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!"
"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--dear
good man--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."
I have shortened very considerably the long story which Mrs. Delaney
made of it. Rambling as it was--full of nonsense--with constant
references to her "dear good man," and her party, the company,
herself, her fashion, and frivolities--there was yet something to
sting and trouble me at the core of her narration. Edgerton and my
wife linger to the last--Edgerton rides home with her--he and she
in the carriage, alone, at midnight;--and then this catastrophe,
which the doctor thought was a natural consequence of some excitement
or alarm.
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--her daughter--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--what she thought to be a natural result of these
practices which had prompted her suspicions as well as my own.
How hot was the iron-pressure upon my brain--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--if I have erred with wildest error--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!---how sore!