We arrived in Brook-street, and I went to dress for the journey. They brought me some biscuits and wine and water. I drank some hastily, but could not eat. Mrs. Middleton gave me her last kiss, and my uncle took me down to the carriage. I stepped into it, and Edward after me. The door was closed. I opened mechanically the paper in my hand; it contained these words—"Your sin shall find you out." I crumpled it again, and flung it out of window. I talked fast and eagerly to Edward. After an hour or two I fell into a heavy sleep. When we reached Dashminster, I awoke in a burning fever. Edward carried me upstairs, and laid me on a bed. I grew delirious, and raved all night. They bled me, I believe, and in two days I was better, and able to proceed to Hillscombe.
CHAPTER XIX.
"We take fair days in winter for the spring."
YOUNG'S NIGHT THOUGHTS.
"O how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all the beauty of the scene,
And by and by a cloud takes all away."
SHAKESPEARE.
Edward, I kneel to you in spirit while I write this record of our married life. By all the trembling hope I feel that a day may come, not of mercy, but of justice—a day when, though you will not forgive me, yet you will believe in me—when, though you will not open your arms to me, yet you will say, "She was false, but not false to me." By this hope I gather strength to write. But as I pace up and down my narrow room, or lay my head on the marble slab, the only cold place it can find, dare I think of what has been, of what is not? Shall I not go mad, and in my madness shall I not accuse you, Edward? Shall I not tell God and man, that you have shut your heart against me, and broken mine? And on the day of judgment, will not God ask you what you have done with her, who, however guilty, was guiltless to you? Oh, deeply loved and deeply mourned, ever absent from my sight, ever present to my thoughts! lord of my bosom's love, object of its idolatry, I do not accuse you. If a fallen spirit banished from Heaven ever mourned over his fall, without a murmur for the past or a hope for the future, his feelings are like mine, when in my solitude I think that once you loved me and called me yours.
Can it be that such things are and pass away, and leave no traces behind them, save broken hearts and mental agonies? Does Nature, while it rejoices with those who rejoice, never weep with those who weep? Does the sun shine as brightly on the forest glades of Hillscombe as when I wandered through them with Edward? Does the stream dash through them with the same reckless joy as when he helped me over its mossy stones? Is the thyme as sweet, is the heather as purple, as when by his side I scrambled over its wild moors? And thyself, Edward, thyself—art thou as strong, as beautiful, as stern as ever? Hast thou driven me from thy side, and when the first anguish of that hour was gone by, hast thou said, "The bitterness of death is past," and raised again thy stately head in its beauty and its pride?
Is joy more sacred than grief, or is it so strange to the human heart that, when present, we dare not scan its fleeting form, nor recall its image when it is past. One short dream of bliss was mine; it stands alone in a life, which, though not long in years, has been long in sorrow. Once the cup has been raised to my lips; one draught I took of that for which my soul longs with a burning and quenchless thirst. Happiness! yes, happiness; one hour of which reveals to us what an eternity of bliss can be; for time and space, beginning and end, are as though they were not, in that intense life of the soul.
For seven days the sun rose in cloudless majesty; for seven days he sunk to rest "in one unclouded blaze of living light." Sunshine streamed on the grassy hills; it gilded the fields of ripening corn; it pierced into the depths of the forest; it bathed the world in light, and gladdened the heart of man. And I too, for a while, was glad; in the fierce fever which for some hours had robbed me of my senses, the anguish of my soul seemed to have passed away. Nothing was changed in my fate, but I felt weak, and there is something in weakness which resembles peace; and in the love which we give to man, when it is entire and undivided, there is a power which is strong for good or for evil, as the hand of the master wields it.