“I arose and bade her array me in my gayest apparel. Never do I remember myself so beautiful as on that night. There was fever in my cheek, the fire of a tortured spirit—a wild, sparkling wit flashed from my lips, and among the gay and the lovely I was most gay and most recklessly brilliant.
“Murray called in the morning, for we were to be friends still. I had suffered much during the night, but I put rouge on my pallid cheeks, and with forced cheerfulness went down to receive him. He appeared ill at ease. Perhaps he feared reproaches after I recovered from the first effect of his desertion, but the anguish it had wrought was too deep for tears or weak complaints; when the death-blow comes, we cease to struggle.
“I ascertained that Miss Jameson’s aunt had refused to bestow a fortune with her niece, and I knew that Murray was far, far from wealthy enough to meet the expenses of an establishment befitting his rank. I could not bear that his fine mind should be cramped by the petty annoyances of a limited income, nor his wife forever crushed beneath the humiliating consciousness of poverty. Varnham never allowed himself to exceed his own little income, and the revenues of the Granby estates far exceeded our general expenditure. It was, therefore, easy for me to raise a sum sufficient to endow my rival, and thus indirectly secure a competence to him.
“I gave orders to my agent that twenty thousand pounds should be immediately raised for me. When the sum was secured I went privately to the house of my rival, and, with little persuasion, induced her parsimonious relative to present it to Miss Jameson as the gift of her own generosity. I knew that my secret was safe, for she was a worldly woman and was not likely to deprive herself of the éclat of a generous deed by exposing my share in it.
“Then I thought of Varnham for the first time in many days, not as the husband I had been estranged from, but as the kind, good friend who had watched beside me, and loved me amid all my sorrows. I was not wholly in my right mind, and reflected imperfectly on the step that I was about to take. Mr. Varnham was at Ashton, and I resolved to go to him, but with no definite aim, for I was incapable of any fixed plan. But he was my only friend, and my poor heart turned back to him in its emergency of sorrow with the trust of former years. I forgot that it had locked up the only well-spring of sympathy left to it by the very course of its anguish.
“I flung a large cloak over my splendid attire, and while my carriage was yet at the door entered it and ordered them to proceed to Ashton. We travelled all day; I did not once leave my seat, but remained muffled in my cloak, with the hood drawn over my head, lost in the misty half-consciousness of partial insanity. I believe that the carriage stopped more than once, that food and rest were urged on me by my servants, but I took no heed, only ordering them to drive forward, for the rapid motion relieved me.
“It was deep in the night when we reached Ashton. Everything was dark and gloomy; but one steady lamp glimmered from the library window, and I knew that Varnham was up, and there. The library was in the back part of the house, and the sound of the carriage had not reached it.
“I made my way through the darkened hall and entered my husband’s presence. For one moment the feverish beating of my heart was hushed by the holy tranquillity of that solitary student. There was something appalling in the sombre, gloomy magnificence of the room in which he sat. The noble, painted window seemed thick and impervious in the dim light. The rich bookcases were in shadow, and cold marble statues looked down from their pedestals with a pale, grave-like beauty as I entered.
“Varnham was reading. One small lamp alone shed its lustre on the rare Mosaic table over which he bent, and threw a broad light across the pale, calm forehead which had something heavenly in its tranquil smoothness. I was by his side, and yet he did not see me. The solemn stillness of the room had cleared away my brain, and for a moment I felt the madness of my intended confidence. I staggered, and should have fallen but for the edge of the table, which I grasped with a force that made the lamp tremble.
“Varnham started up astonished at my sudden presence; but when he saw me standing before him, with the fire of excitement burning in my eyes and crimsoning my cheeks, with jewels twinkling in my hair and blazing on my girdle, where it flashed out from the cloak which my trembling hand had become powerless to hold, he seemed intuitively to feel the evil destiny that I had wrought for myself. His face became pale, and it was a minute before he could speak. Then he came forward, drew me kindly to his bosom and kissed my forehead with a tenderness that went to my heart like the hushing of my mother’s voice. I flung myself upon his bosom and wept with a burst of passionate grief. He seated himself, drew me closer to his heart, and besought me to tell him the cause of my sorrow.