&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He is guilty!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I echoed the words of the father, involuntarily. They struck the chord of
      conviction in my own soul, and seemed to me the language of a judgment.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ha! You know it, then?&rdquo; cried the old man. &ldquo;Speak! Tell me, Clifford&mdash;what
      is his folly? What is the particular guilt and shame into which he has
      fallen?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I knew not that I had spoken until I heard these words. The agitation of
      the father was greatly increased. Truly, his sorrows were sad to look
      upon. I answered him:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I simply echoed your words, sir&mdash;I am ignorant, as I said before;
      and, indeed, I may venture, I think, with perfect safety, to assure you
      that gaming and drink have nothing to do with his appearance and
      deportment. I should rather suspect him of some improper&mdash;SOME GUILTY
      CONNECTION&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I felt that, in the utterance of these words, I too had become excited. My
      voice did not rise, but I knew that it had acquired an intenseness which I
      as quickly endeavored to suppress. But the father had already beheld the
      expression in my face, and perhaps the sudden change in my tones grated
      harshly upon his ear. I could see that his looks became more eager and
      inquiring. I could note a greater degree of apprehension and anxiety in
      his eyes. I subdued myself, though not without some effort.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;William Edgerton may be erring, sir&mdash;that I do not deny, for I have
      seen too little of him of late to say anything of his proceedings; but I
      am very confident when I say that excess in liquor can not be a vice of
      his; and as for gaming, I should fancy that he was the last person in the
      world likely to be tempted to the indulgence of such a practice.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The father shook his head mournfully.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why this shame?&mdash;this fear? Besides, Clifford, what we know of our
      son makes us equally sure that women have nothing to do with his excesses.
      But these conjectures help us nothing. Clifford, I must look to you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What can I do for you, sir?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He is my son, my only son&mdash;the care of many sad, sleepless hours. It
      was his mother's hope that he would be our solace in the weary and the sad
      ones. You can not understand yet how much the parent lives in the child&mdash;how
      many of his hopes settle there. William has already disappointed us in our
      ambition. He will be nothing that we hoped him to be; but of this I
      complain not. But that he should become base, Clifford; a night-prowler in
      the streets; a hanger-on of stews and gaming-houses; a brawler at an
      alehouse bar; a man to skulk through life and society; down-looking in his
      father's sight; despised in that of the community&mdash;oh! these are the
      cruel, the dreadful apprehensions!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you know not that he is any of these.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;True; but there is something grievously wrong when the son dares not meet
      the eye of a parent with manly fearlessness; when he looks without joyance
      at the face of a mother, and shrinks from her endearments as if he felt
      that he deserved them not. William Edgerton is miserable; that is evident
      enough. Now, misery does not always imply guilt; but, in his case, what
      else should it imply! He has had no misfortunes. He is independent; he is
      beloved by his parents, and by his friends; he has had no denial of the
      affections; in short, there is no way of accounting for his conduct or
      appearance, but by the supposition that he has fallen into vicious habits.
      Whatever these habits are, they are killing him. He is a mere skeleton;
      his whole appearance is that of a man running a rapid course of
      dissipation which can only advance in shame, and terminate in death.
      Clifford, if I have ever served you in the hour of your need, serve me in
      this of mine. Save my son for me. Bring him back from his folly; restore
      him, if you can, to peace and purity. See him, will you not? Seek him out;
      see him; probe his secret; and tell me what can be done to rescue him
      before it be too late.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Really, Mr. Edgerton, you confound me. What can I do?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I know not. Every thing, perhaps! I confess I can not counsel you. I can
      not even suggest how you should begin. You must judge for yourself. You
      must think and make your approaches according to your own judgment.
      Remember, that it is not in his behalf only. Think of the father, the
      mother! our hope, our all is at stake. I speak to you in the language of a
      child, Clifford. I am a child in this. This boy has been the apple of our
      eyes. It is our sight for which I seek your help. I know your good sense
      and sagacity. I know that you can trace out his secret when I should fail.
      My feelings would blind me to the truth. They might lead me to use
      language which would drive him from me. I leave it all to you. I know not
      who else can do for me half so well in a matter of this sort. Will you
      undertake it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Could I refuse? This question was discussed in all its bearings, in a few
      lightning-like progresses of thought. I felt all its difficulties&mdash;anticipated
      the annoyances to which it would subject me, and the degree of
      self-forbearance which it would necessarily require; yet, when I looked on
      the noble old gentleman who sat beside me&mdash;his gray hairs, his
      pleading looks, the recollection of the deep debt of gratitude which I
      owed him&mdash;I put my hand in his; I could resist no longer.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I will try!&rdquo; was the brief answer which I made him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;God bless, God speed you!&rdquo; he exclaimed, squeezing my hand with a
      pressure that said everything, and we separated; he for his family, and I
      for that new task which I had undertaken. How different from my previous
      purpose! I was now to seek to save the person whom I had set forth that
      morning with the purpose (if I had any purpose) to destroy. What a volume
      made up of contradictions and inconsistencies, strangely bound together,
      is the moral world of man!
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0035" id="link2HCH0035"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXXV. &mdash; APPLICATION OF &ldquo;THE QUESTION.&rdquo;
     </h2>
    <p>
      But how to save him? How to approach him? How to keep down my own sense of
      wrong, my own feeling of misery, while representing the wishes and the
      feelings of that good old man&mdash;that venerable father? These were
      questions to afflict, to confound me! Still, I was committed; I must do
      what I had promised; undertake it at least; and the conviction that such a
      task was to be the severest trial of my manliness, was a conviction that
      necessarily helped to strengthen me to go through with it like a man.
    </p>
    <p>
      What I had heard from Mr. Edgerton in relation to his son, though new, and
      somewhat surprising to myself, had not altered, in any respect, my
      impressions on the subject of his conduct toward, or with, my wife.
      Indeed, it rather served to confirm them. I could have told the old man,
      that, in losing all traces of his son in the neighborhood of my dwelling
      the night when he pursued him, he had the most conclusive proofs that he
      had gone to no gaming-houses. But where did he go? That was a question for
      myself. Had he entered my premises, and hidden himself amidst the foliage
      where I had myself so often harbored, while my object had been the secret
      inspection of my household? Could it be that he had loitered there during
      the last few nights of my wife's illness, in the vain hope of seeing me
      take my departure? This was the conclusion which I reached, and with it
      came the next thought that he would revisit the spot again that night. Ha!
      that thought! &ldquo;Let him come!&rdquo; I muttered to myself. &ldquo;I will endeavor to be
      in readiness!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But, surely, the father was grievously in error; his parental fear, alone,
      had certainly drawn the picture of his son's reduced and miserable
      condition. I had seen nothing of this. I had observed that he was shy,
      incommunicative&mdash;seeking to avoid me, as, according to their showing,
      he had striven to avoid his parents. So far our experience had been the
      same. But I had totally failed to perceive the marks of suffering or of
      sin which the vivid feelings of the father on this subject had insisted
      were so apparent. I had seen in Edgerton only the false friend, the
      traitor, stealing like a serpent to my bower, to beguile from my side the
      only object which made it dear to me. I could see in him only the exulting
      seducer, confident in his ability, artful in his endeavors, winning in his
      accomplishments, and striving with practised industry of libertinism, in
      the prosecution of his cruel schemes. I could see the grace of his
      bearing, the ease of his manner, the symmetry of his person, the neatness
      of his costume, the superiority of his dancing, the insinuation of his
      address. I could see these only! That he looked miserable&mdash;that he
      was thin to meagreness, I had not seen.
    </p>
    <p>
      Yet, even were it so, what could this prove, as the father had
      conclusively shown, but guilt. Poverty could not trouble him&mdash;he had
      never been an unrequited lover. He had gone along the stream of society,
      indifferent to the lures of beauty, and with a bark that had always
      appeared studiously to keep aloof from the shores or shoals of matrimony.
      If he was miserable, his misery could only come from misconduct, not from
      misfortune. It was a misery engendered by guilt, and what was that guilt?
      I KNEW that he did not drink; and was not his course in regard to
      Kingsley, as narrated by that person on the night when we went to the
      gaming-house together&mdash;was not that sufficient to show that he was no
      gamester, unless he happened to be one of the most bare faced of all
      canting hypocrites, which I could not believe him to be. What remained,
      but that my calculations were right? It was guilt that was sinking him,
      body and soul, so that his eye no longer dared to look upward&mdash;so
      that his ear shrunk from the sounds of those voices which, even in the
      language of kindness, were still speaking to him in the severest language
      of rebuke. And whom did that guilt concern more completely than myself?
      Say that the father was to lose his son, his only son&mdash;what was my
      loss, what was my shame! and upon whom should the curse most fully and
      finally fall, if not upon the wrong-doer, though it so happened that the
      ruin of the guilty brought with it overthrow to the innocent scarcely less
      complete!
    </p>
    <p>
      The extent of that guilt of Edgerton?
    </p>
    <p>
      On this point all was a wilderness, vague, inconclusive, confused and
      crowded within my understanding. I believed that he had approached my wife
      with evil designs&mdash;I believed, without a doubt, that he had passed
      the boundaries of propriety in his intercourse with her; but I believed
      not that she had fallen! No! I had an instinctive confidence in her
      purity, that rendered it apparently impossible that she should lapse into
      the grossness of illicit love. What, then, was my fear? That she did love
      him, though, struggling with the tendency of her heart, she had not
      yielded in the struggle. I believed that his grace, beauty, and
      accomplishments&mdash;his persevering attention&mdash;his similar tastes&mdash;had
      succeeded in making an impression upon her soul which had effectually
      eradicated mine. I believed that his attentions were sweet to her&mdash;that
      she had not the strength to reject them; and, though she may have proved
      herself too virtuous to yield, she had not been sufficiently strong to
      repulse him with virtuous resentment.
    </p>
    <p>
      That Edgerton had not succeeded, did not lessen HIS offence. The attempt
      was an indignity that demanded atonement&mdash;that justified punishment
      equally severe with that which should have followed a successful
      prosecution of his purpose. Women are by nature weak. They are not to be
      tempted. He who, knowing their weakness, attempts their overthrow by that
      medium, is equally cowardly and criminal. I could not doubt that he had
      made this attempt; but now it seemed necessary that I should suspend my
      indignation, in obedience with what appeared to be a paramount duty. A
      selfish reasoning now suggested compliance with this duty as a mean for
      procuring better intelligence than I already possessed. I need not say
      that the doubt was the pain in my bosom. I felt, in the words of the cold
      devil Iago, those &ldquo;damned minutes&rdquo; of him &ldquo;who dotes, yet doubts,
      suspects, yet strongly loves.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The shapeless character of my fears and suspicions did not by any means
      lessen their force and volume. On the contrary it caused them to loom out
      through the hazy atmosphere of the imagination, assuming aspects more huge
      and terrible, in consequence of their very indistinctness; as the phantom
      shapes along the mountains of the Brocken, gathering and scowling in the
      morning or the evening twilight. To obtain more precise knowledge&mdash;to
      be able to subject to grasp and measure the uncertain phantoms which I
      feared&mdash;was, if not to reduce their proportions, at least to rid me
      of that excruciating suspense, in determining what to do, which was the
      natural result of my present ignorance.
    </p>
    <p>
      With some painstaking, I was enabled to find and force an interview with
      Edgerton that very day. He made an effort to elude me&mdash;such an effort
      as he could make without allowing his object to be seen. But I was not to
      be baffled. Having once determined upon my course, I was a puritan in the
      inveteracy with which I persevered in it. But it required no small
      struggle to approach the criminal, and so utterly to subdue my own sense
      of wrong, my suspicions and my hostility, as to keep in sight no more than
      the wishes and fears of the father. I have already boasted of my strength
      in some respects, even while exposing my weaknesses in others. That I
      could persuade Edgerton and my wife, equally, of my indifference, even at
      the moment when I was most agonized by my doubts of their purity, is a
      sufficient proof that I possessed a certain sort of strength. It was a
      moral strength, too, which could conceal the pangs inflicted by the
      vulture, even when it was preying upon the vitals of the best affections
      and the dearest hopes of the heart. It was necessary that I should put all
      this strength in requisition, as well to do what was required by the
      father, as to pierce, with keen eye, and considerate question, to the
      secret soul of the witness. I must assume the blandest manner of our
      youthful friendship; I must say kind things, and say them with a certain
      frank unconsciousness. I must use the language of a good fellow&mdash;a
      sworn companion&mdash;who is anxious to do justice to my friend's father,
      and yet had no notion that my friend himself was doing the smallest thing
      to justify the unmeasured fears of the fond old man. Such was my cue at
      first. I am not so sure that I pursued it to the end; but of this
      hereafter.
    </p>
    <p>
      My attention having been specially drawn to the personal appearance of
      William Edgerton, I was surprised, if not absolutely shocked, to see that
      the father had scarcely exaggerated the misery of his condition. He was
      the mere shadow of his former self. His limbs, only a year before, had
      been rounded even to plumpness. They were now sharp and angular. His skin
      was pale, his looks haggard; and that apprehensive shrinking of the eye,
      which had called forth the most keen expressions of fear and suspicion
      from the father's lips, was the prominent characteristic which commanded
      my attention during our brief interview. His eye, after the first
      encounter, no longer rose to mine. Keenly did I watch his face, though for
      an instant only. A sudden hectic flush mantled its paleness. I could
      perceive a nervous muscular movement about his mouth, and he slightly
      started when I spoke.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Edgerton,&rdquo; I said, with tones of good-humored reproach, &ldquo;there's no
      finding you now-a-days. You have the invisible cap. What do you do with
      yourself? As for law, that seems destined to be a mourner so far as you
      are concerned. She sits like a widow in her weeds. You have abandoned her:
      do you mean to abandon your friends also?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He answered, with a faint attempt to smile:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No; I have been to see you often, but you are never at home.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! I did not hear of it. But if you really wished to see a husband who
      has survived the honeymoon, I suspect that home is about the last place
      where you should seek for him. Julia did the honors, I trust?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      His eye stole upward, met mine, and sunk once more upon the floor. He
      answered faintly:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, but I have not seen her for some days.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not since Mother Delaney's party, I believe?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The color came again into his cheeks, but instantly after was succeeded by
      a deadly paleness.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What a bore these parties are! and such parties as those of Mrs. Delaney
      are particularly annoying to me. Why the d&mdash;l couldn't the old tabby
      halter her hobby without calling in her neighbors to witness the painful
      spectacle? You were there, I think?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I left early. I got heartily sick. You know I never like such places;
      and, as soon as they began dancing, I took advantage of the fuss and
      fiddle to steal off. It was unfortunate I did so, for Julia was taken
      sick, and has had a narrow chance for it. I thought I should have lost
      her.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      All this was spoken in tones of the coolest imaginable indifference.
      Edgerton was evidently surprised. He looked up with some curiosity in his
      glance, and more confidence; and, with accents that slightly faltered, he
      asked:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is she well again? I trust she is better now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; I answered, with the same sang-froid. &ldquo;But I've had a serious
      business of watching through the last three nights. Her peril was extreme.
      She lost her little one.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A visible shudder went through his frame.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Tired to death of the walls of the house, which seems a dungeon to me, I
      dashed out this morning, at daylight, as soon as I found I could safely
      leave her; and, strolling down to the office, who should I find there but
      your father, perched at the desk, and seemingly inclined to resume all his
      former practice?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Indeed! my father&mdash;so early? What could be the matter? Did he tell
      you?
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, i'faith, he is in tribulation about you. He fancies you are in a
      fair way to destruction. You can't conceive what he fancies. It seems,
      according to his account, that you are a night-stalker. He dwells at large
      upon your nightly absences from home, and then about your appearance,
      which, to say truth, is very wretched. You scarcely look like the same
      man. Edgerton. Have you been sick? What's the matter with you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am NOT altogether well,&rdquo; he said, evasively.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, but mere indisposition would never produce such a change, in so
      short a period, in any man! Your father is disposed to ascribe it to other
      causes.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! what does he think?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I fancied there was mingled curiosity and trepidation in this inquiry.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He suspects you of gaming and drinking; but I assured him, very
      confidently, that such was not the case. On one of these heads I could
      speak confidently, for I met Kingsley the other night&mdash;the night of
      Mother Delaney's party&mdash;who was hot and heavy against you because you
      refused to lend him money for such purposes. I was more indulgent, lent
      him the money, went with him to the house, and returned home with a pocket
      full of specie, sufficient to set up a small banking-operation of my own.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You! can it be possible!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;True; and no such dull way of spending an evening either. I got home in
      the small hours, and found Julia delirious. I haven't had such a fright
      for a stolen pleasure, Heaven knows when. There was the doctor, and there
      my eternal mother-in-law, and my poor little wife as near the grave as
      could be! But the circumstance of refusing the money to Kingsley, knowing
      his object, made me confident that gaming was not the cause of your
      night-stalking, and so I told the old gentleman.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And what did he say?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Shook his head mournfully, and reasoned in this manner: 'He has no
      pecuniary necessities, has no oppressive toils, and has never had any
      disappointment of heart. There is nothing to make him behave so, and look
      so, but guilt&mdash;GUILT!'&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I repeated the last word with an entire change in the tone of my voice.
      Light, lively, and playful before, I spoke that single word with a stern
      solemnity, and, bending toward him, my eye keenly traversed the mazes of
      his countenance.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;HE HAS IT!&rdquo; I thought to myself, as his head drooped forward, and his
      whole frame shuddered momentarily.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But&rdquo;&mdash;here my tones again became lively and playful&mdash;I even
      laughed&mdash;&ldquo;I told the old man that I fancied I could hit the nail more
      certainly on the head. In short, I said I could pretty positively say what
      was the cause of your conduct and condition.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; and, as he uttered this monosyllable, he made a feeble effort to
      rise from his seat, but sunk back, and again fixed his eye upon the floor
      in visible emotion.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes! I told him&mdash;was I not right?&mdash;that a woman was at the
      bottom of it all!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He started to his feet. His face was averted from me.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ha! was I not right? I knew it! I saw through it from the first; and,
      though I did not tell the old man THAT, I was pretty sure that you were
      trespassing upon your neighbor's grounds. Ha! what say you? Was I not
      right? Were you not stealing to forbidden places&mdash;playing the snake,
      on a small scale, in some blind man's Eden? Ha! ha! what say you to that?
      I am right, am I not? eh?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I clapped him on the shoulder as I spoke. His face had been half averted
      from me while I was speaking; but now it turned upon me, and his glance
      met mine, teeming with inquisitive horror.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! no! you are not right!&rdquo; he faltered out; &ldquo;it is not so. Nothing is
      the matter with me! I am quite well&mdash;quite! I will see my father, and
      set him right.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do so,&rdquo; I said, coolly and indifferently&mdash;&ldquo;do so; tell him what you
      please: but you can't change my conviction that you're after some pretty
      woman, and probably poaching on some neighbor's territory. Come, make me
      your confidante, Edgerton. Let us know the history of your misfortune. Is
      the lady pliant? I should judge so, since you continue to spend so many
      nights away from home. Come, make a clean breast of it. Out with your
      secret! I have always been your friend. WE COULD NOT BETRAY EACH OTHER, I
      THINK!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are quite mistaken,&rdquo; he said, with the effort of one who is half
      strangled. &ldquo;There is nothing in it; I assure you, you were never more
      mistaken.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Pshaw, Edgerton! you may blind papa, but you can not blind me. Keep your
      secret, if you please, but, if you provoke me, I will trace it out; I will
      unkennel you. If I do not show the sitting hare in a fortnight, by the
      course of the hunter, tell me I am none myself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      His consternation increased, but I did not allow it to disarm me. I probed
      him keenly, and in such a manner as to make him wince with apprehension at
      every word which I uttered. Morally, William Edgerton was a brave man.
      Guilt alone made him a coward. It actually gave me pain, after a while, to
      behold his wretched imbecility. He hung upon my utterance with the
      trembling suspense of one whose eye has become enchained with the
      fascinating gaze of the serpent. I put my questions and comments home to
      him, on the assumption that he was playing the traitor with another's
      wife; though taking care, all the while, that my manner should be that of
      one who has no sort of apprehensions on his own score. My deportment and
      tone tallied well with the practised indifference which had distinguished
      my previous overt conduct. It deceived him on that head; but the truth,
      like a sharp knife, was no less keen in penetrating to his soul; and,
      preserving my coolness and directness, with that singular tenacity of
      purpose which I could maintain in spite of my own sufferings&mdash;and
      keep them still unsuspected&mdash;I did not scruple to impel the sharp
      iron into every sensitive place within his bosom.
    </p>
    <p>
      He writhed visibly before me. His struggles did not please me, but I
      sought to produce them simply because they seemed so many proofs
      confirming the truth of my conjectures. The fiend in my own soul kept
      whispering, &ldquo;He has it!&rdquo;&mdash;and a fatal spell, not unlike that which
      riveted his attention to the language which tore and vexed him, urged me
      to continue it until at length the sting became too keen for his
      endurance. In very desperation, he broke away from the fetters of that
      fascination of terror which had held him for one mortal hour to the spot.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No more! no more!&rdquo; he exclaimed, with an uncontrollable burst of emotion.
      &ldquo;You torture me! I can stand it no longer! There is nothing in your
      conjecture! There is no reason for your suspicions! She is&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She? Ah!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I could not suppress the involuntary exclamation. The truth seemed to be
      at hand. I was premature. My utterance brought him to his senses. He
      stopped, looked at me wildly for an instant, his eyes dilated almost to
      bursting. He seemed suddenly to be conscious that the secrets of his soul&mdash;its
      dark, uncommissioned secrets&mdash;were about to force themselves into
      sight and speech; and unable, perhaps, to arrest them in any other way he
      darted headlong from my presence.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0036" id="link2HCH0036"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXXVI. &mdash; MEDITATED EXILE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      With his departure sunk the spirit which had sustained me. I had not gone
      through that scene willingly; I had suffered quite as many pangs as
      himself. I had made my own misery, though disguised under the supposed
      condition of another, the subject of my own mockery; and if I succeeded in
      driving the iron into HIS soul, the other end of the shaft was all the
      while working in mine! His flight was an equal relief to both of us. The
      stern spirit left me from that moment. My agony found relief, momentary
      though it was, in a sudden gush of tears. My hot, heavy head sank upon my
      palms, and I groaned in unreserved homage to the never-slumbering genius
      of pain&mdash;that genius which alone is universal&mdash;which adopts us
      from the cradle&mdash;which distinguishes our birth by our tears, hallows
      the sentiment of grief to us from the beginning, and maintains the
      fountains which supply its sorrows to the end. The lamb skips, the calf
      leaps, the fawn bounds, the bird chirps, the young colt frisks; all things
      but man enjoy life from its very dawn. He alone is feeble, suffering. His
      superior pangs and sorrows are the first proofs of his singular and
      superior destiny.
    </p>
    <p>
      Bitter was the gush of tears that rolled from the surcharged fountains of
      my heart; bitter, but free-flowing to my relief, at the moment when my
      head seemed likely to burst with a volcanic volume within it, and when a
      blistering arrow seemed slowly to traverse, to and fro, the most sore and
      shining passages of my soul. Had not Edgerton fled, I could not have
      sustained it much longer. My passions would have hurled aside my judgment,
      and mocked that small policy under which I acted. I felt that they were
      about to speak, and rejoiced that he fled. Had he remained, I should most
      probably have poured forth all my suspicion, all my hate; dragged by
      violence from his lips the confession of his wrong, and from his heart the
      last atonement for it.
    </p>
    <p>
      At first I reproached myself that I had not done so. I accused myself of
      tameness&mdash;the dishonorable tameness of submitting to indignity&mdash;the
      last of all indignities&mdash;and of conferring calmly, even
      good-humoredly, with the wrong-doer. But cooler moments came. A brief
      interval sufficed&mdash;helped by the flood of tears which rushed, hot and
      scalding, from my eyes&mdash;to subdue the angry spirit. I remembered my
      pledges to the father; my unspeakable obligations to him; and when I again
      recollected that my convictions had not assailed the purity of my wife,
      and, at most, had questioned her affections only, my forbearance seemed
      justified.
    </p>
    <p>
      But could the matter rest where it was? Impossible! What was to be done?
      It was clear enough that the only thing that could be done, for the relief
      of all parties, was to be done by myself. Edgerton was suffering from a
      guilty pursuit. That pursuit, if still urged, might be successful, if not
      so at present. The constant drip of the water will wear away the stone;
      and if my wife could submit to impertinent advances without declaring them
      to her husband, the work of seduction was already half done. To listen is,
      in half the number of cases, to fall. I must save her; I had not the
      courage to put her from me. Believing that she was still safe, I resolved,
      through the excess of that love which was yet the predominant passion in
      my soul, in spite of all its contradictions, to keep her so, if human wit
      could avail, and human energy carry its desires into successful
      completion.
    </p>
    <p>
      To do this, there was but one process. That was flight. I must leave this
      city&mdash;this country. By doing so, I remove my wife from temptation,
      remove the temptation from the unhappy young man whom it is destroying;
      and thus, though by a sacrifice of my own comforts and interests, repay
      the debt of gratitude to my benefactor in the only effective manner. It
      called for no small exercise of moral courage and forbearance&mdash;no
      small benevolence&mdash;to come to this conclusion. It must be understood
      that my professional business was becoming particularly profitable. I was
      rising in my profession. My clients daily increased in number; my
      acquaintance daily increased in value. Besides, I loved my birthplace&mdash;thrice-hallowed&mdash;the
      only region in my eyes&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The spot most worthy loving Of all beneath the sky.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But the sacrifice was to be made; and my imagination immediately grew
      active for my compensation, by describing a woodland home&mdash;a spot,
      remote from the crowd, where I should carry my household gods, and set
      them up for my exclusive and uninvaded worship. The whole world-wide West
      was open to me. A virgin land, rich in natural wealth and splendor, it
      held forth the prospect of a fair field and no favor to every newcomer.
      There it is not possible to keep in thraldom the fear less heart and the
      active intellect. There, no petty circle of society can fetter the
      energies or enfeeble the endeavors. No mocking, stale conventionalities
      can usurp the place of natural laws, and put genius and talent into the
      accursed strait-jacket of routine! Thither will I go. I remembered the
      late conference with my friend Kingsley, and the whole course of my
      reasoning on the subject of my removal was despatched in half an hour. &ldquo;I
      will go to Alabama.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Such was my resolution. I was the man to make sudden resolutions. This,
      however, reasoned upon with the utmost circumspection, seemed the very
      best that I could make. My wife, yet pure, was rescued from the danger
      that threatened her; I was saved the necessity of taking a life so dear to
      my benefactor; and the unhappy young man himself&mdash;the victim to a
      blind passion&mdash;having no longer in his sight the temptation which
      misled him, would be left free to return to better thoughts, and the
      accustomed habits of business and society. I had concluded upon my course
      in the brief interval which followed my interview with William Edgerton
      and my return home.
    </p>
    <p>
      The next day I saw his father. I communicated the assurance of the son,
      and renewed my own, that neither drunkenness nor gaming was a vice. What
      it was that afflicted him I did not pretend to know, but I ascribed it to
      want of employment; a morbid, unenergetic temperament; the fact that he
      was independent, and had no rough necessities to make him estimate the
      true nature and the objects of life; and, at the close, quietly suggested
      that possibly there was some affair of the heart which contributed also to
      his suffering. I did not deny that his looks were wretched, but I stoutly
      assured the old man that his parental fears exaggerated their
      wretchedness. We had much other talk on the subject. When we were about to
      separate for the day, I declared my own determination in this manner:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have just decided on a step, Mr. Edgerton, which perhaps will somewhat
      contribute to the improvement of your son, by imposing some additional
      tasks upon him. I am about to emigrate for the southwest.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You, Clifford? Impossible! What puts that into your head?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was something difficult to furnish any good reason for such a movement.
      The only obvious reason spoke loudly for iny remaining where I was.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This is unaccountable,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;You are doing here as few young men
      have done before you. Your business increasing&mdash;your income already
      good&mdash;surely, Clifford, you have not thought upon the matter&mdash;you
      are not resolved.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I could plead little other than a truant disposition for my proceeding,
      but I soon convinced him that I was resolved. He seemed very much
      troubled; betrayed the most flattering concern in my interests; and,
      renewing his argument for my stay, renewed also his warmest professions of
      service.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I had hoped,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to have seen you and William, closely united,
      pursuing the one path equally and successfully together. I shall have no
      hopes of him if you leave us.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The probability is, sir, that he will do better with the whole
      responsibility of the office thrown upon him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! no!&rdquo; said the old man, mournfully. &ldquo;I have no hope of him. There
      seems to me a curse upon wealth always&mdash;that follows and clings to
      it, and never leaves it, till it works out the ruin of all the
      proprietors. See the number of our young men, springing from nothing, that
      make everything out of it&mdash;rise to eminence and power&mdash;get
      fortune as if it were a mere sport to command and to secure it; while, on
      the other Sand, look at the heirs of our proud families. Profligate,
      reckless, abandoned: as if, reasoning from the supposed wealth of their
      parents, they fancied that there were no responsibilities of their own. I
      saw this danger from the beginning. I have striven to train up my son in
      the paths of duty and constant employment; and yet&mdash;but complaint is
      idle. The consciousness of having tried my best to have and make it
      otherwise is, nevertheless, a consolation. When do you think to go?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In a week or two at farthest. I have but to rid myself of my
      impediments.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Always prompt; but it is best. Once resolved, action is the moral law.
      Still, I wish I could delay you. I still think you are committing a great
      error. I can not understand it. You have established yourself. This is not
      easy anywhere. You will find it difficult in a new country, and among
      strangers.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nay, sir, more easy there than anywhere else. If a man has anything in
      him, strangers and a new country are the proper influences to bring it
      out. Friends and an old community keep it down, suppress, strangle it.
      This is the misfortune of your son. He has family, friends&mdash;resources
      which defeat all the operations of moral courage, and prevent
      independence. Necessity is the moral lever. Do you forget the saying of
      one of the wise men? 'If you wish your son to become a man, strip him
      naked and send him among strangers'&mdash;in other words, throw him upon
      his own resources, and let him take care of himself. The not doing this is
      the source of that misfortune which only now you deplored as so commonly
      following the condition of the select and wealthy. I do not fear the
      struggle in a new country. It will end in my gaining my level, be that
      high or low. Nothing, in such a region, can keep a man from that.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ay, but the roughness of those new countries&mdash;the absence of
      refinement&mdash;the absolute want of polish and delicacy.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The roughness will not offend me, if it is manly. The world is full of
      it. To be anything, a man must not have too nice a stomach. Such a stomach
      will make him recoil from sights of misery and misfortune; and he who
      recoils from such sights, will be the last to relieve, to repair them. But
      while I admit the roughness and the want of polish among these frontier
      men, I deny the want of delicacy. Their habits are rude and simple,
      perhaps, but their tastes are pure and unaffected, and their hearts in the
      right place. They have strong affections; and strong affections, properly
      balanced, are the true sources of the better sort of delicacy. All other
      is merely conventional, and consists of forms and phrases, which are very
      apt to keep us from the thing itself which they are intended to represent.
      Give me these frank men and women of the frontier, while my own feelings
      are yet strong and earnest. Here, I am perpetually annoyed by the struggle
      to subdue within the social limits the expression of that nature which is
      for ever boiling up within me, and the utterance of which is neither more
      nor less than the heart's utterance of the faith and hope which are in it.
      We are told of those nice preachers who 'never mention hell to ears
      polite.' They are the preachers of your highly-refined, sentimental
      society. Whatever hell may be, they are the very teachers that, by their
      mincing forbearance, conduct the poor soul that relies on them into its
      jaws. It is a sort of lie not to use the properest language to express our
      thoughts, but rather so to falsify our thoughts by a sort of
      lack-a-daisaical phraseology which deprives them of all their virility. A
      nation or community is in a bad way for truth, when there is a tacit
      understanding among their members to deal in the diminutives of a
      language, and forbear the calling of things by their right names. An
      Englishman, wishing to designate something which is graceful, pleasing,
      delicate, or fine, uses the word 'nice'&mdash;more fitly applied to
      bon-bons or beefsteaks, according to the stomach of the speaker. An
      energetic form of speech is rated, in fashionable society, as particularly
      vulgar. In our larger American cities, where they have much pretension but
      little character, a leg must not be spoken of as such. You may say 'limb,'
      but not 'leg.' The word 'woman'&mdash;one of the sweetest in the language&mdash;is
      supposed to disparage the female to whom it is applied. She must be called
      a 'lady,' forsooth; and this word, originally intended to pacify an
      aristocratic vanity, has become the ordinary appellative of every member
      of that gross family which, in the language of Shakspere, is only fit to
      'suckle fools and chronicle small beer.' I shall be more free, and feel
      more honest in that rough world of the west; a region in which the
      dilettantism, such as it is, of our Atlantic cities, is always very prompt
      to sneer at and disparage; but I look to see the day, even in our time,
      when that west shall be, not merely an empire herself, but the nursing
      mother of great empires. There shall be a genius born in that vast, wide
      world&mdash;a rough, unlicked genius it may be, but one whose words shall
      fall upon the hills like thunder, and descend into the valleys like a
      settled, heavy rain, which shall irrigate them all with a new life.
      Perhaps&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I need not pursue this. I throw it upon paper with no deliberation. It
      streams from me like the rest. Its tone was somewhat derived from those
      peculiar, sad feelings, and that pang-provoking course of thought, which
      it has been the purpose of this narrative to embody. In the expression of
      digressive but earnest notions like these, I could momentarily divert
      myself from deeper and more painful emotions. I had really gone through a
      great trial: I say a great trial&mdash;always assuming human indulgence
      for that disease of the blind heart which led me where I found myself,
      which makes me what I am. I did not feel lightly the pang of parting with
      my birthplace. I did not esteem lightly the sacrifice of business,
      comfort, and distinction which I was making; and of that greater cause of
      suffering, supposed or real, of the falling off in my wife's affection,
      the agony is already in part recorded. It may be permitted to me, perhaps,
      under these circumstances&mdash;with the additional knowledge, which I yet
      suppressed, that these sacrifices were to be made, and these sufferings
      endured, partly that the son might be saved&mdash;to speak with some
      unreserved warmth of tone to the venerable and worthy sire. He little knew
      how much of my determination to remove from my country was due to my
      regard for him. I felt assured that, if I remained, two things must
      happen. William Edgerton would persevere in his madness, and I should
      murder him in his perseverance! I banished myself in regard for that old
      man, and in some measure to requite his benefactions, that I might be
      spared this necessity.
    </p>
    <p>
      When, the next day, I sought William Edgerton himself, and declared my
      novel determination, he turned pale as death. I could see that his lips
      quivered. I watched him closely. He was evidently racked by an emotion
      which was more obvious from the necessity he was under of suppressing it.
      With considerable difficulty he ventured to ask my reasons for this
      strange step, and with averted countenance repeated those which his father
      had proffered against my doing so. I could see that he fain would have
      urged his suggestions more vehemently if he dared. But the conviction that
      his wishes were the fathers to his arguments was conclusive to render him
      careful that his expostulations should not put on a show of earnestness. I
      must do William Edgerton the justice to say that guilt was not his
      familiar. He could not play the part of the practised hypocrite. He had no
      powers of artifice. He could not wear the flowers upon his breast, having
      the volcano within it. Professionally, he could be no roué. He could seem
      no other than he was. Conscious of guilt, which he had not the moral
      strength to counteract and overthrow, he had not, at the same time, the
      art necessary for its concealment. He could use no smooth, subtle
      blandishments. His cheek and eye would tell the story of his mind, though
      it strove to make a false presentment. I do him the further justice to
      believe that a great part of his misery arose from this consciousness of
      his doing wrong, rather than from the difficulties in the way of his
      success. I believe that, even were he successful in the prosecution of his
      illicit purposes, he would not have looked or felt a jot less miserable. I
      felt, while we conferred together, that my departure was perhaps the best
      measure for his relief. While I mused upon his character and condition, my
      anger yielded in part to commiseration. I remembered the morning-time of
      our boyhood&mdash;when we stood up for conflict with our young enemies,
      side by side&mdash;obeyed the same rallying-cry, recognised the same
      objects, and were a sort of David and Jonathan to one another. Those days!&mdash;they
      soothed and softened me while I recalled them. My tone became less keen,
      my language less tinctured with sarcasm, when I thought of these things;
      and I thought of our separation without thinking of its cause.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I leave you, Edgerton, with one regret&mdash;not that we part, for life
      is full of partings, and the strong mind must be reconciled with them, or
      it is nothing&mdash;but that I leave you so unlike your former self. I
      wish I could do something for you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I gave him my hand as as I spoke. He did not grasp&mdash;he rather shrunk
      from it. An uncontrollable burst of feeling seemed suddenly to gush from
      him as he spoke:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Take no heed of me, Clifford&mdash;I am not worthy of YOUR thought.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ha! What do you mean?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He spoke hastily, in manifest discomfiture:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am worthy of no man's thought.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Pshaw! you are a hypochondriac.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Would it were that!&mdash;But you go!&mdash;when?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In a week, perhaps.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;So soon? So very soon? Do you&mdash;do you carry your family with you at
      once?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was great effort to speak this significant inquiry. I perceived
      that. I perceived that his eyes were on the ground while it was made. The
      question was offensive to me. It had a strange and painful significance.
      It recalled the whole cause, the bitter cause of my resolve for exile; and
      I could not control the altered tones of my voice in answering, which I
      did with some causticity of feeling, which necessarily entered into my
      utterance.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Family, surely! My wife only! No great charge, I'm thinking, and her
      health needs an early change. Would you have me leave HER? I have no other
      family, you know!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The dialogue, carried on with restraint before, was shortened by this;
      and, after a few business remarks, which were necessary to our office
      concerns, he pleaded an engagement to get away. He left me with some
      soreness upon my mind, which formed its expression in a brief soliloquy.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You would have the path made even freer than before, would you? It does
      not content you, these long morning meditations&mdash;these pretended
      labors of the painting-room, the suspicious husband withdrawn, and the
      wife, neither scorning nor consenting, willing to believe in that devotion
      to the art which is properly a devotion to herself? These are not
      sufficient opportunities, eh? There were&mdash;more room for landscape,
      appoint you, Mr. Edgerton!&mdash;Ah! could I but know all. Could I be sure
      that she did love him! Could I be sure that she did not! That is the curse&mdash;that
      doubt!&mdash;Will it remain so? No! no! Once removed&mdash;once in those
      forest regions, it can not be that she will repine for anything. She MUST
      love me then&mdash;she will feel anew the first fond passion. She will
      forget these passing fancies. They WILL pass! She is young. The image will
      haunt her no longer&mdash;at least, it will no longer haunt me!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      So I spoke, but I was not so sure of that last. The doubt did not trouble
      me, however. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. But I had another
      test yet to try. I wished to see how Julia would receive the communication
      of my purpose. As yet she knew nothing of my contemplated departure. &ldquo;It
      will surprise her,&rdquo; I thought to myself. &ldquo;In that surprise she will show
      how much our removal will distress her!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But when I made known to her my intention, the surprise was all my own.
      The communication did not seemed to distress her at all. Surprise her it
      did, but the surprise seemed a pleasant one. It spoke out in a sudden
      flashing of the eye, a gentle smiling of the mouth, which was equally
      unexpected and grate ful to my heart.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am delighted with the idea!&rdquo; she exclaimed, putting her arms about my
      neck. &ldquo;I think we shall be so happy there. I long to get away from this
      place.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Indeed! But are you serious?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;To be sure.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I was apprehensive it might distress you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh! no! no! I have been dull and tired here, for a long while; and I
      thought, when you told me that Mr. Kingsley had gone to Alabama, how
      delightful it would be if we could go too.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you never told me that.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nor even looked it, Julia.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Surely not&mdash;I should have been loath to have you think, while your
      business was so prosperous, and you seemed so well satisfied here, that I
      had any discontent.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I satisfied!&rdquo; I said this rather to myself than her.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, were you not? I had no reason to think otherwise. Nay, I feared you
      were too well satisfied, for I have seen so little of you of late. I'm
      sure I wished we were anywhere, so that you could find your home more to
      your liking.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And have such notions really filled your brain Julia?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Really.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And you have found me a stranger&mdash;you have missed me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! do you not know it, Edward?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You shall have no need to reproach me hereafter. We will go to Alabama,
      and live wholly for one another. I shall leave you in business time only,
      and hurry back as soon as I can.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, promise me that?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I do!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We shall be so happy then. Then we shall take our old rambles, Edward,
      though in new regions, and will resume the pencil, if you wish it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      This was said timidly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;To be sure I wish it. But why do you say, 'resume'? Have you not been
      painting all along?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! I have scarcely smeared canvass the last two months&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you have been sketching?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What employed you then in the studio? How have you passed your mornings?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      This inquiry was made abruptly, but it did not disturb her. Her answer was
      strangely satisfactory.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have scarcely looked in upon the studio in all that time.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I longed to ask what Edgerton had done with himself, and whether he had
      been suffered to employ himself alone, in his morning visits, but my
      tongue faltered&mdash;I somehow dared not. Still, it was something to have
      her assurance that she had not found her attractions in that apartment in
      which my jealous fancy had assumed that she took particular delight. She
      had spoken with the calmness of innocence, and I was too happy to believe
      her. I put my arms about her waist.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, we will renew the old habits, for I suppose that business there will
      be less pressing, less exacting, than I have found it here. We will take
      our long walks, Julia, and make up for lost time in new sketches. You have
      thought me a truant, Julia&mdash;neglectful hitherto! Have you not?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, Edward!&rdquo;&mdash;Her eyes filled with tears, but a smile, like rainbow,
      made them bright.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say, did you not?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do not be angry with me if I confess I thought you very much altered in
      some respects. I was fearful I had vexed you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You shall have no more reason to fear. We shall be the babes in the wood
      together. I am sure we shall be quite happy, left to ourselves. No doubts,
      no fears&mdash;nothing but love. And you are really willing to go?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Willing! I wish it! I can get ready in a day.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You have but a week. But, have you no reluctance? Is there nothing that
      you regret to leave? Speak freely, Julia. Your mother, your friends&mdash;would
      you not prefer to remain with them?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She placed her hands on my shoulders, laid her head close to my bosom and
      murmured&mdash;how softly, how sweetly&mdash;in the touching language of
      the Scripture damsel.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Entreat me not to leave thee, or to refrain from following after thee;
      for whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge.
      Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I folded her with tremulous but deep joy in my embrace; and in that sweet
      moment of peace, I wondered that I ever should have questioned the faith
      of such a woman.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0037" id="link2HCH0037"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXXVII. &mdash; &ldquo;AND STILL THE BITTER IN THE CUP OF JOY.&rdquo;
     </h2>
    <p>
      Once more I had sunshine. The clouds seemed to depart as suddenly as they
      had risen, and that same rejoicing and rosy light which had encircled the
      brow of manhood at its dawn long shrouded, seemingly lost for ever, and
      swallowed up in darkness&mdash;came out as softly and quietly in the
      maturer day, as if its sweet serene had never known even momentary
      obscuration.
    </p>
    <p>
      Love, verily, is the purple light of youth. If it abides, blessing and
      blessed, with the unsophisticated heart, youth never leaves us. Gray brows
      make not age&mdash;the feeble step, the wrinkled visage, these indicate
      the progress of time, but not the passage of youth. Happy hearts keep us
      in perpetual spring, and the glow of childhood without its weaknesses is
      ours to the final limit of seventy. The sense of desolation, the pang of
      denial, the baffled hope, and the defrauded love, these constitute the
      only age that should ever give the heart a pang. I can fancy a good man
      advancing through all the mortal stages from seventeen to seventy-five,
      and crowned by the sympathies of corresponsive affections, simply going on
      from youth to youth, ending at last in youth's perfect immortality!
    </p>
    <p>
      The hope of this&mdash;not so much a hope as an instinct&mdash;is the
      faith of our boyhood. The boy, as the father of the man, transmits this
      hope to riper years; but if the experience of the day correspond not with
      the promise of the dawn, how rapidly old age comes upon us! White hairs,
      lean cheeks, withered muscles, feeble steps, and that dull, dead feeling
      about the heart&mdash;that utter abandonment of cheer&mdash;which would be
      despair were it not for a certain blunted sensibility&mdash;a sort of
      drowsy indifference to all things that the day brings forth, which, as it
      takes from life the excitement of every passion, leaves it free from the
      sting of any. Yet, were not the tempest better than the calm? Who would
      not prefer to be driven before the treacherous hurricane of the blue gulf,
      than to linger midway on its shoreless waters, and behold their growing
      stagnation from day to day? The apathy of the passions is the most
      terrible form in which age makes its approaches.
    </p>
    <p>
      With an earnest, sanguine temperament, such as mine, there is little
      danger of such apathy, The danger is not from lethargy but madness. I had
      escaped this danger. It was surprising, even to myself, how suddenly my
      spirits had arisen from the pressure that had kept them down. In a moment,
      as it were, that mocking troop of fears and sorrows which environed me,
      took their departure. It seemed that it was only necessary for me to know
      that I was about to lose the presence of William Edgerton to find this
      relief.
    </p>
    <p>
      And yet, how idle! With an intense egoisme, such as mine, I should conjure
      up an Edgerton in the deepest valleys of our country. We have our gods and
      devils in our own hearts. The nature of the deities we worship depends
      upon our own. In a savage state, the Deity is savage, and expects bloody
      sacrifices; with the progress of civilization his attributes incline to
      mercy. The advent of Jesus Christ indicated the advance of the Hebrews to
      a higher sense of the human nature. It was the advent of the popular
      principle, which has been advancing steadily ever since and keeping due
      pace with the progress of Christian education. The people were rising at
      the expense of the despotism which had kept them down. It does not affect
      the truth of this to show that the polish of the Jewish nation was
      lessened at this period. Nay, rather proves it, since the diffusion of a
      truth or a power must always lessen its intensity In teaching, for the
      first time, the doctrine of the soul's immortality, the Savior laid the
      foundation of popular rights, in the elevation of the common humanity&mdash;since
      he thus showed the equal importance, in the sight of God, of every soul
      that had ever taken shape beneath his hands.
    </p>
    <p>
      The demon which had vexed and tortured me was a demon of my own soliciting&mdash;of
      my own creation. But, I knew not this. I congratulated myself on escaping
      from him. Blind fancy!&mdash;I little knew the insidious pertinacity of
      this demon&mdash;this demon of the blind heart. I little knew the nature
      of his existence, and how much he drew his nutriment from the recesses of
      my own nature. He could spare, or seem to spare, the victim of whom he was
      so sure; and by a sort of levity, in no ways unaccountable, since we see
      it in the play of cat with mouse, could indulge with temporary liberty,
      the poor captive of whom he was at any moment certain. I congratulated
      myself on my escape; but I was not so well pleased with the
      congratulations of others. I was doomed to endure those of my exemplary
      mother-in-law, Mrs. Delaney. That woman had her devil&mdash;a worse devil,
      though not more troublesome, I think, than mine. She said to me, when she
      heard of my purpose of removal: &ldquo;You are right to remove. It is only
      prudent. Pity you had not gone some months ago.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I read her meaning, where her language was ambiguous, in her sharp,
      leering eyes&mdash;full of significance&mdash;an expression of mysterious
      intelligence, which, mingled with a slight, sinister smile upon her lips,
      for a moment, brought a renewal of all my tortures and suspicions. She saw
      the annoyance which I felt, and strove to increase it. I know not&mdash;I
      will not repeat&mdash;the occasional innuendos which she allowed herself
      to utter in the brief space of a twenty minutes' interview. It is enough
      to say that nothing could be more evident than her desire to vex me with
      the worst pangs which a man can know, even though her success in the
      attempt was to be attained at the expense of her daughter's peace of mind
      and reputation. I do not believe that she ever hinted to another, what she
      clearly enough insinuated as a cause of fear to me. Her purpose was to
      goad me to madness, and in her witless malice, I do believe she was
      utterly unconscious of the evil that might accrue to the child of her own
      womb from her base and cruel suggestions. I wished to get from her these
      suggestions in a more distinct form. I wished at the same time, to deprive
      her of the pleasure of seeing that I understood her. I restrained myself
      accordingly, though the vulture was then again at my vitals.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What do you mean. Mrs. Delaney? Why is it a pity that I hadn't gone
      months ago?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh! that's enough for me to know. I have my reasons.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, will you not suffer me to know them? I am conscious of no evil that
      has arisen from my not going sooner.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Indeed! Well, if you are not, I can only say you're not so keen-sighted a
      lawyer as I thought you were. That's all.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If you think I would have made out better, got more practice, and made
      more money in Alabama, that, I must tell you, has been long since my own
      opinion.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! I don't mean that&mdash;it has no regard to business and money-making&mdash;what
      I mean.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! what can it have regard to? You make me curious, Mrs. Delaney.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, that may be; but I'm not going to satisfy your curiosity. I thought
      you had seen enough for yourself. I'm sure you're the only one that has
      not seen.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Upon my soul, Mrs. Delaney, you are quite a mystery.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh! am I?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I can't dive into such depths. I'm ignorant.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Tell those that know you no better. But you can't blind me. I know that
      you know&mdash;and more than that, I can guess what's carrying you to
      Alabama. It's not law business, I know that.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I was vexed enough, as may be supposed, at this malicious pertinacity, but
      I kept down my struggling gorge with a resolution which I had been
      compelled often enough to exercise before; and quietly ended the interview
      by taking my hat and departure, as I said:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are certainly a very sagacious lady, Mrs. Delaney; but I must leave
      you, and wait your own time to make these mysterious revelations. My
      respects to Mr. Delaney. Good morning.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, good morning; but let me tell you, Mr. Clifford, if you don't see,
      it's not because you can't. Other people can see without trying.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The Jezabel!
    </p>
    <p>
      My preparations were soon completed. I worked with the spirit of
      enthusiasm&mdash;I had so many motives to be active; and, subordinate
      among these, but still important, I should get out of the reach of this
      very woman. I could not beat her myself but I wished her husband might do
      it, and not to anticipate my own story, he did so in less than three
      months after. He was the man too, to perform such a labor with unction and
      emphasis. A vigorous man with muscles like bolt-ropes, and limbs that
      would have been respectable in the days of Goliah. I met him on leaving
      the steps of Mrs. Delaney's lodgings, and&mdash;thinking of the marital
      office I wished him to perform&mdash;I was rejoiced to discover that he
      was generously drunk&mdash;in the proper spirit for such deeds in the
      flesh.
    </p>
    <p>
      He seized my hand with quite a burst of enthusiasm, swore I was a likely
      fellow, and somehow he had a liking for me.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Though, to be sure, my dear fellow, it's not Mrs. Delaney that loves any
      bone in your skin. She's a lady that, like most of the dear creatures, has
      a way of her own for thinking. She does her own thinking, and what can a
      woman know about such a business. It's to please her that I sit by and say
      nothing; and a wife must be permitted some indulgence while the moon
      lasts, which the poets tell us, is made out of honey: but it's never a
      long moon in these days, and a small cloud soon puts an end to it. Wait
      till that time, Mr. Clifford, and I'll put her into a way of thinking,
      that'll please you and myself much better.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I thanked him for his good opinion, and civilly wished him&mdash;as it was
      a matter which seemed to promise him so much satisfaction&mdash;that the
      duration of the honeymoon should be as short as possible. He thanked me
      affectionately&mdash;grasped my hand with the squeeze of a blacksmith, and
      entreated that I should go back and take a drink of punch with him. As an
      earnest of what he could give me, he pulled a handful of lemons from his
      pocket which he had bought from a shop by the way. I need not say I
      expressed my gratitude, though I declined his invitation. I then told him
      I was about to remove to Alabama, and he immediately proposed to go along
      with me. I reminded him that he was just married, and it would be expected
      of him that he would see the honeymoon out.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, faith!&rdquo; he replied, &ldquo;and there's sense in what you say; it must be
      done, I suppose; but devil a bit, to my thinking, does any moon last a
      month in this climate; and the first cloudy weather, d'ye see, and I'm
      after you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was difficult to escape from the generous embraces of my ardent
      father-in-law; and the whole street witnessed them.
    </p>
    <p>
      That afternoon I spent in part with the Edgertons. I went soon after my
      own dinner and found the family at theirs. William Edgerton was present.
      The old man insisted that I should take a seat at the table and join them
      in a bottle of wine, which I did. It was a family, bearing apparently all
      the elements within itself of a happiness the most perfect and profound.
      Particularly an amiable family. Yet there was no insipidity. The father
      has already been made known; the son should be by this time; the mother
      was one of those strong-minded, simple women, whose mind may be expressed
      by its most striking characteristic&mdash;independence. She had that most
      obvious trait of aristocratic breeding, a quiet, indefinable, easy dignity&mdash;a
      seemingly natural quality, easy itself, that puts everybody at ease, and
      yet neither in itself nor in others suffered the slightest approach to be
      made to unbecoming familiarity. A sensible, gentlewoman&mdash;literally
      gentle&mdash;yet so calm, so firm, you would have supposed she had never
      known one emotion calculated to stir the sweet, glass-like placidity of
      her deportment.
    </p>
    <p>
      And yet, amidst all this calm placidity, with an eye looking benevolence,
      and a considerateness that took note of your smallest want, she sustained
      the pangs of one yearning for her firstborn; dissatisfied and disappointed
      in his career, and apprehensive for his fate. The family was no longer
      happy. The worm was busy in all their hearts. They treated me kindly, but
      it was obvious that they were suffering. A visible constraint chilled and
      baffled conversation; and I could see the deepening anxieties which
      clouded the face of the mother, whenever her eye wandered in the direction
      of her son. This it did, in spite, I am convinced, of her endeavors to
      prevent it.
    </p>
    <p>
      I, too, could now look in the same quarter. My feelings were less bitter
      than they were, and William Edgerton shared in the change. I did not the
      less believe him to have done wrong, but, in the renewed conviction of my
      wife's purity, I could forgive him, and almost think he was sufficiently
      punished in entertaining affections which were without hope. Punished he
      was, whether by hopelessness or guilt, and punished terribly. I could see
      a difference for the worse in his appearance since I had last conferred
      with him. He was haggard and spiritless to the last degree. He had few
      words while we sat at table, and these were spoken only after great
      effort; and, regarding him now with less temper than before, it seemed to
      me that his parents had not exaggerated the estimate which they had formed
      of his miserable appearance. He looked very much like one, who had
      abandoned himself to nightly dissipation, and those excesses of mind and
      body, which sap from both the saving and elevating substance. I did not
      wonder that the old man ascribed his condition to the bottle and the
      gaming-table. But that I knew better, such would most probably have been
      my own conclusion.
    </p>
    <p>
      The conversation was not general&mdash;confined chiefly to Mr. Edgerton
      the elder and myself. Mrs. Edgerton remained awhile after the cloth had
      been withdrawn, joining occasionally in what was said, and finally left
      us, though with still a lingering, and a last look toward her son, which
      clearly told where her heart was. William Edgerton followed her, after a
      brief interval, and I saw no more of him, though I remained for more than
      an hour. He had said but little. It was with some evident effort, that he
      had succeeded in uttering some general observation on the subject of the
      Alabama prairies&mdash;those beautiful &ldquo;gardens of the desert,&rdquo;
     </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     &ldquo;For which the speech of England has no name.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      My removal had been the leading topic of our discourse, and when I
      declared my intention to start on the very next day, and that the present
      was a farewell visit, the emotion of the son visibly increased. Soon after
      he left the room. When I was alone with the father, he took occasion to
      renew his offer of service, and, in such a manner, as to take from the
      offer its tone of service. He seemed rather to ask a favor than to suggest
      one. Money he could spare&mdash;the repayment should be at my own leisure&mdash;and
      my bond would be preferable, he was pleased to say, to that of any one he
      knew. I thanked him with becoming feelings, though, for the present, I
      declined his assistance. I pledged myself, however, should circumstances
      make it necessary for me to seek a loan, to turn, in the first instance,
      to him. He had been emphatically my friend&mdash;THE friend, sole,
      singular&mdash;never fluctuating in his regards, and never stopping to
      calculate the exact measure of my deserts. I felt that I could not too
      much forbear in reference to the son, having in view the generous
      friendship of the father.
    </p>
    <p>
      That day, and the night which followed it, was a long period with me. I
      had to see many acquaintances, and attend to a thousand small matters. I
      was on my feet the whole day, and even when the night came I had no rest.
      I was in the city till near eleven o'clock. When I got home I found that
      my wife had done her share of the tasks. She had completed her
      preparations. Our luggage was all ready for removal. To her I had assigned
      the labor of packing up her pictures, her materials for painting, her
      clothes, and such other matters as she desired to carry with us, to our
      new place of abode. The rest was to be sold by a friend after our
      departure, and the proceeds remitted. I knew I should need them all. Most
      of our baggage was to be sent by water. We travelled in a private
      carriage, and consequently, could take little. Julia, unlike most women,
      was willing to believe with me that impediments are the true name for much
      luggage; and, with a most unfeminine habit, she could limit herself
      without reluctance to the merest necessities. We had no bandboxes,
      baskets, or extra bundles, to be stuffed here and there, filling holes and
      corners, and crowding every space, which should be yielded entirely to the
      limbs of the traveller. Though sensitive and delicate in a great degree,
      she had yet that masculine sense which teaches that, in the fewness of our
      wants lies our truest source of independence; and she could make herself
      ready for taking stage or steamboat in quite as short a time as myself.
    </p>
    <p>
      Her day's work had exhausted her. She retired, and when I went up to the
      chamber, she already seemed to sleep. I could not. Fatigue, which had
      produced exhaustion, had baffled sleep. Extreme weariness becomes too much
      like a pain to yield readily to repose. The moment that exercise benumbs
      the frame, makes the limbs ache, the difficulty increases of securing
      slumber. I felt weary, but I was restless also. I felt that it would be
      vain for me to go to bed. Accordingly, I placed myself beside the window,
      and looked out meditatingly upon the broad lake which lay before our
      dwelling.
    </p>
    <p>
      The night was very calm and beautiful. The waters from the lake were
      falling. Tide was going out, and the murmuring clack of a distant sawmill
      added a strange sweetness to the hour, and mingled harmoniously with the
      mysterious goings on of midnight. The starlight, not brilliant, was yet
      very soft and touching. Isolated and small clouds, like dismembered
      ravens' wings, flitted lightly along the edge of the western horizon,
      shooting out at intervals brief, brilliant flashes of lightning. There was
      a flickering breeze that played with the shrubbery beneath my window,
      making a slight stir that did not break the quiet of the scene, and gave a
      graceful movement to the slender stems as they waved to and fro beneath
      its pressure. A noble pride of India {Footnote: China tree: the melia
      azedaracha of botanists. A tree peculiar to the south, of singular beauty,
      and held in high esteem as a shade-tree.} rose directly before my eyes to
      the south&mdash;its branches stretching almost from within touch of the
      dwelling, over the fence of a neighbor. The whole scene was fairy-like. I
      should find it indescribable. It soothed my feelings. I had been the
      victim of a long and painful moral conflict. At length I had a glimmering
      of repose. Events, in the last few days&mdash;small events which, in
      themselves denoted nothing&mdash;had yet spoken peace to my feelings. My
      heart was in that dreamy state of languor, such as the body enjoys under
      the gradually growing power of the anodyne, in which the breath of the
      summer wind brings a language of luxury, and the most emperiest sights and
      sounds in nature minister to a capacity of enjoyment, which is not the
      less intoxicating and sweet because it is subdued. I mused upon my own
      heart, upon the heart which I so much loved and had so much distrusted&mdash;upon
      life, its strange visions, delusive hopes, and the sweet efficacy of mere
      shadows in promoting one's happiness et last. Then came, by natural
      degrees, the thought of that strange mysterious union of light and
      darkness&mdash;life and death&mdash;the shadows that we are; the
      substances that we are yet to be. The future!&mdash;still it rose before
      me&mdash;but the darkness upon it alone showed me it was there. It did not
      offend me, however, for my heart was glowing in a present starlight. It
      was the hour of hopes rather than of fears; and in the mere prospect of
      transition to the new&mdash;such is the elastic nature of youth&mdash;I
      had agreed to forget every pang whether of idea or fact, which had vexed
      and tortured me in the perished past. My musings were all tender yet
      joyful&mdash;they partook of that &ldquo;joy of grief&rdquo; of which the bard of
      Fingal tells us. I felt a big tear gathering in my eye, I knew not
      wherefore. I felt my heart growing feeble, with the same delight which one
      would feel at suddenly recovering a great treasure which had been supposed
      for ever lost. I fancied that I had recovered my treasure, and I rose
      quietly, went to the bed where Julia lay sleeping peacefully, and kissed
      her pale but lovely cheeks. She started, but did not waken&mdash;a gentle
      sigh escaped her lips, and they murmured with some indistinct syllables
      which I failed to distinguish. At that moment the notes of a flute rose
      softly from the grove without.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0038" id="link2HCH0038"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXXVIII. &mdash; RENEWED AGONIES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      In that same moment my pangs were all renewed; my repose of mind departed;
      once more my heart was on fire, my spirit filled with vague doubts, grief,
      and commotion. The soft, sweet, preluding note of the player had touched a
      chord in my soul as utterly different from that which it expressed, as
      could by any possibility be conceived. Heart and hope were instantly
      paralyzed. Fear and its train, its haunting spectres of suspicion, took
      possession of the undefended citadel, and established guard upon its
      deserted outposts. I tottered to the window which I had left&mdash;I
      shrouded myself in the folds of the curtain, and as the strains rose,
      renewed and regular, I struggled to keep in my breath, listening eagerly,
      as if the complaining instrument could actually give utterance to the
      cruel mystery which I equally dreaded and desired to hear.
    </p>
    <p>
      The air which was played was such as I had never heard before. Indeed, it
      could scarcely be called an air. It was the most capricious burden of
      mournfulness that had ever had its utterance from wo. Fancy a mute&mdash;one
      bereft of the divine faculty of speech, by human, not divine ministration.
      Fancy such a being endowed with the loftiest desires, moved by the acutest
      sensibilities, having already felt the pleasures of life, yet doomed to a
      denial of utterance, denied the language of complaint, and striving,
      struggling through the imperfect organs of his voice to give a name to the
      agony which works within him. That flute seemed to me to moan, and sob,
      and shiver, with some such painful mode of expression as would be
      permitted to the &ldquo;half made-up&rdquo; mortal of whom I have spoken. Its broken
      tones, striving and struggling, almost rising at times into a shriek,
      seemed of all things to complain of its own voicelessness.
    </p>
    <p>
      And yet it had its melody&mdash;melody, to me, of the most vexing power. I
      should have called the strain a soliloquizing one. It certainly did not
      seem addressed to any ears. It wanted the continuance of apostrophe. It
      was capricious. Sometimes the burden fell off suddenly&mdash;broken&mdash;wholly
      interrupted&mdash;as if the vents had been all simultaneously and suddenly
      stopped. Anon, it rose again&mdash;soul-piercing if not loud&mdash;so
      abruptly, and with an utterance so utterly gone with wo, that you felt
      sure the poor heart must break with the next breath that came from the
      laboring and inefficient lungs. A &ldquo;dying fall&rdquo; succeeding, seemed to
      afford temporary relief. It seemed as if tears must have fallen upon the
      instrument, Its language grew more methodical, more subdued, but not less
      touching. I fancied, I felt, that, entering into the soul of the musician,
      I could give the very words to the sentiment which his instrument vainly
      strove to speak. What else but despair and utter self-abandonment was in
      that broken language? The full heart over-burdened, breaking, to find a
      vent for the feelings which it had no longer power to contain. And yet;
      content to break, breaking with a melancholy sort of triumph which seemed
      to say&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Such a death has its own sweetness; love sanctifies the pang to its
      victim. It is a sort of martyrdom. He who loves truly, though he loves
      hopelessly, has not utterly loved in vain. The devoted heart finds a joy
      in the offering, though the Deity withholds his acceptance&mdash;though a
      sudden gust from heaven scatters abroad the rich fruits which the devotee
      has placed upon the despised and dishonored altar.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Such, I fancied, was the proud language of that melancholy music. Had I
      been other than I was&mdash;nay, had I listened to the burden under other
      circumstances and in another place&mdash;I should most probably have felt
      nothing but sympathy for the musician. As it was, I can not describe my
      feelings. All my racking doubts and miseries returned. The tone of triumph
      which the strain conveyed wrought upon me like an indignity. It seemed to
      denote that &ldquo;foregone conclusion&rdquo; which had been my cause of apprehension
      so long. Could it be then that Julia was really guilty? Could she have
      given William Edgerton so much encouragement that triumph and exultation
      should still mingle with his farewell accents of despair? Ah! what
      fantasies preyed upon my soul; haunted the smallest movements of my mind;
      conjured up its spectres, and gave bitterness to its every beverage! When
      I thought thus of Julia, I rose cautiously from my seat, approached the
      bed where she was lying, and gazed steadily, though with the wildest
      thrill of emotion, into her face. I verily believe had she not been
      sleeping at that moment&mdash;sleeping beyond question&mdash;she would
      have shared the fate of
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     &ldquo;The gentle lady wedded to the Moor.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      I was in the mood for desperate things.
    </p>
    <p>
      But she slept&mdash;her cheek upon her arm&mdash;pale, but oh! how
      beautiful! and looking, oh! how pure! Her breathing was as tranquil and
      regular as that of an infant. I felt, while I gazed, that hers must be the
      purity of an infant also. I turned from beholding her, as the renewed
      notes of the musician once more ascended to the chamber. I again took my
      seat at the window and concealed myself behind the curtain. Here I had
      been concealed but a few moments, when I heard a rustling in the branches
      of the tree. Meanwhile, the music again ceased. I peered cautiously from
      behind the drapery, and fancied I beheld a dark object in the tree. It
      might be one of its branches, but I had not been struck by it before. I
      waited in breathless watchfulness. I saw it move. Its shape was that of a
      man. An exulting feeling of violence filled my breast. I rose stealthily,
      went into the dressing-room, and took up one of my pistols which lay on
      the toilet, and which I had that afternoon prepared with a travelling
      charge.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A brace of bullets,&rdquo; I muttered to myself, &ldquo;will bring out another sort
      of music from this rare bird.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      With this murderous purpose I concealed myself once more behind the
      curtain. The figure was sufficiently distinct for aim. The window was not
      more than twelve or fourteen paces from the tree. My nerves were now as
      steady as if I had been about to perform the most ordinary action. What
      then prevented me? What stayed my arm? A single thought&mdash;a momentary
      recollection of an event which had taken place in my boyhood. What a
      providence that it should have occurred to me at that particular moment.
      The circumstance was this.
    </p>
    <p>
      When first sent to school I had been frequently taken at advantage by a
      bigger boy. He had twice my strength&mdash;he took a strong dislike for me&mdash;perhaps,
      because I was unwilling to pay him that deference, which, as school-bully,
      he extorted from all others;&mdash;and he drubbed me accordingly, whenever
      an opportunity occurred. My resistance was vain, and only stimulated him
      to increased brutality. One day he was lying upon the grass, beneath an
      oak which stood in the centre of a common on which we usually played. It
      happened that I drew near him unperceived. In approaching him I had no
      purpose of assault or violence. But the circumstance of my nearing him
      without being seen, suggested to my mind a sudden thought of revenging all
      my previous injuries. I felt bitterness and hate enough, had I possessed
      the strength, to have slain a dozen. I do not know that I had any design
      to slay him&mdash;to revenge myself was certainly my wish. Of death
      probably I had no idea. I looked about me for the agent of my vengeance. A
      pile of old brick which had formed the foundations of a dwelling which had
      stood on the spot, and which had been burned, conveniently presented
      itself to my eye. I possessed myself of as large a fragment as my little
      hand could grasp; I secured a second as a dernier resort. Slowly and slily&mdash;I
      may add, basely&mdash;I approached him from behind, levelled the brick at
      his head, and saw the blood fly an instant after the contact. He was
      stunned by the blow, staggered up, however, with his eyes blinded by
      blood, and moved after me like a drunken man. I receded slowly, lifting
      the remaining fragment which I held, intending, if he approached me, to
      repeat the blow.
    </p>
    <p>
      On a sudden he fell forward sprawling. Then I thought him dead, and for
      the first time the dreadful consciousness of my crime in its true
      character, came to my mind. I can not describe the agony of fear and
      horror which filled my soul. He did not die, but he was severely hurt.
    </p>
    <p>
      The recollection of that event&mdash;of what I then suffered&mdash;came to
      me involuntarily, as I was about to perform a second similar crime. I
      shuddered with the recollection of the past, and shrunk, under the equal
      force of shame and conscience, from the performance of a deed which,
      otherwise, I should probably have committed in the brief time which I
      employed for reflection. With a feeling of nervous horror I put the weapon
      aside, and sinking once more into the chair beside the window I bore with
      what fortitude I might, the renewal of the accursed but touching strains
      that vexed me.
    </p>
    <p>
      William Edgerton was a master of the flute. Often before, when we were the
      best friends, had I listened with delight, while he compelled it into
      discourse of music wild and somewhat incoherent still: his present
      performance had now attained more continuousness and character. It was
      still mournful, but its sorrows rose and fell naturally, in compliance
      with the laws of art. I listened till I could listen no longer. Human
      patience must have its limits. My wife still slept. I descended the
      stairs, opened the door with as much cautiousness as possible, and
      prepared to grapple the musician and haul him into the light.
    </p>
    <p>
      It might be Edgerton or not. I was morally sure it was. By grappling with
      him, in such a situation, I should bring the affair to a final issue,
      though it might not be a murderous one. But of that I did not think; I
      went forward to do something; what that something was to be, it was left
      for time and chance to determine. But, suddenly, as I opened the door, the
      music ceased. Stepping into the yard, I heard the sound as of a falling
      body. I naturally concluded that he had heard the opening of the door, and
      had suffered himself to drop down to the ground. I took for granted that
      he had descended on the opposite side of the yard and within the enclosure
      of a neighbor. I leaped the fence, hurried to the tree, traversed the
      grounds, and found nobody. I returned, reached my own premises, and found
      the gate open which opened upon the street. He had gone then in that
      direction. I turned into this street, posted with all speed to the corner
      of the square and met only the watchman. I asked, but he had seen nobody.
      The street was perfectly quiet, I returned, reascended to my chamber,
      found Julia now awake, and evidently much agitated. She had arisen in my
      absence, and was only about to re-enter the bed when I rushed up stairs.
    </p>
    <p>
      What was I to think? What fear? I was too conscious of the suspicious
      nature of my thoughts and fears to suffer myself to ask any questions&mdash;and
      she, unhappily for both of us&mdash;she said nothing. Had she but spoken&mdash;had
      she but uttered the natural inquiry&mdash;&ldquo;Did you hear that strange
      music, husband?&rdquo;&mdash;how much easier had been her extrication. But she
      was silent, and I was again let loose upon a wide sea of fears and doubts
      and damnable apprehensions. Once more, and now with a feeling which would
      not have made me forbear the use of any weapon, however deadly, I
      re-examined my own enclosure, but in vain. The horrible thought which
      possessed me was that he had even penetrated the dwelling while I was
      seeking him in the street; that they had met; and how was I to know the
      degree of tenderness which had marked their meeting and sweetness to their
      adieus!
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0039" id="link2HCH0039"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXXIX. &mdash; THE NEW HOME.
    </h2>
    <p>
      With these revived suspicions, half stifled, but still struggling in my
      bosom, did I commence my journey for the West. My arrangements were
      comprehensive, but simple. I had procured a second-hand travelling
      carriage and fine pair of horses from an acquaintance, at a very moderate
      price&mdash;a price which, I well knew, I should easily get for them again
      on reaching my place of destination. I was my own driver. I had no money
      to spare in purchasing what might be dispensed with. A single trunk
      contained all the necessary luggage of my wife and self. What was not
      absolutely needed by the wayside was sent on by water. This included my
      books, desks, Julia's painting materials, and such other articles of the
      household, as were of cost and not bulky. I had previously written&mdash;as
      I may have stated already&mdash;to my friend Kingsley. He was to procure
      me temporary lodgings in the town of M&mdash;-. I left much to his
      judgment and experience. He had once before been in Alabama and having
      interests there, had made himself familiar with everything in that region,
      necessary to be known. I put myself very much in his hands. I was too
      anxious to get away to urge any difficulties or make any troublesome
      requisitions. He was simply to procure me an abiding-place in some private
      family&mdash;if possible in the suburbs&mdash;until I should be able to
      look about me. Economy was insisted upon. I had precious little money to
      spare, and even the spoils of my one night's visit to the gaming-house,
      were of no small help in sustaining me in my determination to remove. I
      had not applied them previously. I confess to a feeling of shame when I
      was compelled by necessity at last to use them. I had saved something
      already from my professional income, and I procured an advance on my
      furniture which was left for sale. I had calculated my expenses in
      removing and for one year's residence in M&mdash;, and was prepared, so
      far as poor human foresight may prepare itself, to keep want from our
      doors at least for that period. I trusted to good fortune, my own
      resources, and the notorious fact that, at that day, there were few able
      lawyers in M&mdash;, to secure me an early and valuable practice. I
      carried with me letters from the best men in the community I had left. But
      I carried with me what was of more value than any letters, even though
      they be written in gold. I carried with me methodical habits and an energy
      of character which would maintain my resolution, and bear me through, to a
      safe conclusion, in any plan which I should contemplate. Industry and
      perseverance are the giants that cast down forests, drain swamps, level
      mountains, and create empires. I flattered myself that with these I had
      other and crowning qualities of intellect and culture. Perhaps it may be
      admitted that I had. But of what avail were all when coupled with the
      blind heart? Enough&mdash;I must not anticipate.
    </p>
    <p>
      Filled with the exciting fancies engendered by the affair of the last
      night, I commenced my journey. The day was a fine one; the sun cheery and
      bright without being oppressive; and soon, gliding through the broad
      avenues, lined with noblest trees, which conducted us from the city to the
      forests, we had the pleasant carol of birds, and the lively chirp of
      hopping insects.
    </p>
    <p>
      I was always a lover of the woods; green shady dells, and winding walks
      amidst crowding foliage. I cared little for mere flowers. A garden was
      never a desire in my mind. I could be pleased to see and to smell, but I
      had no passion for its objects. But the trees&mdash;the big, venerable
      oaks, like patriarchs and priests; the lofty and swaggering pines in their
      green helmets, like warriors of the feudal ages&mdash;these were forms
      that I could worship. I may say, I loved trees with a real passion.
      Flowers, and the taste for flowers seemed to me always petty; but my
      instincts led me to behold a sneaking and most impressive grandeur, in
      these old lords of the forest, that had been the first, rising from the
      mighty mother to attest the wondrous strength of her resources, and the
      teeming glories of her womb.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now, however, they did not fill my soul with earnest reachings, as had
      ever been the case before. They soothed me somewhat, but the eyes of my
      mind were turned within. They looked only at the prostration of that
      miserable heart which was torturing itself with vague, wild doubts&mdash;guessing
      and conjecturing with an agonizing pain, and without the least hope of
      profit. I could not drive from my thoughts, the vexing circumstances of
      the last night in the city; and, for the first day of our journey, the
      hours moved with oppressive slowness. Objects which I had formerly loved
      to contemplate and always found sweet and refreshing, now gave me little
      pleasure and exacted little of my attention; and I reached our
      stopping-place for the night with a sense of weariness and stupor which no
      mere fatigue of body, I well knew, could ever have occasioned.
    </p>
    <p>
      But this could not last. The elasticity of my nature, joined with the
      absence of that one person whom I had now learned to regard as my evil
      genius, soon enabled me to shake off the oppressive doubts and sadness
      which fettered and enfeebled me. Once more I began to behold the forests
      with all the eyes of former delight and affection, and I was conscious,
      after the progress of a day or two, of periods in which I entirely lost
      sight of William Edgerton and all my suspicions in the sweet warmth of a
      fresh and pleasing contemplation.
    </p>
    <p>
      Something of this&mdash;nay, perhaps, the most of it, was due to my wife
      herself. There was a change in her air and manner which sensibly affected
      my heart. I had treated her coldly at first, but she had not perceived it;
      at least she had not suffered it to influence her conduct; and I was
      equally pleased and surprised to behold in her language, looks, and
      deportment, a degree of life and buoyant animation, which reminded me of
      the very champagne exuberance and spirit of her youth. Her eyes flashed
      with a sense of freedom. Her voice sounded with the silvery clearness of
      one, who, long pent up in the limits of a dungeon, uses the first moment
      of escape into the forests to delight himself with song. She seemed to
      have just thrown off a miserable burden;&mdash;and, as for any grief&mdash;any
      sign of regret at leaving home and tics from which she would not willingly
      part&mdash;there was not the slightest appearance of any such feeling in
      her mind, look, or manner. Kindly, considerately, and sweetly, and with a
      cheery smile in her eyes, and a springing vigor in the accents of her
      voice, she strove to enliven the way and to expel the gloom which she soon
      perceived had fastened itself upon my soul. Her own cares, if she had any,
      seemed to be very slight, and were utterly lost in mine. She spoke of our
      new abiding-place with a hearty confidence; that it would be at once a
      home of prosperity and peace; and, altogether convinced me for the time
      that the sacrifice must be comparatively very small, which she had made on
      leaving her birth-place. I very soon wondered that I should have fancied
      that William Edgerton was ever more to her than the friend of her husband.
    </p>
    <p>
      Our journey was slow but not tedious. Had our progress been only half so
      rapid, I should have been satisfied. It was love alone that my heart
      wanted. I craved for nothing but the just requital of my own passion. I
      had no complaint, no affliction, when I could persuade myself that I had
      not thrown away my affections upon the ungrateful and undeserving. Assured
      now of the love of the beloved one, all the intense devotion of my soul
      was re-awakened; and the deepest shadows of the forest, gloomy and
      desolate as they were, along the waste tracts of Georgia and Alabama&mdash;in
      that earlier day&mdash;enlivened by the satisfied spirit within, seemed no
      more than so many places of retreat, where security and peace, combining
      in behalf of Love, had given him an exclusive sovereignty.
    </p>
    <p>
      The rude countryman encountered us, and his face beamed with cheerfulness
      and good humor. The song of the black softened the toils of labor, in the
      unfinished clearings; and even the wild red man, shooting suddenly from
      out the sylvan covert, wore in his visage of habitual gravity, an air of
      resignation which took all harshness from his uncouth features.
    </p>
    <p>
      Such, under the tuition of well-satisfied hearts, was our mutual
      experience of the long journey which we had taken when we reached the end
      of it. This we did in perfect safety. We found our friend, Kingsley,
      prepared for and awaiting us. He had procured us pleasant apartments in a
      neat cottage in the suburbs, where we were almost to ourselves. Our
      landlady was an ancient widow, without a family. She occupied but a single
      apartment in her house, and left the use of the rest to her lodgers. This
      was an arrangement with which I was particularly gratified. Her cottage
      lay half way up on the side of a hill which was crowned with thick clumps
      of the noblest trees. Long, winding, narrow foot-paths, carried us
      picturesquely to the summit, where we had a bird's-eye view of the town
      below, the river beyond&mdash;now darting out from the woods and now
      hiding securely beneath their umbrage&mdash;and fair, smooth, lawn-looking
      fields, which glowed at the proper season with the myriad green and white
      pinnies of corn and cotton. At the foot of the cottage lay a delightful
      shrubbery, which almost covered it up from sight. It was altogether such a
      retreat as a hermit would desire. It reminded me somewhat of the lovely
      spot which we had left. A pleasant walk of a mile lay between it and the
      town where I proposed to practice, and this furnished a necessity for a
      certain degree of exercise, which, being unavoidable, was of the most
      valuable kind. Altogether, Kingsley had executed his commission with a
      taste and diligence which left me nothing to complain of.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was delighted at my coming.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are nearer to me now,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;will be nearer at least when I get
      to Texas; and I do not despair to see you making tracks after me when I go
      there.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But when go you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not soon. I am in some trouble here. I am pleading and being impleaded.
      You are just come in season to take up the cudgels for me. My landrights
      are disputed&mdash;my titles. You will have something of a lawsuit to
      begin upon at your earliest leisure.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Indeed! but what's the business?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He gave me a statement of his affairs, placed his papers in my hands, and
      I found myself, on inspecting them, engaged in a controversy which was
      likely to give me the opportunity which I desired, of appearing soon in
      cases of equal intricacy and interest. Kingsley had some ten thousand
      dollars in land, the greater part of which was involved in questions of
      title and pre-emption, presenting some complex features, and likely to
      occasion bad blood among certain trespassers whom it became our first duty
      to oust if possible. I was associated with a spirited young lawyer of the
      place; a youth of great natural talent, keen, quick intellect, much
      readiness of resource, yet little experience and less reading. Like the
      great mass of our western men, however, he was a man to improve. He had no
      self-conceit&mdash;did not delude himself with the idea that he knew as
      much as his neighbor; and, consequently, was pretty certain to increase in
      wisdom with increase of years. He had few prejudices to get over, and
      though he knew his strength, he also knew his weakness. He felt the
      instinct of natural talent, but he did not deceive himself on the subject
      of his deficient knowledge. He was willing to learn whenever he could find
      a teacher. His name was Wharton. I took to him at once. He was an ardent,
      manly fellow&mdash;frank as a boy&mdash;could laugh and weep in the same
      hour, and yet was as firm in his principles, as if he could neither laugh
      nor weep. As an acquaintance he was an acquisition.
    </p>
    <p>
      Kingsley was delighted to see me, though somewhat wondering that I should
      give up the practice at home, where I was doing so well, to break ground
      in a region where I was utterly unknown. He gave me little trouble,
      however, in accounting to him for this movement. It was not difficult to
      persuade him&mdash;nay, he soon persuaded himself&mdash;that something of
      my present course was due to his own counsel and suggestion. To a man,
      like himself, to whom mere transition was pleasure, it needed no argument
      to show that my resolve was right.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Who the d&mdash;l,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;would like always to be in the same
      place? Such a person is a mere cipher. We establish an intellectual
      superiority when we show ourselves superior to place. A genuine man is
      always a citizen of the world. It is your vegetable man that can not go
      far without grumbling, finding fault with all he sees, talking of comforts
      and such small matters, and longing to get home again. Such a man puts me
      in mind of every member of the cow family that I ever knew. He is never at
      peace with himself or the world, but always groaning and thrusting out his
      horns, until he can get back to his old range, and revel in his native
      marsh, joint-grass, and cane-tops. Englishmen are very much of this breed.
      They go abroad, grumble as they go, and if they can not carry their
      cane-tops with them, afflict the whole world with their lamentations. I
      take it for granted, Clifford, that this step to Alabama, is simply a step
      toward Texas. Your next will be to New Orleans, and then, presto, we shall
      see you on the Sabine.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I hope not,&rdquo; said my wife. &ldquo;You have got us into such comfortable
      quarters here, Mr. Kingsley, that I hope you will do nothing to tempt my
      husband farther. Go farther and fare worse, you know. Let well enough
      alone.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh. I beseech you!&mdash;two proverbs at a time will be fatal to one or
      other of us. Perhaps both. But he can not fare worse by going to Texas.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He will do well enough here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Perhaps.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Recover your lands, for example, as a beginning.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! now you would bribe me. That is certainly a suggestion to make me
      keep my tongue, at least until the verdict is rendered. 'Till then, you
      know, I shall make no permanent remove myself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But do you mean to go before the trial?&rdquo; I asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, for a couple of months or so. I should only get into some squabble
      with my opponents by remaining here; and I may be preparing for all of us
      by going in season. I will look out for a township, Mrs. Clifford, on the
      edge of some beautiful prairie, and near some beautiful river. Your
      husband has a passion for water prospects, I can tell you, and would
      become a misanthrope without them. I am doubtful if he will be happy,
      indeed, if not within telescope distance from the sea itself. I don't
      think that a river will altogether satisfy him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh yes, THIS must;&rdquo; and as she spoke she pointed to the fair glassy
      surface of the Alabama, as it stretched away, at intervals, in broad
      glimpses before our eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, we shall see; but I will make my preparations, nevertheless,
      precisely as if he were not likely to be content. I have formed to myself
      a plan for all of you. I must make a dear little colony of our own in
      Texas. We shall have a nest of the sweetest little cottages, each with its
      neat little garden. In the centre we shall have a neat little playground
      for our neat little children; on the hill a neat little church; in the
      grove a neat little library; on the river a neat little barge; and over
      this neat little empire, you, Lady Clifford, shall be the neat little
      empress.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Dear me! what a neat little establishment!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It shall be all that, I assure you; and it shall have other advantages.
      You shall have a kingdom free from taxes and wars. There shall be no
      law-givers but yourself. We shall have no elections except when we elect
      our wives, and the women shall be the only voters then. We shall have no
      custom houses&mdash;everything shall be free of duty;&mdash;we shall have
      no banks&mdash;everything shall be free of charge;&mdash;we shall have no
      parson, for shall we not be sinless?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But what will you do with the neat little church?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh! that we shall keep merely to remind us of what is necessary in less
      fortunate communities.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Very good; but how, if you have no parsons, will you perform the marriage
      ceremony?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That shall be a natural operation of government. The voters having given
      their suffrages, you shall determine and declare with whom the majority
      lies, and give a certificate to that effect. The first choice will lie
      with the damsel having the highest number of votes; the second with the
      next; and so on to the end of the chapter; and then elections are to take
      place annually among the unmarried&mdash;the ladies being the privileged
      class as I said before. You will keep a record of these events, the names
      of parties, and so forth; and this record shall be proof, conclusive to
      conviction, against any party falling off from his or her duties.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Quite a system. I do not deny that our sex will have some new privileges
      by this arrangement.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Unquestionably. But you have not heard all. We shall have no doctors, for
      we shall have no diseases in the beautiful world to which I shall carry
      you. We shall have no lawyers, for we shall have no wrangling.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Indeed; but what is my husband to do then?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, he is your husband. What should he do? He takes rank from you. You
      are queen, you know. He will have no need of law.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There's reason in that; but how will you prevent wrangling where there
      are men and women?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, by giving the women their own way. The government is a despotism&mdash;you
      are queen&mdash;surely you will make no further objection to so admirable
      a system?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In good-humored chat like this, in which our landlady, Mrs. Porterfield&mdash;a
      lady who, though fully sixty-five years of age, was yet of a cheery and
      chatty disposition&mdash;took considerable part, our first evening passed
      away. Though fatigued, we sat up until a tolerably late hour, enlivened by
      the frank spirit of our friend, Kingsley, and inspired by the natural
      feeling of curiosity which our change of situation inspired It was
      midnight before we solicited the aid of sleep.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0040" id="link2HCH0040"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XL. &mdash; THE BLACK DOG ONCE MORE UPON THE SCENE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The next day was devoted to an examination of our premises and the
      neighborhood. The result of this examination was such as to render us
      better satisfied with the change that we had made. We were still young
      enough to be sensible to the loveliness of novelty. Everything wore that
      purple light which the eye of youth confers upon the object. And then
      there was repose. That harassing strife of the &ldquo;blind heart&rdquo; was at rest.
      I had no more suspicions; and my wife looked and spoke as if she had never
      had either doubts of me, or fears of herself, within her bosom. I was
      happiness itself, when, by the unreserved ease and gayety of her
      deportment she persuaded me that she suffered no regrets. I little fancied
      how much the change in my wife's manner had arisen from the involuntary
      change which had been going on in mine. I now looked the love which I
      felt; and she felt, in the improvement of my looks, the renewal of that
      fond passion which I had never ceased to feel, but which I had only too
      much ceased to show while suffering from the &ldquo;blind heart.&rdquo; She resumed
      her old amusements with new industry. Our little parlor received constant
      accessions of new pictures. All our leisure was employed in exploring the
      scenery of the neighborhood; and not a bit of forest, or patch of hill, or
      streak of rivulet or stream, to which the genius of art could lend
      loveliness, but she picked up, in these happy rambles, and worked into
      fitting places upon our cottage walls.
    </p>
    <p>
      Our good old hostess became attached to us. She virtually surrendered the
      management of the household to my wife. She was old and quite infirm; and
      was frequently confined for days to her chamber; which must have been a
      solitary place enough before our coming. My wife became a companion to her
      in these periods of painful seclusion, and thus provided her with a luxury
      which had been long denied her. Under these circumstances we had very much
      our own way. The old lady had few associates, and these were generally
      very worthy people. They soon became our associates also, and under the
      influence of better feelings than had governed me for a long time past, I
      now found myself in a condition of comfort, cheerfulness, and peace, which
      I fancied I had forfeited for ever.
    </p>
    <p>
      Two weeks after our arrival, Kingsley took his departure for Texas, on a
      visit. He proposed to be absent two months. His object, as he had
      described it before, in some pleasant exaggerations, was to select some
      favorable spots for purchase, which should combine as nearly as possible
      the three prime requisites of salubrity, fertility, and beauty. His object
      was to speculate; &ldquo;and this was to be done,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;at an early hour of
      the day.&rdquo; &ldquo;The Spanish proverb,&rdquo; he was wont to say, &ldquo;which regulates the
      eating of oranges, is not a bad rule to govern a man in making his
      speculations. Speculations (oranges) are gold at morning, silver at noon,
      and lead at night. It is your wise man,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;who buys and sells
      early; your merely sensible man who does so at midday; while your dunce,
      waiting for an increased appetite at evening, swallows nothing but lead.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I was in some respects a very fortunate man. If I had been a wise one! It
      has been seen that I was singularly successful in business at my first
      beginning in my native city. I had not been long in the town of M&mdash;,
      before I began to congratulate myself on the prospect of like fortune
      attending me there. The affairs of Kingsley brought me into contact with
      several men of business. My letters of introduction made me acquainted
      with many more; not simply of the town, but of the neighboring country. My
      ardency of temper was particularly suited to a frank, confiding people,
      such as are most of the southwestern men; and one or two accidental
      circumstances yielded me professional occupation long before I expected to
      find it. I had occasion to appear in court at an early day, and succeeded
      in making a favorable impression upon my hearers. To be a good speaker, in
      the south and southwest, is to be everything. Eloquence implies wisdom&mdash;at
      least all the wisdom which is supposed to be necessary in making lawyers
      and law-makers&mdash;a precious small modicum of a material by no means
      precious. I was supposed to have the gift of the gab in moderate
      perfection, and my hearers were indulgent. My name obtained circulation,
      and, in a short time, I discovered that, in a professional as well as
      personal point of view, I had no reason to regret the change of residence
      which I had made. Business began to flow in upon me. Applications reached
      me from adjoining counties, and though my fees, like the cases which I was
      employed in, were of moderate amount, they promised to be frequent, while
      my clients generally were very substantial persons.
    </p>
    <p>
      It will not need that I should dwell farther on these topics. It will be
      sufficient to show that, in worldly respects, I was as likely to prosper
      in my new as in my past abode. In social respects I had still more reason
      to be gratified. The days went by with me as smoothly as with Thalaba. My
      wife was all that I could wish. She was the very Julia whom I had married.
      Nay, she was something more&mdash;something better. Her health improved,
      and with it her spirits. She evidently had no regrets. A sigh never
      escaped her. Her content and cheerfulness were wonderful. She had none of
      that vague, vain yearning which the feeble feel, called &ldquo;home-sickness.&rdquo;
       She convinced me that I was her home&mdash;the only home that she desired.
      It was evident that she thought less of our ancient city than I did
      myself. I am sure that if either of us, at any moment, felt a desire to
      look upon it again, the person was myself. I maintained a correspondence
      with the place&mdash;received the newspapers, groped over them with
      persevering industry&mdash;nay&mdash;missed not the advertisements, and
      was disappointed and a discontent on those days when the mail failed. My
      wife had no such appetite. She sometimes read the papers, but she appeared
      to have no curiosity; and, with the exception of an occasional letter
      which she received from her mother, she had no intercourse whatever with
      her former home.
    </p>
    <p>
      All this was calculated to satisfy me. But this was not all. If
      gentleness, sweetness, cheerfulness, and a sleepless consideration of
      one's wants and feelings, could convince any mortal of the love of another&mdash;I
      must have been satisfied. We resumed most of the habits which began with
      our marriage, but which had been so long discontinued. We rose with the
      sun, and went abroad after his example. Like him we rose to the hill-tops,
      and then descended into the valleys. We grew familiar with the deepest
      shades of wood and forest while the dewdrops were yet beading the bosoms
      of the wild flowers; and we followed the meandering course of the Alabama,
      long before the smoking steamer vexed it with her flashing paddles. My
      professional toils from breakfast to dinner-time&mdash;for this interval I
      studiously gave to my office, even if I had little to do there&mdash;occasioned
      the only interregnum which I knew in the positive pleasures which I
      enjoyed. In the afternoon our enjoyments were renewed. Our cottage was so
      sweetly secluded, that we did not need to go far in order to find the
      Elysian grove which we desired. At the top of our hill we were surrounded
      by a natural temple of proud pines&mdash;guarding the spot from any but
      that sort of devine and religious light which streams through the painted
      windows of the ancient cathedral. The gay glances of the sun came gliding
      through the foliage in drops, and lay upon the grass in little pale,
      fanciful gleams, most like eyes of fairies peeping upward from its velvety
      tufts. Here we read together from the poets&mdash;sometimes Julia sung,
      even while sketching. Not unfrequently, Mrs. Porterfield came with us,
      and, at such times, our business was to detect distant glimpses of barge,
      or steamboat, as they successively darted into sight, along such of the
      glittering patches of the Alabama as were revealed to us in its downward
      progress through the woods.
    </p>
    <p>
      Our evenings were such as hallow and make the luxury of cottage life&mdash;evenings
      yielded up to cheerfulness, to content and harmony. Between music, and
      poetry, and painting, my heart was subdued to the sweetest refinements of
      love. Without the immorality, we had the very atmosphere of a Sybarite
      indulgence. I was enfeebled by the excess of sweets; and the happiness
      which I felt expressed itself in signs. These denoted my presentiments. My
      apprehensions were my sole cause of doubt and sorrow. How could such
      enjoyments last? Was it possible, with any, that they should last? Was it
      possible that they should last with me? I should have been mad to think
      it.
    </p>
    <p>
      But, in the sweet delirium which their possession inspired, I almost
      forgot the past. The soul of man is the most elastic thing in nature.
      Those harassing tortures of the heart which I had been suffering for
      months&mdash;those weary days of exhausting doubt&mdash;those long nights
      of torturing suspicion&mdash;the shame and the fear, the sting of
      jealousy, and the suffering&mdash;I had almost forgotten in the absorbing
      pleasures of my new existence. If I remembered them it was only to smile;
      if I thought of William Edgerton it was only to pity;&mdash;and, as for
      Julia, deep was the crimson shadow upon my cheek, whenever the reproachful
      memory reminded me of the tortures which I had inflicted upon her gentle
      heart while laboring under the tortures of my own&mdash;when I thought of
      the unmanly espionage which I had maintained over conduct which I now felt
      to be irreproachable.
    </p>
    <p>
      But, just at the moment when I thus thought and felt&mdash;when I no
      longer suffered and no longer inflicted pain&mdash;when my wife was not
      only virtue in my sight, but love, and beauty, and grace, and meekness&mdash;all
      that was good and all that was dear besides;&mdash;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 lustre of a May-divinity&mdash;just
      then a thunderbolt fell upon my dwelling, and blackened the scene for
      ever.
    </p>
    <p>
      I had now been three months a resident in M&mdash;&mdash;, and never had I
      been more happy&mdash;never less apprehensive on the score of my happiness&mdash;when
      I received a letter from my venerable friend and patron, the father of
      William Edgerton.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My son,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;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&mdash;her
      endowments in painting and music&mdash;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, trespass 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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;all my fancies scattered&mdash;my
      schemes and temples overthrown. Bitter was the pang I felt on reading this
      letter. It said more&mdash;much more&mdash;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&mdash;the true friend&mdash;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&mdash;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 trespass upon the rights of another. His
      passions must be subdued by this time. Ah! but will not his condition be
      more likely to inspire sympathy?
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0041" id="link2HCH0041"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XLI. &mdash; TRIAL&mdash;THE WOMAN GROWS STRONG.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Thus, then, I was once more at sea, rudderless&mdash;not yet companionless&mdash;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&mdash;would again seek&mdash;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?&mdash;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&mdash;and
      now, evidently, a wilful one&mdash;gave venom to the bitter feeling with
      which I had so long regarded his attentions.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;that sudden paleness of the cheek&mdash;what was their
      language? I fain would have struggled against the conviction, that it
      denoted a guilty consciousness of the past&mdash;a guilty feeling of the
      future. But the mocking demon of the blind heart forced the assurance 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;nay, it is more&mdash;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&mdash;and yet, I
      was most severely tried. Deep were my sufferings! Strong was that demon
      within me&mdash;I care not how engendered, whether by the fault and folly
      of others, or by my own&mdash;still it was strong. If I was guilty&mdash;base,
      blind&mdash;was I not also suffering? Never did I inflict on the bosom of
      Julia Clifford, so deep a pang as I daily&mdash;nay, hourly, inflicted
      upon my own. She was a victim, true&mdash;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!&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;his name and threatened visit!
    </p>
    <p>
      But&mdash;and I read, the letter again and again&mdash;it would be some
      time before he might be expected. The route, as laid down for him by his
      father, was a protracted one. &ldquo;Through Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi,
      then homeward, by way of Alabama.&rdquo; &ldquo;He can not be here in less than six
      weeks. He must travel slowly. He must make frequent rests.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And there was a further thought&mdash;a hope&mdash;which, though it filled
      my mind, I did not venture to express in words. &ldquo;He may perish on his
      route: if he be so feeble, it is by no means improbable!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      At all events, I had six weeks' respite&mdash;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!
    </p>
    <p>
      Instead of going into Tennessee, he had shot straight forward, through
      Georgia, into Alabama.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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 analyzed 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
      shell 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&mdash;small as
      they were before&mdash;become feebler with every moment of his stay that
      night.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Edgerton does not appear to me to look so badly,&rdquo; I said to Julia, after
      his departure for the evening.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; she answered; &ldquo;he looks very pale and miserable.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Quite interesting!&rdquo; I added, with a smile which might have been a sneer.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Painfully so. He can not last very long&mdash;his cough is very
      troublesome.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Indeed! I scarcely heard it. He is certainly a very fine-looking fellow
      still, consumption or no consumption.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She was silent.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A very graceful fellow: very generous and with accomplishments such as
      are possessed by few. I have often envied him his person and
      accomplishments.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; she exclaimed, with something like an expression of incredulity.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes!&mdash;that is to say, when I was a youth, and when I thought more of
      commending myself to your eyes, than of anything besides.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; she replied with an assuring smile, &ldquo;you never needed qualities
      other than your own to commend yourself to me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! I have never thought of your doing anything of the kind.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Like begets liking.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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 noble
      fellow; his tastes are very fine. I suspect he can form as correct an
      opinion of a fine picture as any one&mdash;perhaps, paint it as finely.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She was silent.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do you not think so, Julia?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I think he paints very well for an amateur.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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&mdash;do
      you not think he dances with admirable flexibility?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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 pass
      through the measure without ostentation or offence should be his simple
      object.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;These are not usually the opinions of ladies, Julia.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They are mine, however.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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 noble 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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She was silent. I fancied there was something like distress apparent in
      her countenance. I continued:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There is one thing, Julia, about which I am not altogether satisfied.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; with much anxiety; &ldquo;what is that?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was some abruptness in her answer:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I do not see how you can bring him here. You forget that we are mere
      lodgers ourselves; indebted for our accommodation to the kindness of a
      lady upon whom we should have no right to press other lodgers. Such an
      arrangement would crowd the house, and make all parties uncomfortable.
      Besides, I suppose Mr. Edgerton will scarcely remain long enough in M&mdash;-to
      make it of much importance where he lodges, and when he finds the tavern
      uncomfortable he will take his departure.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But should he get sick at the tavern?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Such a chance would follow him wherever he went. That is the risk which
      every man incurs when he goes abroad. He has a servant with him&mdash;no
      doubt a favorite servant.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Should he get sick, Julia, even a favorite servant will not be enough. It
      will be our duty to make other provision for him. I owe his father much;
      the old man evidently expects much from me by his last letter. I owe the
      son much. He has been a true friend to me. I must do for him as if he were
      a brother, and should he get sick, Julia, you must be his nurse.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Impossible, Mr. Clifford!&rdquo; she replied, with unwonted energy, while a
      deep, dark flush settled over her otherwise placid features, which were
      now not merely discomposed but ruffled. &ldquo;It is impossible that I should be
      what you require. Suffer me, in this case, to determine my duties for
      myself. Do for YOUR FRIEND what you think proper. You can provide a nurse,
      and secure by money, the best attendance in the town. I do not think that
      I can do better service than a hundred others whom you may procure; and
      you will permit me to say, without seeking to displease you, that I will
      not attempt it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I was not displeased at what she said, but it was not my policy to admit
      this. With an air almost of indignation, I replied:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And you would leave my friend to perish?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I trust he will not perish&mdash;I sincerely trust he will continue in
      health while he remains here. I implore you, dear husband, to make no
      requisition such as this. I can not serve your friend in this capacity. I
      pray that he may not need it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But should he?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I can not serve him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Julia, you are a cold-hearted woman&mdash;you do not love me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Cold-hearted, Edward, cold-hearted? Not love you, Edward?&mdash;Oh,
      surely, you can not mean it. No! no! you can not!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She threw herself into my arms, clasped me fondly in hers, and the warm
      tears from her eyes gushed into my bosom.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Love me, love my dog&mdash;at least my friend!&rdquo; I exclaimed, in austere
      accents, but without repulsing her. I could not repulse her. I had not
      strength to put her from me. The embrace was too dear; and the energy with
      which she rejected a suggestion in which I proposed only to try and test
      her, made her doubly dear at that moment to my bosom. Alas! how, in the
      attempt to torture others, do we torture ourselves! If I afflicted Julia
      in this scene, I am very sure that my own sufferings were more intense.
      One thing alone would have made them so. The ONE quality of evil, of the
      bad spirit which mingled in with MY feelings, and did not trouble HERS.
      But, just then I did not think her innocent altogether. I still had my
      doubts that her resistance to my wishes was simply meant to conceal that
      tendency in her own, the exposure of which she had naturally every reason
      to dread. The demon of the blind heart, though baffled for awhile, was
      still busy. Alas! he was not always to be baffled.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0042" id="link2HCH0042"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XLII. &mdash; CROSS PURPOSES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Weeks passed and still William Edgerton was a resident of M&mdash;-, and a
      constant guest at our little cottage. He had, in this time, effectually
      broken up the harmony and banished the peace which had previously
      prevailed there. The unhappy young man pursued the same insane course of
      conduct which had been productive of so much bitterness and trouble to us
      all before; and, under the influence of my evil demon, I adopted the same
      blind policy which had already been so fruitful of misery to myself and
      wife. I gave them constant opportunities together. I found my associates,
      and pursued my pastimes&mdash;pastimes indeed&mdash;away from home. Poetry
      and song were given up&mdash;we no longer wandered by the river-side, and
      upon the green heights of our sacred hill. My evenings were consumed in
      dreary rambles, alone with my own evil thoughts, and miserable fancies, or
      consumed with yellow-eyed watching, from porch or tree, upon those
      privacies of the suspected lovers, in which I had so shamefully indulged
      before. I felt the baseness of this vocation, but I had not the strength
      to give it up. I know there is no extenuation for it. I know that it was
      base! base! base! It is a point of conscience with me, not only to declare
      the truth, but to call things by the truest and most characteristic names.
      Let me do my understanding the justice to say that, even when I practised
      the meanness, I was not ignorant&mdash;not insensible of its character. It
      was the strength only&mdash;the courage to do right, and to forbear the
      wrong&mdash;in which I was deficient. It was the blind heart, not the
      unknowing head to which the shame was attributable, though the pang fell
      not unequally upon heart and head.
    </p>
    <p>
      Meanwhile, Kingsley returned from Texas. He became my principal companion.
      We strolled together in my leisure hours by day. We sat and smoked
      together in his chamber by night. My blind fortitude may be estimated,
      when the reader is told that Kingsley professed to find me a very
      agreeable companion. He complimented me on my liveliness, my wit, my
      humor, and what not&mdash;and this, too, when I was all the while
      meditating, with the acutest feeling of apprehension, upon the very last
      wrong which the spirit of man is found willing to endure;&mdash;when I
      believed that the ruin of my house was at hand; when I believed that the
      ruin of my heart and hope had already taken place;&mdash;and when,
      hungering only for the necessary degree of proof which justice required
      before conviction, I was laying my gins and snares with the view to
      detecting the offenders, and consummating the last terrible but necessary
      work of vengeance! But Kingsley did not confine himself altogether to the
      language of compliment.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good fellow and good companion as you are, Clifford&mdash;and loath as I
      should be to give up these pleasant evenings, still I think you very wrong
      in one respect. You neglect your wife.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ha! ha! what an idea! You are not serious?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;As a judge.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Psha! She does not miss me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Perhaps not,&rdquo; he answered gravely&mdash;&ldquo;but for your own sake if not for
      hers, it seems to me you should pursue a more domestic course.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What mean you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You leave your wife too much to herself!&mdash;nay&mdash;let me be frank&mdash;not
      too much to herself, for there would be little danger in that, but too
      much with that fellow Edgerton.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What? You would not have me jealous, Kingsley?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! Only prudent.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You dislike Edgerton, Kingsley.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I do! I frankly confess it. I think he wants manliness of character, and
      such a man always lacks sincerity. But I do not speak of him. I should
      utter the same opinion with respect to any other man, in similar
      circumstances. A wife is a dependent creature&mdash;apt to be weak!&mdash;If
      young, she is susceptible&mdash;equally susceptible to the attentions of
      another and to the neglect of her husband. I do not say that such is the
      case&mdash;with your wife. Far from it. I esteem her very much as a
      remarkable woman. But women were intended to be dependents. Most of them
      are governed by sensibilities rather than by principles. Impulse leads
      them and misleads. The wife finds herself neglected by the very man who,
      in particular, owes her duty. She finds herself entertained, served,
      watched, tended with sleepless solicitude, by another; one, not wanting
      either in personal charms and accomplishments, and having similar tastes
      and talents. What should be the result of this? Will she not become
      indifferent where she finds indifference&mdash;devoted where she finds
      devotion? A cunning fellow, like Edgerton, may, under these circumstances,
      rob a man of his wife's affections. Mark me, I do not say that he will do
      anything positively dishonorable, at least in the world's acceptation of
      the term. I do not intimate&mdash;I would not willingly believe&mdash;that
      she would submit to anything of the sort. I speak of the affections, not
      of the virtues. There is shame to the man in his wife's dishonor; but the
      misfortune of losing her affections is neither more nor less than the
      suffering without the shame. Look to it. I do not wish to prejudice your
      mind against Edgerton. Far from it. I have forborne to speak hitherto
      because I knew that my own mind was prejudiced against him. Even now I say
      nothing against HIM. What I say has reference to your conduct only.&mdash;I
      do not think Edgerton a bad man. I think him a weak one. Weak as a woman&mdash;governed,
      like her, by impulse rather than by principle&mdash;easily led away&mdash;incapable
      of resisting where his affections are concerned&mdash;repenting soon, and
      sinning, in the same way, as fast as he repents. He is weak, very weak&mdash;washy-weak&mdash;he
      wants stamina, and, wanting that, wants principle!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Strange enough, if you should be right! How do you reconcile this opinion
      with his refusal to lend you money to game upon? He was governed in that
      by principle.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not a bit of it! He was governed by habit. He knew nothing of gambling&mdash;had
      heard his father always preaching against it&mdash;it was not a temptation
      with him. His tastes were of another sort. He could not be tried in that
      way. The very fact that he was susceptible, in particular, to the charms
      of female society, saved him from the passion for gaming, as it would save
      him from the passion for drink. But the very tastes that saved him from
      one passion make him particularly susceptible to another. He can stand the
      temptation of play, but not that of women. Let him be tried THERE, and he
      falls! his principle would not save him&mdash;would not be worth a straw
      to a drowning man.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You underrate&mdash;undervalue Edgerton. He has always been a true,
      generous friend of mine.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Be it so! with that I have nothing to do. But friendship has its limits
      which it can not pass. Were Edgerton truly your friend, he would advise
      you as I have done. Nay, a proper sense of friendship and of delicacy
      would have kept him from paying that degree of attention to the wife which
      must be an hourly commentary on the neglect of her husband. I confess to
      you it was this very fact that made me resolve to speak to you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I thank you, my dear fellow, but I have nothing to fear. Poor Edgerton is
      dying&mdash;music and painting are his solace&mdash;they minister to his
      most active tastes. As for Julia, she is immaculate.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I distrust neither; but you should not throw away your pearl, because you
      think it can not suffer stain.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I do not throw it away.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You do not sufficiently cherish it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What would you have me do&mdash;wear it constantly in my bosom?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! not exactly that; but at least wear nothing else there so frequently
      or so closely as that.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I do not. I fancy I am a very good husband. You shall not put me out of
      humor, Kingsley, either with my wife or myself. You shall not make me
      jealous. I am no Othello&mdash;I have no visitations of the moon.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And I laughed&mdash;laughed while speaking thus&mdash;though the keen pang
      was writhing at that moment like a burning arrow through my brain.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have no wish to make you jealous, Clifford, and I very much admire your
      superiority and strength. I congratulate you on your singular freedom from
      this unhappy passion. But you may become too confident. You may lose your
      wife's affections by your neglect, when you might not lose them by
      treachery.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are grown a croaker, Kingsley, and I will leave you. I will go home.
      I will show you what a good husband I am, or can become.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's right; but smoke another cigar before you go.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There it is!&rdquo; I exclaimed, laughingly. &ldquo;You blow hot and cold. You would
      have me go and stay.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Take the cigar, at least, and smoke it as you go. My advice is good, and
      that it is honest you may infer from my reluctance to part with you. I
      will see you at the office at nine in the morning. There is some prospect
      of a compromise with Jeffords about the tract in Dallas, and he is to meet
      Wharton and myself at your law-shop to-morrow. It is important to make an
      arrangement with Jeffords&mdash;his example will be felt by Brownsell and
      Gibbon. We may escape a long-winded lawsuit, after all, to your great
      discomfiture and my gain. But you do not hear me!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, yes, every word&mdash;you spoke of Jeffords, and Wharton, and Gibbon&mdash;yes,
      I heard you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now I know that you did not hear me&mdash;not understandingly, at least.
      I should not be surprised if I have made you jealous. You look wild, mon
      ami!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Jealous, indeed! what nonsense!&rdquo; and I prepared to depart when I had thus
      spoken.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, at nine you must meet us at the office. My business must not suffer
      because you are jealous.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come, no more of that, Kingsley!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By heavens, you are touched.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He laughed merrily. I laughed also, but with a choking effort which almost
      cost me a convulsion as I left the tavern. The sport of Kingsley was my
      death. What he had said previously sunk deep into my soul. Not rightly&mdash;not
      as it should have sunk&mdash;showing me the folly of my own course without
      assuming, as I did, the inevitable wilfulness of the course of others; but
      actually confirming me in my fears&mdash;nay, making them grow hideous as
      THINGS and substantive convictions. It seemed to me, from what Kingsley
      said that I was already dishonored&mdash;that the world already knew my
      shame; and that he, as my friend, had only employed an ambiguous language
      to soften the sting and the shock which his revelations must necessarily
      occasion. With this new notion, which occurred to me after leaving the
      house, I instantly returned to it. It required a strong effort to seem
      deliberate in what I spoke.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Kingsley,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;perhaps I did not pay sufficient heed to your
      observations. Do you mean to convey to my mind the idea that people think
      Edgerton too familiar with my wife? Do you mean to say that such a notion
      is abroad? That there is anything wrong?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By no means.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! then there is nothing in it. I see no reason for suspicion. I am not
      a jealous man; but it becomes necessary when one's neighbors find occasion
      to look into one's business, to look a little into it one's self.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;One must not wait for that,&rdquo; said Kingsley; &ldquo;but where is your cigar?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The question confused me. I had dropped it in the agitation of my
      feelings, without being conscious of its loss.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Take another,&rdquo; said he, with a smile, &ldquo;and let your cares end in smoke as
      you wend homeward. My most profound thoughts come from my cigar. To that I
      look for my philosophy, my friendship, my love&mdash;almost my religion. A
      cigar is a brain-comforter, verily. You should smoke more, Clifford. You
      will grow better, wiser&mdash;COOLER.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I take your cigar and counsel together,&rdquo; was my reply. &ldquo;The one shall
      reconcile me to the other. Bon repos!&rdquo; And so I left him.
    </p>
    <p>
      I was not likely to have bon repos myself. I was troubled. Kingsley
      suspects me of being jealous. Such an idea was very mortifying. This is
      another weakness of the suspicious nature. It loathes above all things to
      be suspected of jealousy. I hurried home, vexed with my want of coolness&mdash;doubly
      vexed at the belief that other eyes than my own were witnesses of the
      attentions of Edgerton to my wife.
    </p>
    <p>
      I stopped at the entrance of our cottage. HE was there as usual. Mrs.
      Porterfield was not present. The candle was burning dimly. He sat upon the
      sofa. Julia was seated upon chair at a little distance. Her features wore
      an expression of exceeding gravity. His were pale and sad, but his eyes
      burnt with an eager intensity that betrayed the passionate feeling in his
      heart. Thus they sat&mdash;she looking partly upon the floor&mdash;he
      looking at her. I observed them for more than ten minutes; and in all that
      time I do not believe they exchanged two sentences.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Surely,&rdquo; I thought, &ldquo;this must be a singularly sufficing passion which
      can enjoy itself in this manner without the help of language.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Of course, this reflection increased the strength of my suspicions. I
      became impatient, and entered the cottage. The eyes of Julia seemed to
      brighten at my appearance, but they were also full of sadness. Edgerton
      soon after rose and took his departure. I believe, if I had stayed away
      till midnight, he would have lingered until that time; but I also believe
      that if I had returned two hours before, he would have gone as soon. His
      passion for the wife seemed to produce an antipathy to the husband, quite
      as naturally as that which grew up in my bosom in regard to him. When he
      was gone, my wife approached me, almost vehemently exclaiming&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, why do you leave me thus, Clifford? Surely you can not love me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Indeed I do; but I was with Kingsley. I had business, and did not suppose
      you would miss me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why suppose otherwise, Edward? I do miss you. I beg that you will not
      leave me thus again.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What do you mean? You are singularly earnest, Julia. What has happened?
      What has offended you? Was not Edgerton with you all the evening?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      My questions, coupled with my manner, which has been somewhat excited,
      seemed to alarm her. She replied hurriedly:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nothing has happened! nothing has offended me! But I feel that you should
      not leave me thus. It does not look well. It looks as if you did not love
      me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! but when you KNOW that I do!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I do not know it. Oh, show me that you do, Edward. Stay with me as you
      did at first&mdash;when we first came here&mdash;when we were first
      married. Then we were so&mdash;so happy!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You would not say that you are not happy now?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am not! I do not see you as I wish&mdash;when I wish! You leave me so
      often&mdash;leave me to strangers, and seem so indifferent. Oh! Edward, do
      not let me think that you care for me no longer.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Strangers! Why, how you talk!&mdash;Good old Mrs. Porterfield seems to me
      like my own grandmother, and Edgerton has been my friend&mdash;-&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Did I really hear her say the single word, &ldquo;Friend!&rdquo; and with such an
      accent! The sound was a very slight one&mdash;it may have been my fancy
      only;&mdash;and she turned away a moment after. What could it mean? I was
      bewildered. I followed her to the chamber. I endeavored to renew the
      subject in such a manner as not to offend her suspicions, but she seemed
      to have taken the alarm. She answered me in monosyllables only, and
      without satisfying the curiosity which that single word, doubtfully
      uttered, had so singularly awakened.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Only love me&mdash;love me, Edward, and keep with me, and I will not
      complain. But if you leave me&mdash;if you neglect me&mdash;I am
      desolate!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0043" id="link2HCH0043"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XLIII. &mdash; ACCIDENT AND MORE AGONIES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      There was something very unaccountable in all this. I say unaccountable,
      with the distinct understanding that it was unaccountable only to that
      obtuse condition of mind which is produced by the demon of the blind
      heart. My difficulties of judging were only temporary, however. The
      sinister spirit made his whisper conclusive in the end.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This vehemence,&rdquo; it suggested, &ldquo;which is so unwonted with her, is
      evidently unnatural, It&mdash;is affected for an object. What is that
      object? It is the ordinary one with persons in the wrong, who always
      affect one extreme of feeling when they would conceal another. She fears
      that you will suspect that she is very well satisfied in your absence;
      accordingly she strives to convince you that she was never so
      dissatisfied. Of course you can not believe that a man so well endowed as
      Edgerton, so graceful, having such fine tastes and accomplishments, can
      prove other than an agreeable companion! What then should be your belief?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a devilish ingenuity in this sort of perversion. It had its
      effect. I believed it; and believing it, revolted, with a feeling of hate
      and horror, at the supposed loathsome hypocrisy of that fond embrace, and
      those earnest pleadings, which, in the moment of their first display, had
      seemed so precious to my soul. In the morning, when I was setting forth
      from home, she put her arm on my shoulder:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come home soon. Edward, and let us go together on the hill. Let nobody
      know. Surely we shall be company enough for each other. I will sketch you
      a view of the river while you read Wordsworth to me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; whispered my demon in my ears, &ldquo;that is ingenious. Let nobody know;
      as if, having a friend in the neighborhood&mdash;on a visit&mdash;be sick
      and in bad spirits&mdash;you should propose to yourself a pleasure trip of
      any kind without inviting him to partake of it? She knows THAT to be out
      of the question, and that you must ask Edgerton if you resolve to go
      yourself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Such was the artful suggestion of my familiar. My resolve&mdash;still
      recognising the cruel policy by which I had been so long governed&mdash;was
      instantly taken. This was to invite Edgerton and Kingsley both.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I will give them every opportunity. While Kingsley and myself ramble
      together, well leave this devoted pair to their own cogitations, taking
      care, however, to see what comes of them.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I promised Julia to be home in season, but said nothing of my intention to
      ask the gentlemen. She thanked me with a look and smile, which, had I not
      seen all things through eyes of the most jaundiced green, would have
      seemed to me that of an angel, expressive only of the truest love.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! could I but believe!&rdquo; was the bitter self-murmur of my soul, as I
      left the threshold.
    </p>
    <p>
      On my way through the town I stopped at the postoffice to get letters, and
      received one from Mrs. Delaney&mdash;late Clifford&mdash;my wife's
      exemplary mother, addressed to Julia. I then proceeded to Edgerton's
      lodgings. He was not yet up, and I saw him in his chamber. His flute lay
      upon the toilet. Seeing it, I recalled, with all its original vexing
      bitterness, the scene which took place the night previous to my departure
      from my late home. And when I looked on Edgerton&mdash;saw with what
      effort he spoke, and how timidly he expressed himself&mdash;how reluctant
      were his eyes to meet the gaze of mine&mdash;his guilt seemed equally
      fresh and unequivocal. I marked him out, involuntarily, as my victim. I
      felt assured, even while conveying to him the complimentary invitation
      which I bore, that my hand was commissioned to do the work of death upon
      his limbs. Strange and fascinating conviction! But I did not contemplate
      this necessity with any pleasure. No! I would have prayed&mdash;I did pray&mdash;that
      the task might be spared me. If I thought of it at all, it was as the
      agent of a necessity which I could not countervail. The fates had me in
      their keeping. I was the blind instrument obeying the inflexible will,
      against which
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     &ldquo;Reluctant nature strives in vain.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      I felt then, most truly, though I deceived myself, that I had no power,
      though every disposition, to save and to spare. I conveyed my invitation
      as a message from my wife.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Edgerton, my wife has planned a little ramble for this afternoon. She
      wishes to show you some of the beauties of landscape in our new abode. She
      commissions me to ask you to join us.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! did SHE?&rdquo; he demanded eagerly, with a slight emphasis on the last
      word.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ay, did she! Will you come?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Certainly&mdash;with pleasure!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He need not have said so much. The pleasure spoke in his bright eyes&mdash;in
      the tremulous hurry of his utterance. I turned away from him, lest I
      should betray the angry feeling which disturbed me. He did not seek to
      arrest my departure. He had few words. It was sufficiently evident that he
      shrunk from my glance and trembled in my presence. How far otherwise, in
      the days of our mutual innocence&mdash;in our days of boyhood&mdash;when
      his face seemed clear like that of a pure, perfect star, shining out in
      the blue serene of night, unconscious of a cloud.
    </p>
    <p>
      Kingsley was already at my office when I reached it, and soon after came
      Mr. Wharton, followed by two of our opponents. We were engaged with them
      the better part of the morning. When the business hours were consumed, our
      transactions remained unfinished, and another meeting was appointed for
      the ensuing day. I invited Wharton as well as Kingsley to join us in our
      afternoon rambles, which they both promised to do. I went home something
      sooner to make preparations, and only recollected, on seeing Julia, that I
      had thrown the letter from her mother, with other papers, into my desk.
      When I told her of the letter, her countenance changed to a death-like
      paleness which instantly attracted my notice.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What is the matter&mdash;are you sick, Julia!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! nothing. But the letter&mdash;where is it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I threw it on my table, or in my desk, with other papers, to have them
      out of the way; and hurrying home sooner than usual, forgot to bring it
      with me. I suppose there's nothing in it of any importance?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, nothing, I suppose,&rdquo; she answered faintly.
    </p>
    <p>
      I told her what I had done with respect to our guests.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am very sorry,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;that you have done so. I do not feel
      like company, and wished to have you all to myself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, selfish; but of this I will believe moderately! As for company, with
      the exception of Wharton, they are old friends; and it would not do to
      take a pleasure ramble, with poor Edgerton here, and not make him a
      party.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was an earnest intensity of gaze, almost amounting to a painful
      stare, in Julia's eyes, as I said these words. She really seemed
      distressed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But really, Edward, our pleasure ramble is not such a one as would make
      it a duty to invite your friends. How difficult it seems for you to
      understand me. Could not we two stroll a piece into the woods without
      having witnesses?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, is that all? Why then should you have made a formal appointment for
      such a purpose? Could we not have gone as before&mdash;without
      premeditation?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The question puzzled her. She looked anxious. Had she answered with
      sincerity&mdash;with truth&mdash;and could I have believed her to have
      been sincere, how easy would it have been to have settled our
      difficulties. Had she said&mdash;&ldquo;I really wish to avoid Mr. Edgerton,
      whose presence annoys me&mdash;who will be sure to come&mdash;when you are
      sure to be gone&mdash;and whom I have particular reasons to wish not to
      meet&mdash;not to see.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      This, which might be the truth, she did not dare to speak. She had her
      reasons for her apprehension. This, which was reasonable enough, I could
      not conjecture; for the demon of the blind heart was too busy in
      suggesting other conjectures. It was evident enough that she had secret
      motives for her course, which she did not venture to reveal to me; and
      nothing could be more natural, in the diseased state of my mind, than that
      I should give the worst colorings to these motives in the conjectures
      which I made upon them. We were destined to play at cross-purposes much
      longer, and with more serious issues.
    </p>
    <p>
      Our friends came, and we set forth in the pleasant part of the afternoon.
      We ascended our hill, and resting awhile upon the summit, surveyed the
      prospect from that position. Then I conducted the party through some of
      our woodland walks, which Julia and myself had explored together. But I
      soon gave up the part of cicerone to Wharton, who was to the &ldquo;MANOR BORN.&rdquo;
       He was a native of the neighborhood, boasted that he knew every &ldquo;bosky
      dell of this wild wood&rdquo; and certainly conducted us to glimpses of
      prettiest heights, and groves, and far vistas, where the light seemed to
      glide before us in an embodied gray form, that stole away, and peeped
      backward upon us from long allies of the darkest and most solemn-sighted
      pines.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But there is a finer spot just below us,&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;a creek that is
      like no other that I have ever met with in the neighborhood. It is formed
      by the Alabama&mdash;is as deep in some places, and so narrow, at times,
      that a spry lad can easily leap across it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is it far?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No&mdash;a mile only.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But your wife may be fatigued, Clifford?&rdquo; was the suggestion of Kingsley.
      She certainly looked so; but I answered for her, and insisted otherwise. I
      met her glance as I spoke, but, though she looked dissatisfaction, her
      lips expressed none. I could easily conjecture that she felt none. She was
      walking with Edgerton&mdash;and while all eyes watched the scenery, he
      watched her alone. I hurried forward with Kingsley, but he immediately
      fell behind, loitered on very slowly, and left Wharton and myself to
      proceed together. I could comprehend the meaning of this. My demon made
      his suggestion.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Kingsley suspects them&mdash;he sees what you are unwilling to see&mdash;he
      is not so willing to leave them together.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      We reached the stream, and wandered along its banks. It had some unusual
      characteristics. It was sometimes a creek, deep and narrow, but clear; a
      few steps farther and it became what, in the speech of the country, is
      called a branch; shallow, purling soft over a sand-bed, limpid yellow, and
      with a playful prattle that put one in mind of the songs of thoughtless
      children, humming idly as they go. The shrubbery along its (sic) seemed to
      follow its changes. Where the bluffs were high, the foliage was dense and
      the trees large. The places where its waters shallowed, were only dotted
      with shrub trees and wild vines, which sometimes clambered across the
      stream and wedded the opposing branches, in bonds as hard to break as
      those of matrimony. The waters were sinuous, and therefore slow. They
      seemed only to glide along, like some glittering serpent, who trails at
      leisure his silvery garments through the woods quietly and slow, as if he
      had no sort of apprehension.
    </p>
    <p>
      When we had reached a higher spot of bluff than the rest, Wharton, who was
      an active rather than an athletic man, challenged me to follow him. He
      made the leap having little space to spare. I had not done such a thing
      for some years. But my boyhood had been one of daring. The school in which
      I had grown up had given me bodily hardihood and elasticity; at all events
      I could not brook defiance in such a matter, and, with moderate effort,
      succeeded in making a longer stride. I looked back at this moment and saw
      Julia, still closely attended by Edgerton, just about emerging into view
      from a thick copse that skirted the foot of a small hill over which our
      course had brought us. I could not distinguish their features. They were,
      however, close together. Kingsley was on their right, a little in advance
      of them, but still walking slowly. I pointed my finger toward a shallow
      and narrow part of the stream as that which they would find it most easy
      to cross. A tree had been felled at the designated point, and just below
      it, in consequence of the obstructions which its limbs presented to the
      easy passage of the water, several sand bars had been made, by which,
      stepping from one to the other, one might cross dryshod even without the
      aid of the tree. Kingsley repeated my signal to those behind him, and led
      the way. I went on with Wharton, without again looking behind me.
    </p>
    <p>
      But few minutes had elapsed after this, when I heard Julia scream in
      sudden terror. I looked round, but the foliage had thickened behind me,
      and I could no longer see the parties. I bounded backward, with no
      enviable feelings. My apprehensions for my wife's safety made me forgetful
      of my suspicions. I reached the spot in time to discover the cause of her
      alarm.
    </p>
    <p>
      She was in the midst of the stream, standing upon one of the sandflats,
      steadying herself with difficulty, while she supported the whole form of
      William Edgerton, who lay, seemingly lifeless, and half buried in one of
      the sluices of water which ran between the sandrifts. I had just time to
      see this, and to feel all the pangs of my jealousy renewed, when Kingsley
      rushed into the water to his rescue. He lifted him out to the banks as if
      he had been an infant, and laid him on the shore. I went to the relief of
      Julia, who, trembling like a leaf, fainted in my arms the moment she felt
      herself in safety.
    </p>
    <p>
      The whole affair was at that time unaccountable to me. It necessarily
      served to increase my pangs. Had I not seen her with my own eyes tenderly
      supporting the fainting frame of the man whom I believed to be my rival&mdash;whom
      I believed she loved? Had I not heard her scream of terror announcing her
      interest in his fate&mdash;her apprehensions for his safety? His danger
      had made her forgetful of her caution&mdash;such was the assurance of my
      demon&mdash;and in the fullness of her heart her voice found utterance.
      Besides, how was I to know what endearments&mdash;what fond pressure of
      palms&mdash;had been passing between them, making them heedless of their
      course, and consequently, making them liable to the accident which had
      occurred. For, it must be remembered, that the general impression was that
      Edgerton's foot had slipped, and, falling into the stream while
      endeavoring to assist Julia, he had nearly pulled her in after him. His
      fainting afterward we ascribed to the same nervous weakness which had
      induced that of Julia. On this head, however, Kingsley was better
      informed. He told me, in a subsequent conversation, that he had narrowly
      observed the parties&mdash;that, until the moment before he fell, the
      hands of the two had not met&mdash;that then, Edgerton offered his to
      assist my wife over the stream, and scarcely had their fingers touched,
      when Edgerton sank down, like a stone, seemingly lifeless, and falling
      into the water only after he had become insensible.
    </p>
    <p>
      All was confusion. Mine, however, was not confusion. It was commotion&mdash;commotion
      which I yet suppressed&mdash;a volcano smothered, but smothered only for a
      time, and ready to break forth with superior fury in consequence of the
      restraint put upon it. This one event, with the impressive spectacle of
      the parties in such close juxtaposition, seemed almost to render every
      previous suspicion conclusive.
    </p>
    <p>
      Julia was soon recovered; but the swoon of Edgerton was of much longer
      duration. We sprinkled him with water, subjected him to fanning and
      friction, and at length aroused him. His mind seemed to wander at his
      first consciousness&mdash;he murmured incoherently. One or two broken
      sentences, however, which he spoke, were not without significance in my
      ears.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Closer! closer! leave me not now&mdash;not yet.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I bent over him to catch the words. Kingsley, as if he feared the
      utterance of anything more, pushed me away, and addressing Edgerton
      sternly, asked him if he felt pain.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What hurts you, Mr. Edgerton? Where is your pain?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The harsh and very loud tones which he employed, had the effect which I
      have no doubt he intended. The other came to complete consciousness in a
      moment.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Pain!&rdquo; said he&mdash;&ldquo;no! I feel no pain. I feel feeble only.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And he strove to rise from the ground as he spoke.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do not attempt it,&rdquo; said Kingsley&mdash;&ldquo;you are not able. Wharton, my
      good fellow, will you run back to town, and bring a carriage?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It will not need,&rdquo; said Edgerton, striving again to rise, and staggering
      up with difficulty.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It will need. You must not overtask yourself. The walk is a long one
      before us.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Meantime, Wharton was already on his way. It was a tedious interval which
      followed before his return with the carriage, which found considerable
      difficulty in picking a track through the woods. Julia, after recovery,
      had wandered off about a hundred yards from the party. She betrayed no
      concern&mdash;no uneasiness&mdash;made no inquiries after Edgerton, of
      whose condition she knew nothing&mdash;and, by this very course, convinced
      me that she was conscious of too deep an interest in his fate to trust her
      lips in referring to it. All that she said to me was, that &ldquo;she had been
      so terrified on seeing him fall, that she did not even know that she had
      screamed.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Natural enough!&rdquo; said my demon. &ldquo;Had she been able to have controlled her
      utterance, she would have taken precious good care to have maintained the
      silence of the grave. But her feelings were too strong for her policy.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And I took this reasoning for gospel.
    </p>
    <p>
      The carriage came. Edgerton was put into it, but Julia positively refused
      to ride. She insisted that she was perfectly equal to the walk and walk
      she would. I was pleased with this determination, but not willing to
      appear pleased. I expostulated with her even angrily, but found her
      incorrigible. Chagrin and disappointment were obvious enough on the face
      of William Edgerton.
    </p>
    <p>
      I took my seat beside him, and left Kingsley and Wharton to escort my wife
      home. We had scarcely got in motion before a rash determination seized my
      mind.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You must go home with me, Edgerton. It will not do, while you are in this
      feeble state, to remain at a public tavern.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He said something very faintly about crowding and inconveniencing us.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Pshaw&mdash;room enough&mdash;and Julia can be your nurse.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      His eyes closed, he sunk back in the carriage, and a deep sigh escaped
      him. I fancied that he had a second time fainted; but I soon discovered
      that his faintness was simply the sudden sense of an overcoming pleasure.
      I knit my teeth spasmodically together; I cursed him in the bitterness of
      my heart, but said nothing. It was a feeling of desperation that had
      prompted the rash resolution which I had taken.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;At least,&rdquo; I muttered to myself, &ldquo;it will bring these damning doubts to a
      final trial. If they have been fools heretofore, opportunity will serve to
      madden them. We shall see&mdash;we shall know all very soon;&mdash;and
      then!&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ay, then!
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0044" id="link2HCH0044"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XLIV. &mdash; THE DAMNING LETTER.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Mrs Porterfield, good old lady, half blind, half deaf, infirm and gouty,
      but very good natured, easily complied with my request to accommodate my
      friend. My friend!&mdash;She soon put one of her bed-rooms in order, and
      Edgerton was in quiet possession of it sometime before the pedestrians
      came home. When my wife was told of what I had done, she was perfectly
      aghast. Her air of chagrin was well put on and excellently worn. But she
      said nothing. Kingsley wore a face of unusual gravity.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are either the most wilful or the most indifferent husband in the
      world,&rdquo; was his whispered remark to me as he bade me good night, refusing
      to remain for supper.
    </p>
    <p>
      I said something to my wife about tending Edgerton&mdash;seeing to his
      wants&mdash;nursing him if he remained unwell, and so forth She looked at
      me with a face of intense sadness, but made no reply.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She is too happy for speech,&rdquo; said my demon; &ldquo;and such faces are easily
      made for such an occasion.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I went in to Edgerton after a brief space; I found him feeble, complaining
      of chill. His hands felt feverish. I advised quiet and sent off for a
      physician. I sat with him until the physician came, but I observed that my
      presence seemed irksome to him. He answered me in monosyllables only; his
      eyes, meanwhile, being averted, his countenance that of one excessively
      weary and impatient for release. The physician prescribed and left him, as
      I did myself. I thought he needed repose and desired to be alone. To my
      great surprise he followed me in less than half an hour into the
      supper-room, where he stubbornly sat out the evening. He refused to take
      the physic prescribed for him and really did not now appear to need it.
      His eyes were lighted up with unusual animation, his cheeks had an
      improved color, and without engaging very actively in the conversation,
      what he said was said with a degree of spirit quite uncommon with him
      during the latter days of our intimacy.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Wharton spent the evening with us, and the ball of talk was chiefly
      sustained by him and myself. My wife said little, nothing save when spoken
      to, and wore a countenance of greater gravity than ever. It seemed that
      Edgerton made some effort to avoid any particularity in his manner, yet
      seldom did I turn my eyes without detecting his in keen examination of my
      wife's countenance. At such times, his glance usually fell to the ground,
      but toward the close of evening, he almost seemed to despise observation,
      or&mdash;which was more probable&mdash;was not conscious of it&mdash;for
      his gaze became fixed with a religious earnestness, which no look of mine
      could possibly divert or unfix. He solicited my wife to play on the
      guitar, but she declined, until requested by Mrs. Porterfield, when she
      took up the instrument passively, and sung to it one of those ordinary
      negro-songs which are now so shockingly popular. I was surprised at this,
      for I well knew that she heartily detested the taste and spirit in which
      such things were conceived. Under the tuition of my demon, I immediately
      assumed this to be another proof of the decline of her delicacy. And yet,
      though I did not think of this at the time, she might have employed the
      coarse effusion simply as an antidote against the predominance of a morbid
      sentimentalism. There is a moment in the history of the heart's suffering,
      when the smallest utterance of the lips, or movement of the form, or
      expression of the eye, is prompted by some prevailing policy&mdash;some
      motive which the excited sensibilities deem of importance to their
      desires.
    </p>
    <p>
      She retired soon. Her departure was followed by that of Edgerton first,
      and next of Wharton. Mrs. Porterfield had already gone. I was alone at the
      entrance of our cottage. Not alone! My demon was with me&mdash;suggestive
      of his pangs as ever&mdash;full of subtlety, and filling me with the
      darkest imaginings. The destroyer of my peace was in my dwelling. My wife
      may or may not be innocent. Happy for her if she is, but how can that be
      known? It mattered little to me in the excited mood which possessed me.
      Let any man fancy, as I did, that one, partaking of his hospitality, lying
      in the chamber which adjoined his own, yet meditated the last injury in
      the power of man to inflict against the peace and honor of his protector.
      Let him fancy this, and then ask what would be his own feelings&mdash;what
      his course?
    </p>
    <p>
      Still, there is a sentiment of justice which is natural to every bosom
      with whom education has not been utter perversion. I believed much against
      Edgerton; I suspected my wife; I had seen much to offend my affections;
      much to alarm my fears; yet I KNEW nothing which was conclusive. That last
      event, the occurrence of the afternoon, seemed to prove not that the two
      were guilty, but that my wife loved the man who meditated guilt. This
      belief, doubtful so long, and against which I had really striven, seemed
      now to be concluded. I had heard her scream; I had seen her tenderly
      sustaining his form; I had felt her emotions, when, the danger being over,
      her feminine nature gained the ascendancy and she fainted in my arms. I
      could no longer doubt, that if she was still pure in mind, she was no
      longer insensible to a passion which must lessen that purity with every
      added moment of its permitted exercise. Still, even with this conviction,
      something more was necessary to justify me in what I designed. There must
      be no doubt. I must see. I must have sufficient proof, for, as my
      vengeance shall be unsparing, my provocation must be complete. That it
      might be so I had brought Edgerton into the house. Something more was
      necessary. Time and opportunity must be allowed him. This I insisted on,
      though, more than once, as I walked under the dark whispering groves which
      girdled our cottage, and caught a glimpse of the light in Edgerton's
      chamber, my demon urged me to go in and strangle him. I had strength to
      resist this suggestion, but the struggle was a long one.
    </p>
    <p>
      I did not soon retire to rest. When I did, I still remained sleepless. But
      Julia slept. In her sleep she threw herself on my bosom, and seemed to
      cling about and clasp me as if with some fear of separation. Had I not
      fancied that this close embrace was meant for another than myself, I had
      been more indulgent to the occasional moanings of distress that escaped
      her lips. But, thinking as I did, I forced her from me, and in doing so
      she wakened.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Edward,&rdquo; she exclaimed on wakening, &ldquo;is it you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Who should it be?&rdquo; I demanded&mdash;all my suspicions renewed by her
      question.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am so glad. I have had such a dream. Oh! Edward, I dreamed that you
      were killing me!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ha! what could have occasioned such a dream?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      My demon suggested, at this moment, that her dream had been occasioned by
      a consciousness of what her guilty fancies deserved. But she replied
      promptly:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nay, I know not. It was the strangest fancy. I thought that you pursued
      me along the river&mdash;that my foot slipped and I fell among the bushes,
      where you caught me, and it was just when you were strangling me that I
      wakened.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Your dream was occasioned by the affair of the afternoon. Was nobody
      present but ourselves?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;there was a man at a little distance beyond us, and he seemed
      to be running from you also.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A man! who was he?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know exactly&mdash;his back was turned, but it seemed as if it
      was Mr. Edgerton.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ha! Mr. Edgerton!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A deep silence followed. She had spoken her reply firmly, but so slowly as
      to convince me of the mental reluctance which she felt in uttering this
      part of the dream. When the imagination is excited, how small are the
      events that confirm its ascendency, and stimulate its progress. This dream
      seemed to me as significant as any of the signs that informed the ancient
      augurs. It bore me irresistibly forward in the direction of my previous
      thoughts. I began to see the path&mdash;dark, dismal&mdash;perhaps bloody&mdash;which
      lay before me. I began to feel the deed, already in my soul, which destiny
      was about to require me to perform. A crime, half meditated, is already
      half committed. This is the danger of brooding upon the precipice of evil
      thoughts. A moment's dizziness&mdash;a single plunge&mdash;and all is
      over!
    </p>
    <p>
      I doubt whether Julia slept much the remainder of the night. I know that I
      did not. She had her consciousness as well as mine. THAT I now know. The
      question&mdash;&ldquo;was her consciousness a guilty one?&rdquo; That was the only
      question which remained for me!
    </p>
    <p>
      The next morning I saw Edgerton. He looked quite as well as on the
      previous night, but professed to feel otherwise&mdash;declined coming
      forth to breakfast and begged me to send the physician to him on my way to
      the office. I immediately conjectured that this was mere practice, for he
      had not taken the medicine which had been prescribed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He must keep sick to keep HERE,&rdquo; said my demon. &ldquo;He can have no pretext,
      otherwise, to stay!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      When I was about to leave the house Julia followed me to the door.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't forget to bring mother's letter with you,&rdquo; was her parting
      direction. I had not been half an hour at the office before a little
      servant-girl, who tended in the house, came to me with a message from her,
      requesting that the letter might be sent by her.
    </p>
    <p>
      This earnestness struck me with surprise. I remembered the expression in
      my wife's face the day before when I told her the letter had been
      received, I now recalled to mind the fact, that, on no occasion, had she
      ever shown me any of her mother's letters; though nothing surely would
      have seemed more natural, as she knew how keen was my anxiety to hear at
      all times from the old maternal city.
    </p>
    <p>
      My suspicions began to warm, and I resolved upon another act of baseness
      in obedience to the counsel of my evil spirit. I pretended to look awhile
      for the letter, but finally dismissed the girl, saying that I had mislaid
      it, but would bring it home with me when I came to dinner. The moment she
      had gone I examined this precious document. It was sealed with one of
      those gum wafers which are stuck on the outside of the envelope. In
      turning it over, as if everything was prepared to gratify my wish, I
      discovered that one section of the wafer had nearly parted from the paper.
      To the upper section of the fold it adhered closely. To the lower it was
      scarcely attached at all, and seemed never to have been as well fastened
      as the upper.
    </p>
    <p>
      The temptation was irresistible. A very slight effort enabled me to
      complete the separation without soiling the paper or fracturing the seal.
      This was all done within my desk, the leaf of the desk being raised and
      resting upon my head. In this position I could easily close the desk, in
      the event of any intrusion, without suffering the intruder to see in what
      I had been engaged. Thus guarded I proceeded to read the precious epistle,
      which I found very much what I should have expected from such a woman. It
      said a great deal about her neighbors and her neighbors' dresses; and how
      her dear Delaney was sometimes &ldquo;obstropolous,&rdquo; though in the end a mighty
      good man; and much more over which I hurried with all the rapidity of
      disgust. But there was matter that made me linger. One or two sentences
      thrown into the postscript contained a volume. I read, with lifted hair
      and a convulsed bosom, the following passage:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Delaney tells me that Bill Edgerton has gone to travel. He says to
      Tennessee. But I know better. I know he can't keep from you, let him try
      his best. But be on your guard, Julia. Don't let him get too free. Your
      husband's a jealous man, and if he was once to dream of the truth, he'd
      just as leave shoot him as look at him. I thought at one time he'd have
      guessed the truth before. So far you've played your cards nicely, but that
      was when I was by you, to tell you how. I feel quite ticklish when I think
      of you, and remember you've got nobody now to consult with. All I can say
      is, keep close. It would be the most terrible thing if Clifford should
      find out or even suspect. He wouldn't spare either of you. It's better for
      a woman in this country to drag on and be wretched, than to expose herself
      to shame, for no one cares for her after that. Be sure and burn this the
      moment you've read it. I would not have it seen for the world. I only
      write it as a matter of duty, for I can't forget that I'm your mother,
      though I must say, Julia, there were times when you have not acted the
      part of a daughter.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Precious, voluminous postscript! Considerate mother! &ldquo;Be on your guard,
      Julia. Don't let him get too free!&rdquo; Prudent, motherly counsel! &ldquo;You've
      played your cards nicely.&rdquo; Nice lady! &ldquo;I feel quite ticklish!&rdquo; Elegant
      sensibilities!
    </p>
    <p>
      Enough! The evil was done. Here was another piece of damning testimony,
      indirect but conclusive, to show that I was bedevilled. I refolded the
      letter, but I could not place my lips to the wafer. The very letter seemed
      to breathe of poison. Faugh! I put it from me, went to the basin, and
      wetting the end of my finger, sufficiently softened the gum to make it
      more effectually fasten the letter than when I had received it. This done,
      I proceeded to the business of the day with what appetite was left me.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0045" id="link2HCH0045"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XLV. &mdash; VERGE OF THE PRECIPICE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      I do not know how I got through with the business of that day. Even in my
      weakness I was possessed of a singular degree of strength. I saw Kingsley,
      Wharton, and all of the parties whom we met the day before. We came to a
      final decision on the subject of Kingsley's claims; I took down the heads
      of several papers which were to be drawn up; the terms of sale and
      transfer, bounds and characteristics of the land to be conveyed; and
      engaged in the discussion of the various topics which were involved in
      these transactions, with as keen a sense of business, I suspect, as any
      among them. The habit of suppressing my feelings availed me sufficiently
      under the present circumstances. Kingsley said nothing on the subject of
      yesterday's adventure, nor was I in the mood to refer to it. With some
      effort I was cheerful; spoke freely of indifferent topics, and pleased
      myself with the idea of my own firmness, while persuading my hearers of my
      good humor and my legal ability. I do not deny that I paid for these
      proofs of stoicism. Who does not? There is no such thing as suppressing
      passions which are already in action&mdash;at least, there is no such
      thing as suppressing them long. If the summer tempest keeps off to-day it
      will come to-morrow, and its force and volume is always in due proportion
      to the delay in its utterance. The solitudes of the forest heard my groans
      and agonies when man did not&mdash;and the venom which I kept from my
      lips, overflowed and poisoned the very sources of life and happiness
      within my heart.
    </p>
    <p>
      I gave the letter to Julia without a word. She did not look at me while
      extending the hand to receive it, and hurried to her chamber without
      breaking the seal. I watched her departing form with a vague, painful
      emotion of inquiry, such as would possess the bosom of one, looking on a
      dear object, with whom he felt that a disruption was hourly threatened of
      every earthly tie. That day she ate no dinner. Her brow was clouded
      throughout the meal. Edgerton was present, seemingly as well as at his
      first arrival. I had learned casually from Mrs. Porterfield that he had
      been in our little parlor all the morning; while another remark from the
      good old lady gave me a new idea of the employment of my wife.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This writing,&rdquo; said she, addressing the latter, &ldquo;does your eyes no good.
      Indeed they look as if you had been crying over your task.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What writing?&rdquo; I asked, looking at Julia, She blushed, but said nothing,
      and the blush passed off, leaving the sadness more distinct than ever.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, she has been writing whole sheets for the last two mornings. I went
      in this morning to bring her out to assist me in entertaining Mr.
      Edgerton, who looked so lonesome; and I do assure you I thought at first,
      from the quantity of writing, that you had given her some of your
      law-papers to do. The table was covered with it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; said I&mdash;&ldquo;this must be looked into. It will not do for the
      wife to take the husband's business from him. It looks mischievous, Mrs.
      Porterfield&mdash;there's something wrong about it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Indeed there must be, Mr. Clifford, for only see how very sad it makes
      her. I declare, she looks this last few weeks like a very different woman.
      She does nothing now but mope. When she first came here she seemed to me
      so cheerful and happy.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      All this was so much additional wormwood to my bitter. The change in
      Julia, which had even struck this blind old lady, corresponded exactly
      with the date of Edgerton's arrival. When I saw the earnest tenderness in
      his countenance as he watched her, while Mrs. Porterfield was speaking, I
      ceased to feel any sympathy for the intense sadness which I yet could not
      but see in hers. I turned away, and leaving the table soon after, went to
      our chamber, but the traces of writing were no longer to be seen. The
      voluminous manuscripts had all been carefully removed. I was about to
      leave the chamber when Julia met me at the door.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come back; sit with me,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Why do you go off in such a hurry
      always? Once it was not so, Edward.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What! are you for the honeymoon again?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do not smile so, and speak so irreverently!&rdquo; she said, with a reproachful
      earnestness that certainly seemed to me very strange, thinking of her as I
      did. My evil spirit was silent. He lacked readiness to account for it. But
      he was not unadroit, and moved me to change the ground.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But what long writing is this, Julia?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! you are curious?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Scarcely.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;TELL me that you are?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What! at the expense of truth?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! but to gratify my desire. I hoped you were; but, curious or not, it
      is for you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Let me see it, then.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not yet; it is not ready.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What! shall there be more of it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, a good deal.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Indeed! but why take this labor? Why not tell me what you have to say?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I wish I could, but I can not. You do not encourage me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What encouragement do you wish to speak to your husband?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, much! Stay with me, dear husband.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That will keep you from your writing.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! perhaps it will render it unnecessary.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;At all events it will keep me from mine;&rdquo; and I prepared to go. She put
      her hand upon my shoulder&mdash;looked into my eyes pleadingly&mdash;hers
      were dewy wet&mdash;and spoke:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do not go-stay with me dear husband, do stay. Stay only for half an
      hour.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Why did I not stay? I should ask that question of myself in vain. When the
      heart grows perverse, it acquires a taste for wilfulness. I, myself,
      longed to stay; could I have been persuaded that she certainly desired it,
      I should have found my sweetest pleasure in remaining. But there was the
      rub&mdash;that doubt! all that she said, looked, did, seemed, through the
      medium of the blind heart, to be fraudulent.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She would disguise her anxiety, that you should be gone. Leave her, and
      in twenty minutes she and Edgerton will be together.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Such was the whisper of my demon. I did leave her. I went forth for an
      hour into the woods&mdash;returned suddenly and found them together! They
      were playing chess, Mrs. Porterfield, with all her spectacles, watching
      the game. I did not ask, and did not know, till afterward, that the
      express solicitation of the old lady had drawn her from her chamber, and
      placed her at the table. The conjecture of the evil spirit proved so far
      correct, and this increased my confidence in his whispers. Alas! how
      readily do we yield our faith to the spirit of hate! how slow to believe
      the pure and gentle assurances of love!
    </p>
    <p>
      Three days passed after this fashion. Edgerton no longer expressed
      indisposition, yet he made no offer to depart. I took care that neither
      word nor action should remind him of his trespass. I gave the parties
      every opportunity, and exhibited the manner of an indifference which was
      free from all disquiet&mdash;all suspicion. The sadness, meanwhile,
      increased upon the countenance of Julia. She gazed at me in particular
      with a look of earnestness amounting to distress. This I ascribed to the
      strength of her passions. There was even at moments a harshness in her
      tones when addressing me now, which was unusual to her. I found some
      reason for this, equally unfavorable to her fidelity. After dinner I said
      to Edgerton:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are scarcely strong enough for a bout at the bottle. I take wine with
      Kingsley this afternoon. He has commissioned me to ask you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I dare not venture, but that should not keep you away.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It will not,&rdquo; I said indifferently.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Thank him for me, if you please, but tell him it will not do for one so
      much an invalid as myself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Very good!&rdquo; and I left him, and joined Kingsley. The business of this
      friend being now in a fair train for final adjustment, he was preparing
      for his return to Texas. He had not been at my lodgings since Edgerton's
      arrival in M&mdash;, but we had seen each other, nevertheless, almost
      every day at his or at my office. Our afternoon was rather merry than
      cheerful. Heaven knows I was in no mood to be a bon compagnon, but I took
      sufficient pains that Kingsley should not suspect I had any reasons for
      being otherwise. I had my jest&mdash;I emptied my bottle&mdash;I said my
      good things, and seemed to say them without effort. Kingsley, always
      cheerful and strong-minded, was in his best vein, and mingling wit and
      reflection happily together, maintained the ball of conversation with
      equal ease and felicity. He had the happy knack of saying happy things
      quietly&mdash;of waiting for, and returning the ball, without running
      after it. At another time, I should have been content simply to have
      provoked him. Now, I was quite too miserable not to seek employment; and
      to disguise feelings, which I should have been ashamed to expose, I
      contrived to take the lead and almost grew voluble in the frequency of my
      utterance. Perhaps, if Kingsley failed in any respect as a philosopher, it
      was in forbearing to look with sufficient keenness of observation into the
      heart of his neighbor. He evidently did not see into mine. He was deceived
      by my manner. He credited all my fun to good faith, and gravely pronounced
      me to be a fortunate fellow.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How?&rdquo; I demanded with a momentary cessation of the jest. His gravity and&mdash;to
      me&mdash;the strange error in such an observation&mdash;excited my
      curiosity.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In your freedom from jealousy.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh! that, eh? But why should I be jealous?'
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is not exactly why a man should be jealous&mdash;but why, knowing what
      men are, usually, that you are not. Nine men in ten would be so under your
      circumstances?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How, what circumstances?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;With Edgerton in your house&mdash;evidently fond of your wife, you leave
      them utterly to themselves. You bring him into your house unnecessarily,
      and give him every opportunity. I still think you risk everything
      imprudently. You may pay for it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I felt a strange sickness at my heart. I felt that the flame was beginning
      to boil up within me. The perilous turning-point of passion&mdash;the
      crisis of strength and endurance&mdash;was at hand My eyes settled
      gloomily upon the table. I was silent longer than usual. I felt THAT, and
      looked up. The keen glance of Kingsley was upon me. It would not do to
      suffer him to read my feelings. I replied with some precipitation:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I see, Kingsley, you are not cared of your prejudices against Edgerton.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am not&mdash;I have seen nothing to cure me. But my prejudice against
      him, has nothing to do with my opinion of your prudence. Were it any other
      man, the case would be the same.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, but I do not think it so clear that Edgerton loves my wife more
      than is natural and proper.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Of the naturalness of his love I say nothing&mdash;perhaps, nothing could
      be more natural. But that he does love her, and loves her as no married
      woman should be loved, by another than her husband, is clear enough.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Suppose, then, it be as you say! So long as he does nothing improperly,
      there is nothing to be said. There is no evil.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, but there is evil. There is danger.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How? I do not see.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Suppose your wife makes the same discovery which other persons have made?
      Suppose she finds out that Edgerton loves her?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well&mdash;what then?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Indeed! Why, agreeable to that doctrine, there could be no security from
      principle. There could be no virtue certain&mdash;nay, not even love.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do not mistake me. When I say SHE would be influenced&mdash;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 passion of Edgerton&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;remedy it as soon as you can.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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&mdash;if it be only to afford the necessary
      degree of relief to my mind. Enough has been seen to excite suspicion&mdash;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But I still think, Clifford&mdash;&rdquo; he began.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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&mdash;God have mercy upon
      both of them for I shall not. Good night!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But why will you go? Stay awhile longer. Be not rash&mdash;do nothing
      precipitately, Clifford.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I smiled bitterly in replying:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You need not fear me. Have I not proved myself patient&mdash;patient
      until you pronounced 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&mdash;how dear I will not say; I will
      be deliberate for her sake&mdash;for my own. I will be sure, very sure&mdash;quite
      sure;&mdash;but, once sure!&mdash;Good night.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Kingsley followed me to the door. His last injunctions exhorted me to
      forbearance and deliberation. I silenced them by a significant repetition
      of the single words, &ldquo;Good night&mdash;good night!&rdquo; and hurried, with
      every feeling of anxiety and jealousy awakened, in the direction of my
      cottage.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0046" id="link2HCH0046"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XLVI. &mdash; THE UNBRIDLED MADNESS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;The scream&mdash;the
      look&mdash;the secrecy! What a history seemed to be compressed in these
      few topics.
    </p>
    <p>
      I hurried forward&mdash;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&mdash;this gloom and excitement in my heart&mdash;were
      not for nothing. Every gust of wind brought to me some whisper of fear;
      and there seemed a constant murmur among the trees&mdash;one burden&mdash;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&mdash;how sickly grows sunlight and
      moonlight, in our despair&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      They were together! alone!&mdash;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&mdash;nothing could be more clearly visible&mdash;the hand of
      Edgerton was laid upon hers. She instantly withdrew it, and looked upward.
      Her face was the color of carnation&mdash;flushed&mdash;so said my demon,
      with the overwhelming passions in her breast. The next moment the table
      was thrust aside&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0047" id="link2HCH0047"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XLVII. &mdash; FATAL SILENCE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      In this state I lay. How long I know not&mdash;it must have been for
      several hours. I was brought to consciousness by a sense of cold. I was
      benumbed&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Horrible thought! That I should have failed at that trying moment. I knew
      everything&mdash;I knew nothing. It was still possible that Julia had
      repulsed him. I had seen HIS audacity only&mdash;was it followed by HER
      guilt? How shall that be known? I could answer this question as Kingsley
      would have answered it.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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&mdash;that she deems it no
      insult.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      That, then, shall be the test! So I determined. Edgerton must be punished.
      There is no escape. But for her&mdash;if she does not seek the earliest
      occasion to reveal the truth, she is guilty beyond doubt&mdash;doomed
      beyond redemption.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There is proof of coolness and deliberation here!&rdquo; 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&mdash;as sudden as it was terrible&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why did you stay so late&mdash;why not come home sooner, dear husband?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hypocrite!&rdquo; I muttered while stooping down for the chest.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are sick&mdash;you have your spasms!&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If she is prepared to dishonor, she is prepared to destroy you!&rdquo; said my
      familiar.
    </p>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;Shall the adulterer alone perish? Shall the adultress escape?&rdquo;
       The fiend answered with tremulous but stern passion&mdash;&ldquo;She shall
      surely die!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If she reveals not the truth in season,&rdquo; I said in my secret soul; &ldquo;if
      she claims not protection at my hands against the adulterer, she shall
      share his fate!&rdquo; 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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;appearances
      which I naturally attributed to guilt. For&mdash;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&mdash;prayed for as
      sincerely as the dying man prays for respite, and the temporary remission
      of his doom.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;an event
      painful to us both&mdash;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&mdash;nay, she even went so far as
      tenderly to upbraid me that our moments of endearment were so few;&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      In silence she suffered me to leave her for the breakfast-table. She
      looked, it is true&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;all went for nothing in her failure to
      utter the one only, and all-important communication.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0048" id="link2HCH0048"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XLVIII. &mdash; TOO LATE!
    </h2>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; I said with a feeling of irony, which did not make itself apparent
      in my speech&mdash;&ldquo;you are tired of our hospitality, Edgerton? We have
      not treated you well, I am afraid.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he muttered faintly, &ldquo;too well. I have every reason to be gratified
      and grateful. No reason to complain.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What have you got there?&rdquo; demanded Kingsley. &ldquo;Something for digestion,&rdquo;
       was my reply. &ldquo;We may be kept late.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are wise enough to be a traveller,&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I had already given the driver instructions. He carried us into the
      loneliest spot of woods some four miles from M&mdash;&mdash;, and in a
      direction very far from the beaten track.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What brings you into this quarter?&rdquo; demanded Kingsley. &ldquo;What business
      have you here?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We stop here,&rdquo; I said as the carriage drove up. &ldquo;I have some land to
      choose and measure here. Shall we alight, gentlemen?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Kingsley,&rdquo; I said without further preliminaries, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How! an affair of honor? Is this inevitable&mdash;necessary, Clifford?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Absolutely!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In no way to be adjusted?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In but one! This man has dishonored me in the dearest relations of my
      household.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ha! can it be?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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&mdash;as
      one shoots down the reptile that crawls to the cradle of his children. I
      give him an equal chance for life.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is only what I feared!&rdquo; said Kingsley, looking at Edgerton as he
      spoke.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I will not fight you, Clifford!&rdquo; exclaimed the criminal with husky
      accents.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You must!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I can not&mdash;I dare not&mdash;I will not! You may shoot me down where
      I stand. I have wronged you. I dare not lift weapon at your breast.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Wretch! say not this!&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;You must make the atonement.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Be it so! Shoot me! You are right! I am ready to die.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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&mdash;our
      boyhood together&mdash;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He shook his head while he repeated:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! I can not. Say no more, Clifford. I deserve death!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He must die!&rdquo; I exclaimed fiercely.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, that is certain!&rdquo; replied the other. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are not a coward, William Edgerton?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Coward!&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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&mdash;is
      still a torture. It can not now be otherwise. Take it&mdash;you will see
      me smile in the death agony.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hear me William Edgerton, and submit to my will. You know not half your
      wrong. You drove me from my home&mdash;my birthplace. When I was about to
      sacrifice you for your previous invasion of my peace in C&mdash;, I looked
      on your old father, I heard the story of his disappointment&mdash;his
      sorrows&mdash;and you were the cause. I determined to spare you&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;any atonement&mdash;which I may demand?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, Clifford!&rdquo; he replied, after a pause in which he seemed subdued with
      shame and remorse. &ldquo;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&mdash;. Had
      I known that!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Kingsley offered him the pistol.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; he said, putting it aside. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mine must have preference!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! no! no!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I thank you, Clifford. Come for me at four to my lodgings&mdash;bring Mr.
      Kingsley with you. You will find me ready to atone, and to save you every
      unnecessary pang in doing so.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I found Julia in bed. She complained of headache and fever. She had
      already taken medicine&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;to awaken her sensibilities&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Time sped&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not since nine o'clock,&rdquo; was my answer. &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nothing. But are you going to your office now, dear husband?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not directly. I shall possibly be there in the course of the afternoon.
      What do you wish? Why do you ask?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, nothing,&rdquo; she replied; &ldquo;but I will tell you to-morrow why I ask.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;To-morrow!&mdash;tell me now, if it be anything of moment. Now! now is
      the appointed time!&rdquo; The serious language of Scripture, became natural to
      me in the agonizing situation in which I stood.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! no! to-morrow will do. I will not gratify your curiosity. You are too
      curious, husband&rdquo; and she turned from me, smiling, upon the couch.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;for I knew then what I was doing&mdash;but
      it was just the feeling to make me doubtful how long I should be secure
      from madness.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;To-morrow will not do&rdquo; I muttered to myself as I descended the stairs.
      &ldquo;Too late!&mdash;too late!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0049" id="link2HCH0049"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XLIX. &mdash; SUICIDE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Impossible!&rdquo; I exclaimed, leaping from the carriage. &ldquo;I know Edgerton
      better. I can not think he would fly, after the solemn pledge he gave me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You have only thought too well of him always,&rdquo; said the other, as we
      entered the house.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Let us go to the room together,&rdquo; I said to the landlord. &ldquo;I fear
      something wrong.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, so do I,&rdquo; responded the publican. &ldquo;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,&rdquo;&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;his
      eyeballs dilated&mdash;his mouth distorted&mdash;but the neck remained
      unbroken. He had died by suffocation. I pass over the ordinary proceedings&mdash;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 &ldquo;crowner's&rdquo; inquest. A
      paper, addressed to the landlord, was submitted to them, and formed the
      burden of their report.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I die by my own hands,&rdquo; said this document, &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0050" id="link2HCH0050"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER L. &mdash; CONFESSION OF EDGERTON.
    </h2>
    <p>
      When within his chamber, he carefully fastened the door and placed a
      packet in my hands.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This is addressed to you,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;a small billet,
      unsealed&mdash;bore the name of my wife upon it.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That,&rdquo; I inly (sic) muttered, &ldquo;she shall never read!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Shall not! Ha! ha! She can not! can not!&rdquo; 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:&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
       &ldquo;My wife! my wife! What wife?&mdash;I have no wife!
       Oh, insupportable&mdash;oh, heavy hour!&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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&mdash;her guilt and the guilt of
      Edgerton. I clutched the papers&mdash;brushed the big drops from my
      forehead, and read.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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&mdash;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!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Perhaps, you know all. From what escaped you this morning, it would seem
      so. You knew of my madness when in C&mdash;&mdash;; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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.&rdquo; Would to God, for all our sakes, that their
      submission had been final!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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&mdash;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;&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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&mdash;so I infer
      from what you said this morning&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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&mdash;ignorant of your merciful forbearance toward my unhappy parents&mdash;for
      I can regard your forbearance with respect to myself as arising only from
      your consideration of them&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The last night&mdash;the eve of your departure from C&mdash;-, 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&mdash;to
      say&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;'Fly, madman, for your life! My husband is on the stairs.'
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You were gone;&mdash;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&mdash;and it seems probable&mdash;it
      adds something to the agony of life&mdash;it will assist me in the work of
      atonement&mdash;it will better reconcile me to the momentary struggle of
      death.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My ill health increased with the absence of the only object for whom
      health was now desirable. To see her again&mdash;to the last&mdash;for I
      now knew that that last could not be very remote&mdash;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&mdash;nay, even a frown&mdash;has many a
      time prompted stronger convictions than this, in wiser heads, and firmer
      hearts than mine.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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&mdash;I
      know not what she answered&mdash;yet the tones of her voice, sharp with
      Horror and indignation, are even now ringing in my ears!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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&mdash;too happy if I have not been also a curse to her. What I
      have written is the truth&mdash;sadly felt&mdash;solemnly spoken&mdash;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!&mdash;and
      may the presiding spirit of your home hereafter, be peace and love!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0051" id="link2HCH0051"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER LI. &mdash; DOUBTS&mdash;SUMMONS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The billet which was addressed to my wife was in the following language:&mdash;&ldquo;Lady,
      on the verge of the grave, having sincerely repented of the offense I have
      given you, I implore you to pity and to pardon. A sense of guilt and shame
      weighs me down to earth. You can not apply a harsher judgment to my
      conduct than I feel it deserves; but I am crushed already. You will not
      trample the prostrate. In a few hours my body will be buried in the dust.
      My soul is already there. But, though writhing, I do not curse; and still
      loving, I yet repent. In my last moments I implore you to forgive!
      forgive! forgive!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      This was all, and I considered the two documents with keen and conflicting
      feelings. There was an earnestness&mdash;a sincerity about them, which I
      could not altogether discredit. He had freely avowed his own errors; but
      he had not spoken for hers. I did not dare to admit the impression which
      he evidently wished to convey of her entire innocence, not only from the
      practices, but the very thoughts of guilt. It is in compliance with a
      point of honor that the professed libertine yet endeavors to excuse and
      save the partner of his wantonness. In this light I regarded all those
      parts of his narrative which went to extenuate her conduct. There was one
      part of her conduct, indeed, which, as it exceeded his ability to account
      for, was beyond his ability to excuse&mdash;namely, her strange
      concealment of his insolence. This was the grand fault which, it appeared
      to me, was conclusive of all the rest. It was now my policy to believe in
      this fault wholly. If I did not, where was I? what was my condition?&mdash;my
      misery?
    </p>
    <p>
      I sat brooding, with these documents open before me on the table, when
      Kingsley tapped at the door. I bade him enter, and put the papers in his
      hands. He read them in silence, laid them down without a word, and looked
      me with a grave composure in the face.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What do you think of it?&rdquo; I demanded.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That he speaks the truth,&rdquo; he replied.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, no doubt&mdash;so far as he himself is concerned.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I should think it all true.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Indeed! I think not.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why do you doubt, and what?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I doubt those portions in which he insists upon my wife's integrity.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Wherefore?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There are many reasons; the principal of which is her singular
      concealment of the truth. She suffers a strange man to offend her virtue
      with the most atrocious familiarities, and says nothing to her husband,
      who, alone, could have redressed the wrong and remedied the impertinence.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That certainly is a staggering fact.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;According to his own admission, she warns him to fly from the wrath of
      her husband, to which his audacity had exposed him&mdash;warns him, in her
      night-dress, and from the window of her chamber.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;True, true! I had forgotten that.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Look at all the circumstances. He haunts the house&mdash;according to his
      own showing, persecutes her with attentions, which are so marked, that,
      when he finds her husband ignorant of them, leads him to the conclusion&mdash;which
      is natural&mdash;that they are not displeasing to the wife. He avails
      himself of the privileges of the waltz, at the marriage of Mrs. Delaney,
      to gratify his lustful anticipations. He presses her arm and waist with
      his d&mdash;&mdash;d fingers. Rides home with her, and, according to his
      story, takes other liberties, which she baffles and sets aside. But, mark
      the truth. Though she requires him to set her down in the street&mdash;though
      she makes terms for his forbearance&mdash;a wife making terms with a
      libertine&mdash;yet he evidently sees her into the house, and when she is
      taken sick, hurries for the mother and the physician. He tells just enough
      of the story to convict himself, but suppresses everything which may
      convict her. How know I that this resistance in the carriage was more than
      a sham? How know I that he did not attend her in the house? That they did
      not dabble together on their way through the dark piazza&mdash;along the
      stairs?&mdash;Nay, what proof is there that he did not find his way, with
      polluting purpose, into the very chamber?&mdash;that chamber, from which,
      not three weeks after, she bade him fly to avoid my wrath! What makes her
      so precious of his life&mdash;the life of one who pursues her with lust
      and dishonor&mdash;if she does not burn with like passions? But there is
      more.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Here I told him of the letter of Mrs. Delaney, in which that permanent
      beldame counsels her daughter, less against the passion itself, than
      against the imprudent exhibition of it. It was clear that the mother had
      seen what had escaped my eyes. It was clear that the mother was convinced
      of the attachment of the daughter for this man. Now, the attachment being
      shown, what followed from the concealment of the indignities to which
      Edgerton had subjected her, but that she was pleased with them, and did
      not feel them to be such. These indignities are persevered in&mdash;are
      frequently repeated. Our footsteps are followed from one country to
      another. The husband's hours of absence are noted. His departure is the
      invariable signal for them to meet. They meet. His hands paddle with hers;
      his arms grasp her waist. True, we are told by him, that she resists; but
      it is natural that he should make this declaration. Its truth is combated
      by the fact that, of these insults, SHE says nothing. That fact is
      everything. That one fact involves all the rest. The woman who conceals
      such a history, shares in the guilt.
    </p>
    <p>
      Kingsley assented to these conclusions.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yet,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;there is an air of truthfulness about these papers&mdash;this
      narrative&mdash;that I should be pleased to believe, even if I could not;&mdash;that
      I should believe for your sake, Clifford, if for no other reason.
      Honestly, after all you have said and shown&mdash;with all the unexplained
      and perhaps unexplainable particulars before me, making the appearances so
      much against her&mdash;I can not think your wife guilty. I should be sorry
      to think so.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I should now be sorry to think otherwise,&rdquo; I said huskily. I thought of
      that poisonous draught. I thought with many misgivings, and trembled where
      I sat.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You surprise me to hear you speak so. Surely, Clifford, you love your
      wife!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Love her!&rdquo; I exclaimed; I could say no more. My sobs choked my utterance.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nay, do not give up,&rdquo; he said tenderly. &ldquo;Be a man. All will go well yet.
      The facts are anything but conclusive. These papers have a realness about
      them, which have their weight against any suspicions, however strong.
      Remember, these are the declarations of a dying man! Surely, all minor
      considerations of policy would give way at such a moment to the
      all-important necessity of speaking the truth. Besides, there is one
      consideration alone, to which we have made no reference, which yet seems
      to me full of weight and value. Edgerton could scarcely have been
      successful in his designs upon your wife. He was in fact dying of the
      disappointment of his passions. They could not have been gratified.
      Success takes an exulting aspect. He was always miserable and wo-begone&mdash;always
      desponding, sad, unhappy, from the first moment when this passion began,
      to the last.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Guilt, guilt, nothing but guilt!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, Clifford, no!&mdash;The guilt that works so terribly upon conscience
      as to produce such effects upon the frame, inevitably leads to repentance.
      Now, we find that Edgerton pursued his object until he was detected.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I shook my head.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do not steel yourself against probabilities, my dear fellow,&rdquo; said
      Kingsley.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Proofs against probabilities always!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! none of these are proofs except the papers you have in your hands,
      and the imperfect events which you witnessed. I am so much an admirer of
      your wife myself, that I am ready to believe this statement against the
      rest; and to believe that, however strange may have been her conduct in
      some respects, it will yet be explained in a manner which shall acquit her
      of misconduct. Believe me, Clifford, think with me&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! no! I can not&mdash;dare not! She is a&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do not! Do not! No harsh words, even were it so! She has been your wife.
      She should still be sacred in your eyes, as one who has slept upon your
      bosom.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A traitress all the while, dreaming of the embraces of another.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Clifford, what can this mean? You are singularly inveterate.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Should I not be so? Am I not lost&mdash;abandoned&mdash;wrecked on the
      high seas of my hope&mdash;my fortunes scattered to the winds&mdash;my
      wealth, the jewel which I prized beyond all beside, which was worth the
      whole, gone down, swallowed up, and the black abyss closed over it for
      ever?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We are not sure of this&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! no!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am! Though she be innocent, who shall rid me of the doubt, the fear,
      the ineradicable suspicion! THAT blackens all my sunlight; THAT poisons
      all my peace. I can never know delight. Nay, though you proved her
      innocent, it is now too late. Kingsley, by this time I have no wife!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ha! Surely, Clifford, you have not&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hark! Some one knocks! Again!&mdash;again!&mdash;I understand it. I know
      what it means. They are looking for me. She is dead or dying. I tell you
      it is quite in vain that you should argue. Above all, do not seek to prove
      her innocent.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The knocking without increased. He seized my arm as I was going forward,
      and prevented me.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Compose yourself,&rdquo; he said, thrusting me into a chair. &ldquo;Remain here till
      I return. I will see what is wanted.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But I followed him, and reached the door almost as soon as himself. It was
      as I expected. I had been sent for. My wife was dangerously ill. Such was
      the tenor of the message. More I could not learn. The servant had been an
      hour in search of me. Had sought me at the office and in other places
      which I had been accustomed to frequent; and I felt that after so long a
      delay, there was no longer need for haste. Still, I was about to depart
      with hasty footsteps. The servant was already dismissed. Kingsley grasped
      my arm.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I will go along with you.&rdquo; he said; and as we went, he spoke, in low
      accents, to the following effect:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I know not what you have done, Clifford; and there is no need that I
      should know. Keep your secret. I do not think the worse of you that you
      have been maddened to crime. Let the same desperation nerve you now to
      sufficient composure. Beware of what you say, lest these people suspect
      you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And what if they do? Think you, Kingsley, that I fear? No! no! Life has
      nothing now. I lost fear, and hope, and everything in her.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But may she not live?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, I think not; the poison is most deadly. Though, even if she lives, my
      loss would not be less. She ceased to live for me the moment that she
      began to live for another!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0052" id="link2HCH0052"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER LII. &mdash; DEATH.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Nothing more was said until we reached the cottage. Mrs. Porterfield and
      the physician met us at the entrance. We had come too late!
    </p>
    <p>
      She was dead. They had found her so when they despatched the servant in
      quest of me; but they were not certain of the fact, and the servant was
      instructed to say she was only very ill. The physician was called in as
      soon as possible; but had declared himself, as soon as he came, unable to
      do anything for her. He had bled her; and, before our arrival, had already
      pronounced upon her disease. It was apoplexy!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Apoplexy!&rdquo; I exclaimed, involuntarily. Kingsley gave me a look.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, sir, apoplexy,&rdquo; continued the learned gentleman. &ldquo;She must have had
      several fits. It is evident that she was conscious after the first, for
      she appears to have endeavored to reach the door. She was found at the
      entrance, lying upon the floor. When I saw her, she must have been
      lifeless a good hour.&rdquo; {The reader will be reminded of the melancholy
      details in the ease of Miss Liuulon-L. E. L.-whose fate is still a
      mystery.}
    </p>
    <p>
      He added sundry reasons, derived from her appearance, which he assured us
      were conclusive on this subject; but to these I gave little heed. I did
      not stop to listen. I hurried to the chamber, closed the door, and was
      alone with my victim, with my wife!
    </p>
    <p>
      My victim!&mdash;my wife!
    </p>
    <p>
      I stood above her inanimate form. How lovely in death&mdash;but, oh! how
      cold! I looked upon her pale, transparent cheeks and forehead, through
      which the blue lines of veins, that were pulseless now, gleamed out,
      showing the former avenues of the sweet and blessed life. I was disarmed
      of my anger while I gazed. I bent down beside her, took the rigid fingers
      of her hand in mine, and pressed my lips upon the bloodless but still
      beautiful forms of hers.
    </p>
    <p>
      I remembered her youth and her beauty&mdash;the glowing promise of her
      mind, and the gentle temper of her heart. I remembered the dear hours of
      our first communion&mdash;how pure were our delights&mdash;how perfect my
      felicity. How we moved together as with one being only&mdash;beside the
      broad streams of our birthplace&mdash;under the shelter of shady pines&mdash;morning,
      and noon, and in the star-lighted night&mdash;never once dreaming that an
      hour like this would come!
    </p>
    <p>
      And she seemed so perfect pure, as she was so perfect lovely! Never did I
      hear from her lips sentiment that was not&mdash;not only virtuous, but
      delicate and soft&mdash;not only innocent but true&mdash;not only true but
      fond! Alas! so to fall&mdash;so too yield herself at last! To feel the
      growth of rank passion&mdash;to surrender her pure soul and perfect form
      to the base uses of lust&mdash;to be no better than the silly harlot,
      that, beguiled by her eager vanity, surrenders the precious jewel in her
      trust, to the first cunning sharper that assails her with a smiling lie!
    </p>
    <p>
      Oh God! how these convictions shook my frame! I had no longer strength for
      thought or action. I was feebler than the child, who, lost in the woods,
      struggles and sinks at last, through sheer exhaustion, into sobbing
      slumber at the foot of the unfeeling tree. I did not sob. I had no tears.
      But at intervals, the powers of breathing becoming choked, and my
      struggles for relief were expressed in a groan which I vainly endeavored
      to keep down. The sense of desolation was upon me much more strongly than
      that of either crime or death. I did not so much feel that she was guilty,
      as that I was alone! That, henceforth, I must for ever be alone. This was
      the terrible conviction;&mdash;and oh! how lone! To lessen its pangs, I
      strove to recall the fault for which she perished&mdash;to renew the
      recollection of those thousand small events, which, thrown together, had
      seemed to me mountains of rank and reeking evidence against her. But even
      my memory failed me in this effort. All this was a blank. The few
      imperfect and shadowy facts which I could recall seemed to me wholly
      unimportant in establishing the truth of what I sought to believe; and I
      shuddered with the horrible doubt that she might be innocent! If she were
      indeed innocent, what am I?
    </p>
    <p>
      With the desperate earnestness of the cast-away, who strives, in
      mid-ocean, for the only plank which can possibly retard his doom, did I
      toil to re-establish in my mind that conviction of her guilt which the
      demon in my soul had made so certain by his assurances before. Alas! I had
      not only lost the wife of my bosom, but its fiend also. Vainly now did I
      seek to summon him back. Vainly did I call upon him to renew his arguments
      and proofs! He had fled&mdash;fled for ever; and I could fancy that I
      heard him afar off, chuckling with hellish laughter, over the triumphant
      results of his malice.
    </p>
    <p>
      I know not how long I hung over that silent speaker. Her pale, placid
      countenance&mdash;her bloodless lips, that still seemed to smile upon me
      as they had ever done before;&mdash;and that eye of speaking beauty&mdash;only
      half closed&mdash;oh! what conclusive assurances did they seem to give of
      that innocence which it now seemed the worst impiety to doubt! I would
      have given worlds&mdash;alas! how impotent is such a speech! Death sets
      his seal upon hope, and love, and endeavor; and the regrets of that
      childish precipitation which has obeyed the laws of passion only, are only
      so many mocking memorials of the blind heart, that jaundiced the face of
      truth, and distorted all the aspects of the beautiful.
    </p>
    <p>
      Once more I laughed&mdash;a vain hysterical laugh&mdash;the expression of
      my conviction that I was self-doomed and desperate; and, writhing beside
      the inanimate angel whom I then would have recalled though with all her
      guilt&mdash;assuming all of it to have been true&mdash;to the arms that
      wantonly cast her off for ever&mdash;I grasped the cold senseless limbs in
      my embrace, and placed the drooping head once more upon the bosom where it
      could not long remain! What a weight! The pulsation in my own heart
      ceased, and, with a shudder, I released the chilling form from my grasp,
      and found strength barely to compose the limbs once more in the bed beside
      me.
    </p>
    <p>
      I pass over the usual and unnecessary details. There was a show of inquiry
      of course; but the one word of the learned young gentleman in black
      silenced any further examination. It was shown to the inquest by Mrs.
      Porterfield that my wife had been sick&mdash;that she was suddenly found
      dead. The physician furnished the next necessary fact. I was not examined
      at all, I stood by in silence. I heard the verdict&mdash;&ldquo;Death by
      apoplexy&rdquo;&mdash;-with a smile. I was not unwilling to state the truth. Had
      I been called upon I should have done so. At first I was about to proffer
      my testimony, but a single sentence from the lips of Kingsley, when I
      declared to him my purpose, silenced me:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If you are not afraid to declare your own act, you should at least
      scruple to denounce her shame! She died your wife. Let that seal your
      tongue. The shame would be shared between you! You could only justify your
      crime by exposing hers!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      With the stern strength of desperation I stood above the grave, and heard
      the heavy clod ring hollowly upon the coffin. And there closed two lives
      in one. My hopes were buried there as effectually as her unconscious form.
    </p>
    <p>
      Life is not breath simply. Not the capacity to move, and breathe, to act,
      eat, drink, sleep, and say, &ldquo;Thank God! we have ate, drank, and slept!&rdquo;
       The life of humanity consists in hope, love, and labor. In the capacity to
      desire, to affect, ant to struggle. I had now nothing for which I could
      hope, nothing to love, nothing to struggle for!
    </p>
    <p>
      Yes! life has something more:&mdash;endurance! This is a part of the
      allotment. The conviction of this renewed my strength But it was the
      strength of desolation I I had taken courage from despair!
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0053" id="link2HCH0053"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER LIII. &mdash; REVELATION&mdash;THE LETTER OF JULIA.
    </h2>
    <p>
      It must be remembered, that, in all this time&mdash;amidst all my agonies&mdash;my
      feelings of destitution and despair&mdash;I had few or no doubts of the
      guilt of Julia Clifford. My sufferings arose from the love which I had
      felt&mdash;the defeat of my hopes and fortune&mdash;the long struggle of
      conflicting feelings, mortified pride, and disappointed enjoyment. Excited
      by the melancholy spectacle before me&mdash;beholding the form of her,
      once so beautiful&mdash;still so beautiful&mdash;whom I had loved with
      such an absorbing passion&mdash;whom I could not cease to love&mdash;suddenly
      cut off from life&mdash;her voice, which was so musical, suddenly hushed
      for ever&mdash;the tides of her heart suddenly stopped&mdash;and all the
      sweet waters of hope dried up in her bosom, and turned into bitterness and
      blight in mine&mdash;the force of my feelings got the better of my reason,
      and cruel and oppressive doubts of the justness of her doom overpowered my
      soul. But, with the subsiding of my emotions, under the stern feeling of
      resolve which came to my relief, and which my course of education enabled
      me to maintain, my persuasions of her guilt were resumed, and I naturally
      recurred to the conclusions which had originally justified me to myself,
      in inflicting the awful punishment of death upon her. But I was soon to be
      deprived of this justification&mdash;to be subjected to the terrible
      recoil of all my feelings of justice, love, honor and manliness, in the
      new and overwhelming conviction, not only that I had been premature, but
      that she was innocent!&mdash;innocent, equally of thought and deed, which
      could incur tire reproach of impurity, or the punishment of guilt.
    </p>
    <p>
      Three days had elapsed after her burial, when I re-opened and re-appeared
      in my office. I did not re-open it with any intention to resume my
      business. That was impossible in a place, where, at every movement, the
      grave of my victim rose, always green, in my sight. My purpose was to put
      my papers in order transfer them to other parties, dispose of my effects,
      and depart with Kingsley to the new countries, of which he had succeeded
      in impressing upon me some of his own opinions. Not that these furnished
      for me any attractions. I was not persuaded by any customary arguments
      held out to the ambitious and the enterprising. It was a matter of small
      moment to me where I went, so that I left the present scene of my misery
      and over-throw. In determining to accompany him to Texas, no part of my
      resolve was influenced by the richness of its soil, or the greatness of
      its probable destinies. These, though important in the eyes of my friend,
      were as nothing in mine. In taking that route my object was simply, TO GO
      WITH HIM. He had sympathized with me, after a rough fashion of his own,
      the sincerity of which was more dear to me than the roughness was
      repulsive. He had witnessed my cares&mdash;he knew my guilt and my griefs&mdash;this
      knowledge endeared him to me more strongly than ever, and made him now
      more necessary to my affections than any other living object.
    </p>
    <p>
      I re-opened my office and resumed my customary seat at the table. But I
      sat only to ruminate upon things and thoughts which, following the track
      of memory, diverted my sight as well as my mind, from all present objects.
      I saw nothing before me, except vaguely, and in a sort of shadow. I had a
      hazy outline of books against the wall; and a glimmering show of papers
      and bundles upon the table. I sat thus for some time, lost in painful and
      humiliating revery. Suddenly I caught a glimpse of a packet on the table,
      which I did not recollect to have seen before. It bore my name. I
      shuddered to behold it, for it was in the handwriting of my wife. This,
      then, was the writing upon which she had been secretly engaged, for so
      many days, and of which Mrs. Porterfield had given me the first
      intimation. I remembered the words of Julia when she assured me that it
      was intended for me&mdash;when she playfully challenged my curiosity, and
      implored me to acknowledge an anxiety to knew the contents. The pleading
      tenderness of her speech and manner now rose vividly to my recollection.
      It touched me more now&mdash;now that the irrevocable step had been taken&mdash;far
      more than it ever could have affected me then. Then, indeed, I remained
      unaffected save by the caprice of my evil genius. The demon of the blind
      heart was then uppermost. In vain now did I summon him to my relief. Where
      was he? Why did he not come?
    </p>
    <p>
      I took up the packet with trembling fingers. My nerves almost failed me.
      My heart shrank and sank with painful presentiments. What could this
      writing mean? Of what had Julia Clifford to write? Her whole world's
      experience was contained, and acquired, in my household. The only portion
      of this experience which she might suppose unknown to me was her
      intercourse with Edgerton. The conclusion, then, was natural that this
      writing related to this matter; but, if natural, why had I not conjectured
      it before? Why, when I first heard of it, had the conclusion not forced
      itself upon me as directly as it did now? Alas! it was clear to me now
      that I was then blind; and, with this clearness of sight, my doubts
      increased; but they were doubts of myself, rather than doubts of her.
    </p>
    <p>
      It required an effort before I could recover myself sufficiently to break
      the seal of the packet. First, however, I rose and reclosed the office.
      Whatever might be the contents of the paper, to me it was the language of
      a voice from the grave. It contained the last words of one I never more
      should hear. The words of one whom I had loved as I could never love
      again. It was due to her, and to my own heart, that she should be heard in
      secret;&mdash;that her words&mdash;whether in reproach or repentance&mdash;whether
      in love or scorn&mdash;should fall upon mine ear without witness, in a
      silence as solemn as was that desolate feeling which now sat, like a
      spectre, brooding among the ruins of my heart.
    </p>
    <p>
      My pulses almost ceased to beat&mdash;my respiration was impeded&mdash;my
      eyes swam&mdash;my senses reeled in dismay and confusion&mdash;as I read
      the following epistle. Too late! too late! Blind, blind heart! And still I
      was not mad!&mdash;No! no!&mdash;that would have been a mercy which I did
      not merit!&mdash;that would have been forgetfulness&mdash;utter oblivion
      of the woe which I can never cease to feel.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Last Letter of Julia.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Husband, Dear Husband!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I write to you in fear and trembling. I have striven to speak to you,
      more than once, but my tongue and strength have failed me. What I have to
      tell you is so strange and offensive, and will be to you so startling,
      that you will find it hard to believe me; and yet, dear husband, there is
      not a syllable of it which is not true! If I knew that I were to die
      to-morrow I could with perfect safety and confidence make the same
      confession which I make now. But I do not wish you to take what I say on
      trust; look into the matter yourself&mdash;not precipitately&mdash;above
      all, not angrily&mdash;and you will see that I say nothing here which the
      circumstances will not prove. Indeed, my wonder is that so much of it has
      remained unknown to you already.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Husband, Mr. Egerton deceives you&mdash;he has all along deceived you&mdash;he
      is neither your friend nor mine. I would call him rather the most
      dangerous enemy; for he comes by stealth, and abuses confidence, and, like
      the snake in the fable, seeks to sting the very hand that has warmed him.
      I know how much this will startle you, for I know how much you think of
      him, and love him, and how many are the obligations which you owe to his
      father. But hear me to the end, and you will be convinced, as I have been,
      that, so far from your seeking his society and permitting his intimacy in
      our household, you would be justified in the adoption of very harsh
      measures for his expulsion&mdash;at least, it would become your duty to
      inform him that you can no longer suffer his visits.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;To begin, then, dear husband. Mr. Egerton has been bold enough to speak
      to me in such language, as was insulting in him to utter, and equally
      painful and humiliating for me to hear. He has done this, not once, nor
      twice, nor thrice, but many times. You will ask why I have not informed
      you of this before; but I had several reasons for forbearing to do so,
      which I will relate in the proper places. I fancied that I could
      effectually repel insult of this sort without making you a party to it,
      for I feared the violence of your temper, and dreaded that the
      consequences might be bloodshed. I am only prompted to take a different
      course now, as I find that I was mistaken in this impression&mdash;and
      perceive that there is no hope of a remedy against the impertinence but by
      appealing to you for protection.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It was not long after our marriage before the attentions of Mr. Edgerton
      became so particular as to annoy me; and I consulted my mother on the
      subject, but she assured me that such were customary, and so long as you
      were satisfied I had no reason to be otherwise. I was not quite content
      with this assurance, but did not know what other course to take, and there
      was nothing in the conduct of Mr. Edgerton so very marked and offensive as
      to justify me in making any communication to you. What offended me in his
      bearing was his fixed and continued watchfulness&mdash;the great
      earnestness of his looks&mdash;the subdued tones of his voice when he
      spoke to me, almost falling to a whisper, and the unusual style of his
      language, which seemed to address itself to such feelings only as do not
      belong to the common topics of discourse. The frequency of his visits to
      the studio afforded him opportunities for indulging in these practices;
      and your strange indifference to his approaches, and your equally strange
      and most unkind abandonment of my society for that of others, increased
      these opportunities, of which he scrupled not to take constant advantage.
      I soon perceived that he sought the house only at the periods when you
      were absent. He seemed always to know when this was the case; and I noted
      the fact, particularly, that, if, on such occasions, you happened to
      arrive unexpectedly he never remained long afterward, but took his
      departure with an abruptness that, it seemed wonderful to me you should
      not have perceived. Conduct so strange as this annoyed rather than alarmed
      me; and it made me feel wretched, perhaps beyond any necessity for it,
      when I found myself delivered up, as it were, to such persecution, by the
      very person whose duty it was to preserve me, and whose own presence,
      which would have been an effectual protection, was so dear to me always.
      Do not suppose, dear Edward, that I mean to reproach you. I do not know
      what may have been your duties abroad, and the trials which drew you so
      much from home, and from the eyes of a wife who knows no dearer object of
      contemplation than the form of her husband. Men in business, I know, have
      a thousand troubles out of doors, which a generous sensibility makes them
      studious never to bring home with them; and, knowing this, I determined to
      think lovingly of you always&mdash;to believe anything rather than that
      you would willingly neglect me;&mdash;and, by the careful exercise of my
      thoughts and affections, as they should properly be exercised, so to
      protect my own dignity and your honor, as to spare you any trouble or risk
      in asserting them, and, at the same time, to save both from reproach.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, though I think I maintained the most rigid reserve, as well of looks
      as of language, this unhappy young man continued his persecutions. In
      order to avoid him, I abandoned my usual labors in the studio. From the
      moment when I saw that he was disposed to abuse the privileges of
      friendship, I yielded that apartment entirely to him, and invariably
      declined seeing him when he visited the house in the mornings. But I could
      not do this at evening; and this became finally a most severe trial, for
      it so happened, that you now adopted a habit which left him entirely
      unrestrained, unless in the manner of his reception by myself. You now
      seldom remained at home of an evening, and thus deprived me of that
      natural protector whose presence would have spared me much pain with which
      I will not distress you. Ah! dearest husband, why did you leave me on such
      occasions? Why did you abandon me to the two-fold affliction of combating
      the approaches of impertinence, at the very moment when I was suffering
      from the dreadful apprehension that I no longer possessed those charms
      which had won me the affections of a husband. Forgive me! My purpose is
      not to reproach, but to entreat you.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I need not pass over the long period through which this persecution
      continued. Your indifference seemed to me to give stimulus to the
      perseverance of this young man. Numberless little circumstances combined
      to make me think that, from this cause, indeed, he drew something like
      encouragement for his audacious hopes. The strength of your friendship for
      him blinded you to attentions which, it seemed to me, every eye must have
      seen but yours. I grew more and more alarmed; and a second time consulted
      with my mother. Her written answer you will find, marked No. 1, with the
      rest of the enclosures in this envelope. She laughed at my apprehensions,
      insisted that Mr. Edgerton had not transcended the customary privileges,
      and intimated, very plainly as you will see, that a wife can suffer
      nothing from the admiration of a person, not her husband, however
      undisguised this admiration may be&mdash;provided she herself shows none
      in return;&mdash;an opinion with which I could not concur, for the
      conclusive reason that, whatever the world may think on such a subject,
      the object of admiration, if she has any true sensibilities, must herself
      suffer annoyance, as I did, from the special designation which attends
      such peculiar and marked attention as that to which I was subjected. My
      mother took much pains, verbally and in writing, as the within letters
      will show you, to relieve me from the feeling of disquiet under which I
      suffered, but without effect; and I was further painfully afflicted by the
      impression which her general tone of thought forced upon me, that her
      sense of propriety was so loose and uncertain that I could place no future
      reliance upon her councils in relation to this or any other kindred
      subject. Ah, Edward! little can you guess how lonely and desolate I felt,
      when, unable any longer to refer to her, I still did not dare to look to
      you.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;One opinion of hers, however, had very much alarmed me. You will find it
      expressed in the letter marked No. 8, in this collection. When I
      complained to her of the approaches of Mr. Edgerton, and declared my
      purpose of appealing to you if they were continued, she earnestly and
      expressly exhorted me against any such proceeding. She assured me that
      such a step would only lend to violence and bloodshed&mdash;reminded me of
      your sudden anger&mdash;your previous duel&mdash;and insisted that nothing
      more was necessary to check the impertinence than my own firmness and
      dignity. Perhaps this would have been enough, were it always practicable
      to maintain the reserve and coldness which was proper to effect this
      object, and, indeed, I could not but perceive that the effect was produced
      in considerable degree by this course. Mr. Edgerton visited the house less
      frequently; grew less impressive in his manner, and much more humble,
      until that painful and humiliating night of my mother's marriage. That
      night he asked me to dance with him. I declined; but afterward he came to
      me accompanied by my mother. She whispered in my ears that I was harsh in
      my refusal, and called my attention to his wretched appearance. Had I
      reflected upon it then, as I did afterward, this very allusion would have
      been sufficient to have determined me not to consent;&mdash;but I was led
      away by her suggestions of pity, and stood up with him for a cotillion.
      But the music changed, the set was altered, and the Spanish dance was
      substituted in its place. In the course of this dance, I could not deceive
      myself as to the degree of presumption which my partner displayed; and,
      but for the appearance of the thing, and because I did not wish to throw
      the room into disorder, I would have stopped and taken my seat long before
      it was over. When I did take my seat, I found myself still attended by
      him, and it was with difficulty that I succeeded finally in defeating his
      perseverance, by throwing myself into the midst of a set of elderly
      ladies, where he could no longer distinguish me with his attentions. In
      the meantime you had left the room. You had deserted me. Ah! Clifford, to
      what annoyance did your absence expose me that night! To that absence, do
      we owe that I lost the only dear pledge of love that God had ever
      vouchsafed us&mdash;and you know how greatly my own life was perilled.
      Think not, dearest, that I speak this to reproach you; and yet&mdash;could
      you have remained!&mdash;could you have loved, and longed to be and remain
      with me, as most surely did I long for your presence only and always&mdash;ah!
      how much sweeter had been our joys&mdash;how more pure our happiness&mdash;our
      faith&mdash;with now&mdash;perhaps, even now&mdash;the dear angel whom we
      then lost, living and smiling beneath our eyes, and linking our mutual
      hearts more and more firmly together than before!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That night, when it became impossible to remain longer without
      trespassing&mdash;when all the other guests had gone&mdash;I consented to
      be taken home in Mr. Edgerton's carriage. Had I dreamed that Mr. Edgerton
      was to have been my companion, I should have remained all night before I
      would have gone with him, knowing what I knew, and feeling the
      mortification which I felt. But my mother assured me that I was to have
      the carriage to myself&mdash;it was she who had procured it;&mdash;and it
      was not until I was seated, and beheld him enter, that I had the least
      apprehension of such an intrusion. Edward! it is with a feeling almost
      amounting to horror, that I am constrained to think that my mother not
      only knew of his intention to accompany me, but that she herself suggested
      it. This, I say to YOU! You will find the reasons for my suspicions in the
      letters which I enclose. It is a dreadful suspicion&mdash;at the expense
      of one's own mother! I dare not believe in the dark malice which it
      implies.&mdash;I strive to think that she meant and fancied only some
      pleasant mischief.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I shudder to declare the rest! This man, your friend&mdash;he whom you
      sheltered in your bosom, and trusted beyond all others&mdash;whom you have
      now taken into your house with a blindness that looks more like a delusion
      of witchcraft than of friendship&mdash;this impious man, I say, dared to
      wrap me in his embrace&mdash;dared to press his lips upon mine!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My cheek even now burns as I write, and I must lay down the pen because
      of my trembling. I struggled from his grasp&mdash;I broke the window by my
      side, and cried for help from the wayfarers. I cried for you! But, you did
      not answer! Oh, husband! where were you? Why, why did you expose me to
      such indignities?
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He was alarmed. He promised me forbearance; and, convulsed with fright
      and fear, I found myself within our enclosure, I knew not how; but before
      I reached the cottage I became insensible, and knew nothing more until the
      pangs of labor subdued the more lasting pains of thought and recollection.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You resolved to leave our home&mdash;to go abroad among strangers, and
      Oh! how I rejoiced at your resolution. It seemed to promise me happiness;
      at least it promised me rescue and relief. I should at all events be free
      from the persecution of this man. I dreaded the consequences, either to
      you or to him-self, of the exposure of his insolence. I had resolved on
      making it; and only hesitated, day by day, as my mother dwelt upon the
      dangers which would follow. And when you determined on removal, it seemed
      to me the most fortunate providence, it promised to spare me the necessity
      of making this painful revelation at all. Surely, I thought, and my mother
      said, as this will put an effectual stop to his presumption, there will be
      no need to narrate what is already past. The only motive in telling it at
      all would be to prevent, not to punish: if the previous one is effected by
      other means, it is charity only to forbear the relation of matters which
      would breed hatred, and probably provoke strife. This made me silent; and,
      full of new hope&mdash;the hope that having discarded all your old
      associates and removed from all your old haunts, you would become mine
      entirely&mdash;I felt a new strength in my frame, a new life in my breast,
      and a glow upon my cheeks as within my soul, which seemed a guaranty for a
      long and happy term of that love which had begun in my bosom with the
      first moments of its childish consciousness and confidence.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But one painful scene and hour I was yet compelled to endure the night
      before our departure. Mr. Edgerton came to play his flute under our
      window. I say Mr. Edgerton, but it was only by a sort of instinct that I
      fixed upon him as the musician. Perhaps it was because I knew not what
      other person to suspect. Frequently, before this night, had I heard this
      music; but on this occasion he seemed to have approached more nearly to
      the dwelling; and, indeed, I finally discovered that he was actually
      beneath the China-tree that stood on the south front of the cottage. I was
      asleep when the music began. He must have been playing for some time
      before I awakened. How I was awakened I know not; but something disturbed
      me, and I then saw you about to leave the room stealthily. I heard your
      feet upon the stairs, and in the next moment I discovered one of your
      pistols lying upon the window-sill, just beneath my eyes. This alarmed me;
      a thousand apprehensions rushed into my brain; all the suggestions of
      strife and bloodshed which my mother had ever told me, filled my mind; and
      without knowing exactly what I did or said, I called out to the musician
      to fly with all possible speed. He did so; and after a delay which was to
      me one of the most cruel apprehension, you returned in safety. Whether you
      suspected, and what, I could not conjecture; but if you had any suspicions
      of me, you did not seem to entertain any of him, for you spoke of him
      afterward with the same warm tone of friendship as before.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That something in my conduct had not pleased you, I could see from your
      deportment as we travelled the next morning. You were sad, and very silent
      and abstracted. This disappeared, however, and, day by day, my happiness,
      my hope, my confidence in you, in myself, in all things, increased&mdash;and
      I felt assured of realizing that perfect idea of felicity which I proposed
      to myself from the moment when you declared your purpose to emigrate. Were
      we not happy, husband&mdash;so happy at M&mdash;&mdash;, for weeks, for
      months&mdash;always, morning, noon, and night&mdash;until the reappearance
      of this false friend of yours? Then, it seemed to me as if everything
      changed. Then, that other friend of yours&mdash;who, though he never
      treated me with aught but respect, I yet can call no friend of mine&mdash;Mr.
      Kingsley, drew you away again from your home&mdash;carried you with him to
      his haunts&mdash;detained you late and long, by night and day&mdash;and I
      was left once more exposed to the free and frequent familiarity of Mr.
      Edgerton. He renewed his former habits; his looks were more presuming, and
      his attentions more direct and loathsome than ever. More than once I
      strove to speak with you on this hateful subject; but it was so shocking,
      and you were so fond of him, and I still had my fears! At length, moved by
      compassion, you brought him to our house. Blind and devoted to him&mdash;with
      a blindness and devotion beyond that which the noblest friendship would
      deserve, but which renders tenfold more hateful the dishonest and
      treacherous person upon whom it is thrown away&mdash;you command me to
      meet him with kindness&mdash;to tend his bed of sickness&mdash;to soothe
      his moments of sadness and despondency&mdash;to expose myself to his
      insolence!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Husband, my soul revolts at this charge! I have disobeyed it and you; and
      I must justify myself in this my disobedience. I must at length declare
      the truth. I have striven to do so in the preceding narrative. This
      narrative I began when you brought this false friend into our dwelling. He
      must leave it. You must command his departure. Do not think me moved by
      any unhappy or unbecoming prejudices against him. My antipathies have
      arisen solely from his presumption and misconduct. I esteemed him&mdash;nay,
      I even liked him&mdash;before. I liked his taste for the arts, his amiable
      manners, his love of music and poetry, and all those graces of the
      superior mind and education, which dignify humanity, and indicate its
      probable destinies. But when he showed me how false he was to a friendship
      so free and confiding as was yours&mdash;when he abused my eyes and ears
      with expressions unbecoming in him, and insulting and ungenerous to me&mdash;I
      loathed and spurned him. While he is in your house I will strive and treat
      him civilly, but do not tax me further. For your sake I have borne much;
      for the sake of peace, and to avoid strife and crime, I have been silent&mdash;perhaps
      too long. The strange, improper letters of my mother, which I enclose,
      almost make me tremble to think that I have paid but too much deference to
      her opinion. But, in the expulsion of this miserable man from your
      dwelling, there needs no violence, there needs no crime! A word will
      overwhelm him with shame. Remember, dear husband, that he is feeble and
      sick; it is probable he has not long to live. Perform your painful duty
      privily, and with all the forbearance which is consistent with a proper
      firmness. In truth, he has done us no real harm. Let us remember THAT! If
      anything, he has only made me love you the more, by showing so strongly
      how generous is the nature which he has so infamously abused. Once more,
      dear husband, do no violence. Let not our future days be embittered by any
      recollections of the present. Command, compel his departure, and come home
      to me, and keep with me always.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Your own true wife,
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Julia Clifford.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Postscript.&mdash;I had closed this letter yesterday, thinking to send it
      to your office in the afternoon. I had hoped that there would be nothing
      more;&mdash;but last night, this madman&mdash;for such I must believe him
      to be&mdash;committed another outrage upon my person! He has a second time
      seized me in his arms and endeavored to grasp me in his embrace. O
      husband!&mdash;why, why do you thus expose me? Do you indeed love me? I
      sometimes tremble with a fear lest you do not. But I dare not think so.
      Yet, if you do, why am I thus exposed&mdash;thus deserted&mdash;thus left
      to a companionship which is equally loathsome to me and dishonoring to
      you? I implore you to open your eyes&mdash;to believe me, and discard this
      false friend from your dwelling and your confidence. But, oh, be merciful,
      dear husband! Strike no sudden blow! Send him forth with scorn but
      remember his feebleness, his family, and spare his life. I send this by
      Emma. Let no one see the letters of my mother but burn them instantly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Your own Julia.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And this was the writing which had employed her time for days before the
      sad catastrophe! And it was for this reason that she asked, with so much
      earnestness, if I had been to my office on the day when I drove Edgerton
      out into the woods for the adjustment of our issue? No wonder that she was
      anxious at that moment. How much depended upon that simple and ordinary
      proceeding. Had I but gone that day to my office as usual!......
    </p>
    <p>
      There were no longer doubts. There could be none. There was now no
      mystery. It was all clear. The most ambiguous portions of her conduct had
      been as easily and simply explained as the rest. But it availed nothing!
      The blow had fallen. I was an accursed man&mdash;truly accursed, and
      miserably desolate.
    </p>
    <p>
      I still sat, stolid, seemingly, as the insensible chair which sustained
      me, when Kingsley came in. He took the papers from my unresisting hands.
      He read them in silence. I heard but one sentence from his lips, and it
      came from them unconsciously:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Poor, poor girl!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I looked round and started to my feet. The tears were on on manly checks.
      I hatched none. My eyes were dry! The fountains of tears seemed shut up,
      arid and dusty.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I must make atonement!&rdquo; I exclaimed. &ldquo;I must deliver myself up to
      justice!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This is madness,&rdquo; said he, seizing my arm as I was about to leave the
      room.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No: retribution only! I have destroyed her. I must make the only
      atonement which is in my power. I must die!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What you design is none,&rdquo; he said solemnly. &ldquo;Your death will atone
      nothing. It is by living only that you can atone!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By repentance! This is the grand&mdash;the only sovereign atonement which
      the spirit of man can ever make. There is no other mode provided in
      nature. The laws, which would take your life, would deprive you of the
      means of atonement. This is due to God; it can be performed only by living
      and suffering. Life is a duty because it is an ordeal. You must preserve
      life, as a sacred trust, for this reason. Even if you were a felon&mdash;one
      wilfully resolving and coldly executing crime&mdash;you were yet bound to
      preserve life! Throw it away, and though you comply with the demand of
      social laws, you forfeit the only chance of making atonement to those
      which are far superior. Rather pray that life may be spared you. It was
      with this merciful purpose that God not only permitted Cain to live, but
      commanded that none should slay him. You must live for this!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yet I slew HER!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He did with me as he pleased. Three days after beheld us on our way to the
      rich empire of Texas&mdash;its plains, rich but barren&mdash;unstocked,
      wild-running to waste with its tangled weeds&mdash;needing, imploring the
      vigorous hand of cultivation. Even such, at that moment, was my heart!
      Rich in fertile affections, yet gone to waste; waiting, craving, praying
      for the hand of the cultivator!&mdash;Yet who now was that cultivator?
    </p>
    <p>
      To this question the words of Kingsley, which were those of truth and
      wisdom, were a sufficient answer; and evermore an echo arose as from the
      bottom of my soul; and my lips repeated it to my own ears only; and but
      one word was spoken; and that word was&mdash;&ldquo;ATONEMENT!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <h3>
      THE END
    </h3>
    <div style="height: 6em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>







<pre>





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