I persevered in it like one. I yielded all opportunities for the
meeting of the parties--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--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--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--not--not for the smallest moment.
Weeks passed in this manner--weeks to me of misery--of annoyance
and secret suffering to my wife. In this time, my espionage resulted
in nothing but what has been already shown--in what was already
sufficiently obvious to me. William Edgerton continued his insane
attentions: he sought my dwelling with studious perseverance--sought
it particularly at those periods when he fancied I was absent--when he
knew it--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--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.
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--pleased to
fancy--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:-"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?"
Even here, the fiend was silenced by a fact which was revealed to
me in one of my nocturnal watches.