"Can it be possible," I was forced to exclaim, "that there was no help for you?"
"You see how it was. I have outlined the bare facts to you. Nobody wanted to be mixed up in my troubles, and the worst of it was that Mr. Seabrook got more sympathy than I did, as the unfortunate husband of a terrible termagant, who made his life a burden to him. He could talk in a certain way around among men, and put on an aggrieved air at home before the boarders, and what was the use of my saying anything. If it had not been for my little German neighbor, I should have felt utterly forsaken by all the world. But she, whatever she thought of my domestic affairs, was sorry for me. 'What for you cry so much all de time?' she said to me one day. 'You makes yourself sick all de time mit cryin'; an' your face be gettin' wite as my hankershif. De leedle boy, too, he sees you, an' he gets all so wite as you are, all de same. Dat is not goot. You gomes to see me, an' brings de boy to see my Hans. You get sheered up den.' And I took her advice for Benton's sake."
"What object had Mr. Seabrook in remaining where he was so unwelcome? He certainly entertained no hope that you would finally yield; and his position could not have been an agreeable one, from any point of view; for whether he was regarded as the monster he was, or only as a sadly beshrewed husband, he must have felt himself the subject of unpleasant remark."
"He could afford to be remarked upon when he was a free pensioner upon a woman's bounty, and in receipt of a fine income which I earned for him by ceaseless toil. I can see him now sitting at the bottom of the table, my table, flourishing his white hands, and stroking his flowing blonde beard occasionally as something very gratifying to his vanity was said; talking and laughing with perfect unconcern, while he fattened himself at my expense; while I, who earned and prepared his dinner for him, gasped half fainting in the heat of a kitchen, sick in heart and body. Do you wonder that I hated him?"
"I wonder more that you did not kill him," I said; feeling that this would have been a case of 'justifiable homicide.'
"The impulse certainly came to me at times to kill him; or if not exactly that, to wish him dead. Yet when the opportunity came to be revenged upon him by fate itself, I interfered to save him. That was strange, was it not? To be suffering as I suffered at this man's hands, and yet when he was in peril to have compassion upon him?"
"You could not alter your nature," I said, "which is, as I told you before, thoroughly sound and sweet. It goes against us to suffer wrong; but it goes still harder with us to do wrong. Besides, you had your religious training to help you."
"I had the temptation, all the same. It happened in this way: One night I was lying awake, as I usually did, until I heard Mr. Seabrook come in and go to his room. He came in rather later than usual, and I listened until all was still in the house, that I might sleep the more safely and soundly afterwards. I had, however, become so nervously wakeful by this time that the much needed and coveted sleep refused to visit me, and I laid tossing feverishly upon my bed when I became aware that there was a smell of fire in the air. Rapidly dressing, I took Benton in my arms and hastened down stairs, to have him where I could save him, should the house be in danger. There was a still stronger odor of burning cloth and wood in the lower rooms, but very little smoke to be detected. After looking into the kitchen and finding all right there, I feared the fire might be in the other part of the house, and was about to give the alarm, when it occurred to me that the trouble might be in Mr. Seabrook's room.
"Leaving Benton asleep on the dining-room table, I ran to his door and knocked. No answer came; but I could smell the smoke within. Pushing open the door I discovered him lying in a perfectly unconscious state, and half undressed, on the bed, sleeping off the effects of a wine supper. A candle which he had lighted, and left burning, had consumed itself down to the socket, and by some chance had ignited a few loose papers on the table beside the bed; the fire had communicated to the bedding on one side, and to some of his wearing apparel on the other. All was just ready to burst into a blaze with the admission of fresh air, which I had the presence of mind to prevent, by closing the door behind me.
"There I was, in the presence of my enemy, and he in the clutches of death. I shudder when I think of the feelings of that moment! An evil spirit plainly said to me, 'Now you shall have rest. Let him alone; he is dying by his own hand, not yours—why do you interfere with the decree of fate?' An exulting yet consciously guilty joy agitated my heart, which was beating violently. 'Let him die!' I said to myself, 'let him die!'