On which, not staying for any further intelligence, Drury set off for Portsmouth, and arrived at Jamaica just as Berrendale was going to remit to Adeline a draft for a hundred pounds. For Adeline and the injury which he had done her, had been for some days constantly present to his thoughts. He had been ill; and as indigestion, the cause of his complaints, is apt to occasion disturbed dreams, he had in his dreams been haunted by the image of Glenmurray, who, with a threatening aspect, had reproached him with cruelty and base ingratitude to him, in deserting in such a manner the wife whom he had bequeathed to him.
The constant recurrence of these dreams had depressed his spirits and excited his remorse so much, that he could calm his feelings in no other way than by writing a kind letter to Adeline, and enclosing her a draft on his banker. This letter was on the point of being sent when Drury arrived, and, with very little ceremony, informed him that Adeline was dead.
'Dead!' exclaimed Berrendale, falling almost sensless on his couch: 'Dead!—Oh! for God's sake, tell me of what she died!—Surely, surely, she—' Here his voice failed him.
Drury coolly replied, that she and her child both died of the small-pox.
'But when? my dear fellow!—when? Say that they died nine months ago' (that was previous to his marriage) 'and you make me your friend for life!'
Drury, so bribed, would have said any thing; and, with all the coolness possible, he replied, 'Then be my friend for life:—they died rather better than nine months ago.'
Berrendale, being then convinced that bigamy was not likely to be proved against him, soon forgot, in the joy which this thought occasioned him, remorse for his conduct to Adeline, and regret for her early fate: besides, he concluded that he saved £100 by the means; for he knew not that the delicate mind of Adeline would have scorned to owe pecuniary obligations to the husband who had basely and unwarrantably deserted her.
But he was soon undeceived on this subject, by a letter which Colonel Mordaunt wrote in confidence to a friend in Jamaica, begging him to inquire concerning Mr Berrendale's second marriage; and to inform him privately that his injured wife had zealous and powerful friends in England, who were continually urging her to prosecute him for bigamy.
This intelligence had a fatal effect on the health of Berrendale; for though the violent temper and overbearing disposition of his second wife had often made him regret the gentle and compliant Adeline, and a separation from her, consequently, would be a blessing, still he feared to encounter the disgrace of a prosecution, and still more the anger of his West Indian wife; who, it was not improbable, might even attack his life in the first moment of ungoverned passion.
And to these fears he soon fell a sacrifice; for a frame debilitated by intemperance could not support the assaults made on it by the continued apprehensions which Colonel Mordaunt's friend had excited in him; and he died in that gentleman's presence, whom in his last moments he had summoned to his apartment to witness a will, by which he owned Adeline Mowbray to be his lawful wife, and left Editha, his acknowledged and only heir, a very considerable fortune.