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.
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 "jealousy." 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--how
far she was pleased with his devotion was the question to be asked
and--answered!