"If she reveals not the truth in season," I said in my secret soul;
"if she claims not protection at my hands against the adulterer,
she shall share his fate!" 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!
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--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.
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.
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--appearances which I naturally
attributed to guilt. For--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--prayed for as
sincerely as the dying man prays for respite, and the temporary
remission of his doom.
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--an event painful to us both--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--nay,
she even went so far as tenderly to upbraid me that our moments
of endearment were so few;--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.