“She has been insane since the first year of our marriage,” said he. “Sit down, won’t you?” he pleaded, motioning to the chair in the shadow of the chimney-piece. “I have much to tell you. Come a little nearer—there, that is better—my voice is not over-strong to-night. You are surprised, no doubt. I do not blame you, my boy. That is why I want you to understand. So few have ever understood me. None, I might say, in all these lonely years. A man cannot live under what I have suffered, and not be misunderstood. To be separated from the one who is nearest and dearest to you in life. Far worse than a stranger to her, since for years I have passed out of even her memory. The past has been a blank to her. She became another being. It was that flash of supposed recognition which gave me hope last Sunday. I felt she remembered me; knew me at last; that little by little her mind was clearing. The physicians thought so, too. We were mistaken.”
He paused, leaning forward in the firelight, his hands clasped over his knees; Joe silent, waiting for him to continue. His heart went out to him, he tried to say something to comfort him, at least to express his deep and sincere sympathy. Before Enoch’s tragic revelation, the words he struggled to frame seemed trivial and out of place.
“We were children together,” resumed Enoch, in a voice that had grown steadier. “We grew up together in fact—in Philadelphia—my wife was barely eighteen when we were married, and I just your age. One year of happiness is not much in a man’s life. It has been my lot—yet I am even grateful for that. Then came her serious illness, due to an operation that it was a miracle she lived through—only her will and her nervous, high-strung nature saved her. The result was the beginning of acute melancholia. We travelled, we went abroad. I felt that constant moving from place to place would distract her mind. We spent two winters in Egypt, but she grew worse, even violent at times, and I was obliged to bring her home. Our home-coming marked the period of my exile. It meant that I could no longer keep her with me. The end came last night.”
He paused again.
Joe did not speak. Somehow he felt that he, who, little by little, was revealing to him the secret history of his life, wished to continue uninterrupted.
“You, my boy,” continued Enoch; “are beginning your life; mine is ended. I shall move away from here. Travel, perhaps; I must decide something, though it matters so little where I go. There is a limit to all suffering. I had hope before. To-night even that is gone. I tell you all this, for I want you to know.”
He passed his hand wearily over his brow.
“I must eat something, I suppose,” said he. “I have not eaten anything since yesterday afternoon.”
“You must have something at once,” declared Joe, rising. “I’ll ring for Moses.”
“No, not yet,” protested Enoch; “but I’ll have a glass of port, I believe. Would you mind getting it? It’s over there in the bookcase. There are some crackers, too, on the lower shelf; next to the glasses.”