"Coward! No! Do I not tell you shoot? I do not fear death. Nay,
let me say to you, Clifford, I long for it. Life has been a long
torture to me--is still a torture. It can not now be otherwise.
Take it--you will see me smile in the death agony."
"Hear me William Edgerton, and submit to my will. You know not
half your wrong. You drove me from my home--my birthplace. When I
was about to sacrifice you for your previous invasion of my peace
in C--, I looked on your old father, I heard the story of his
disappointment--his sorrows--and you were the cause. I determined
to spare you--to banish myself rather, in order to avoid the
necessity of taking your life. You were not satisfied with having
wrought this result. You have pursued me to the woods, where my
cottage once more began to blossom with the fruits of peace and
love. You trample upon its peace--you renew your indignities and
perfidies here. You drive me to desperation and fill my habitation
with disgrace. Will you deny me then what I ask? Will you refuse
me the atonement--any atonement--which I may demand?"
"No, Clifford!" he replied, after a pause in which he seemed subdued
with shame and remorse. "You shall have it as you wish. I will fight
you. I am all that you declare. I am guilty of the wrong you urge
against me. I knew not, till now, that I had been the cause of your
flight from C--. Had I known that!"
Kingsley offered him the pistol.
"No!" he said, putting it aside. "Not now! I will give you this
atonement this afternoon. At this moment I can not. I must write.
I must make another atonement. Your claim for justice, Clifford,
must not preclude my settlement of the claims of others."
"Mine must have preference!"
"It shall! The atonement which I propose to make shall be, one of
repentance. You would not deny me the melancholy privilege of saying
a few last words to my wretched parents?"
"No! no! no!"
"I thank you, Clifford. Come for me at four to my lodgings--bring
Mr. Kingsley with you. You will find me ready to atone, and to save
you every unnecessary pang in doing so."
This ended our conference. Kingsley rode home with him, while,
throwing myself upon the ground, I surrendered myself to such
meditations as were natural to the moods which governed me. They
were dark and dismal enough. Edgerton had avowed his guilt. Could
there be any doubt on the subject of my wife's? He had made no
sort of qualification in his avowal of guilt, which might acquit
her. He had evidently made his confession with the belief that
I was already in possession of the whole truth. One hope alone
remained--that my wife's voluntary declaration would still be
forthcoming. To that I clung as the drowning man to his last plank.
When Kingsley and Edgerton first left me, I had resolved to waste
the hours in the woods and not to return home until after my final
meeting in the afternoon with the latter. It might be that I should
not return home then, and in such an event I was not unwilling that
my wife should still live, the miserable thing which she had made
herself. But, with the still fond hope that she might speak, and
speak in season, I now resolved to return at the usual dinner hour;
and, timing myself accordingly, I prolonged my wanderings through
the woods until noon. I then set forward, and reached the cottage
a little sooner than I had expected.