“Go to her, George, go, I entreat you,” said the latter, “for I dare not, I cannot. Tell her the simple truth, say that in doubt of my position, sometimes almost forgetting it in the magnitude of my great love for her, I looked and acted as no honorable man should have done, bound as I was. True, I never spoke of love, and in this sometimes strove to satisfy my conscience; but words are the weakest confessions that a man can make; and nothing but a coward shelters his honor under the miserable pretence, that a passion uttered in every action and look is unspoken, if not syllabled in so many words.
“I loved this woman in her girlhood—hopelessly, for she married another. But even in look, or gesture, it was unexpressed. Then my poor Louisa came as a more solemn barrier against this passion, came and vanished like a troubled shadow, leaving me desolate and a wanderer on the face of the earth. I came home; I found Townsend Oakley dead, and the woman I had so worshipped a widow, free as air, more beautiful than ever, and ready to renew her acquaintance with me as the dearest of her early friends.
“It was wrong, I know it, George, but how could I resist the happiness of seeing her? How force myself to repel the dawning favor that I found in her eyes? I did not speak—thus appeasing conscience with mental craft. But she must have known how madly I loved her, and, conceal it as I may, it was the very delirium of joy that I felt whenever an unconscious proof escaped her, that her own warm heart answered back the passion burning so fatally in mine.
“During the winter, this intimacy continued. In the spring the young widow, in pursuance of a plan laid out by her husband before his death, completed a pretty cottage on Staten Island, near the sea-shore, and retired there with her little boy.”
“She had a child then?” interrupted George, with interest.
“One of the loveliest children that you ever set eyes on, so bright, so incapable of being spoiled, my heart leaped toward the child the moment I saw him!”
George remained thoughtful, while Louis walked up and down the room, excited and restless.
“It is strange, if your wife is living,” said George, at last, “that no traces of her can be found. Have you searched since we talked of this before?”
“Everywhere, and in vain. This is the misery of my position!” answered Louis, passionately. “If she could be found, a sense of duty would give me strength; I could struggle against this fascination; but with this dull blank of uncertainty before me, I have no power to wrestle with myself.”
“We are both in a terrible position,” said George, “but we must act as honest men, and trust God for the rest. You are right, Louis. Leave this country at once. Let me continue the search for Louisa. If I find her, we will join you in any country you may wish. If all search proves vain, she is doubtless dead.”