CHAPTER XI.
THE WIFE AWAITING HER HUSBAND.
While the wretched girl wandered distractedly on her way, goaded by the pangs of shame and remorse, the still more wretched Cecil, calm in his concentrated despair, was walking along the river side, pursued by the Eumenides, eager to reach a quiet spot where he might end his blighted existence.
The snow fell in large flakes that cold January night; and as each flake sank gently on the quiet bosom of the river, and silently disappeared in it, leaving no other trace than the smallest possible circle, it seemed to him an image of his own disappearance from this stormy, sunless world. In the deep, quiet bosom of Eternity was he about to vanish: from this scene of turmoil and disgrace, he was to drop into the swiftly flowing river of Eternity, in it to be absorbed like to those flakes of snow. There was comfort in that thought.
He walked on, thinking of what his wife and child would do when left by him. He thought sadly of Blanche's misery; for he knew the depth of her affection for him—for him who had so ill repaid it, who had brought such shame and sorrow on her head; but he endeavoured to console himself with the reflection that her father would take care of her, and that, perhaps, the best thing that could occur to her was to become a widow.
In those lucid moments which precede the last solemn act, he reviewed his conduct with melancholy clearness; and, undimmed by sophisms, his conduct appeared to him in its true light.
He grew calmer as he walked. He thought of his child with something like satisfaction, when he reflected that she was too young to know anything of her father's disgrace; and that, before she grew old enough even to prattle about him, all would be forgotten.
Then he thought of Hester, in her miserable finery, and followed her in imagination through the rapid stages of her inevitable career.
And he thought of Frank, then so prosperous, but soon, as he foresaw, to be dragged down from his prosperity to the destitution which must quickly follow; and he saw him dying in an hospital.
And the thought of death was sweeter to him, as he walked musingly on.