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.
Leaving Kingsley, I turned into the street where my wife's mother
lived. But the house was shut up--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.
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.
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--a smile upon his lips--a fire
in his glance--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.
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 tny mind, and I well knew that fate would yet bring the
victim to the altar.