Time passed; it was more than twice twelve months before the man of dreams and the man of action met again.
The one was absorbed by his ambition, the other had become selfish in his love: save on that one subject he had no sympathy to give.
But as time glided away, leaving the hair on his temples whiter and whiter, the old man was seized with an unaccountable dread. When his young wife in all the bloom of her goodness and beauty had made him the father of a daughter, her living shadow, vague, dark apprehension seized upon him, and weeks before that young mother sickened and died, the blackness of a great sorrow overshadowed his soul. He stood by her grave and saw the fresh earth heaped upon it, and, shaking his venerable white head, when his friends would have consoled him, went away into the desolation of his old age, a broken-hearted man, weary of life, and yet afraid to die.
He believed that the Divine Father had cast him off for bestowing the love which should have been his on the beautiful creature who was gone, and that for this sin he must wander on through life a mark of divine displeasure. So he withdrew himself even from his best friends, for they only reminded him of his meek, beautiful wife and his own idolatrous sin.
The very song of the birds, and the sight of the green woods added to his grief, for she was buried in springtime, when all the trees were in blossom, and the wild birds had sung sweetly over her grave while they were filling in the earth upon her coffin.
Samuel Parris retreated into the dreary solitude of his home, and gave up his life to his daughter, the child of his old age. But for this child his grief would have been utter despair, for every breath was drawn in the desolation of a widowed heart. If he went to the fireside, or the table, or awoke in the dead of night, it was to find the solitude of the grave about him. His chamber, dark and heavy with the atmosphere of death, his home, his very heart, which had been occupied with so blessed and holy a love but a few days before, desolated forever.
About this time William Phipps sailed for England, became captain of a royal ship, then, following the great idea of his life, sailed for La Plata, and returned home years after, rich from the gold and silver fished up from the wreck which he had discovered almost by a miracle—with a title of honor, no inconsiderable thing at any time even in America—and more important still, accredited by King William as Governor of New England.
A few months after his old pupil became governor of the province, Samuel Parris was summoned from his hearth, now the most desolate spot on earth to him. His presence was required in Boston.
He set forth with many misgivings, for the letter came from his friend and pupil, William Phipps.
The house, to which the letter directed him, had been the residence of a rich merchant, and was now occupied by his young widow; one of the wealthiest and most beautiful gentlewomen of the province.