CHAPTER XII.
THE ATTEMPTED MURDER IN THE AIR.
The proposal to go up in a balloon accepted— Green's young and pretty wife— A very strange conversation—An unpleasant looking knife— Jealously—Madness and attempted murder.
People may have thought differently, but there was really no occasion for his jealousy; the man was mad. Knowing his eccentric habits, you ask me how I could have been so foolish as to accompany him alone in that terrible balloon ascent, and I reply that it never occurred to me that he believed that I was in love with his wife. He had gone up in balloons fifty times without meeting with any accident, and when he pressed me to join him in that midnight voyage I had but little hesitation in accepting the invitation.
As you are aware, I have done a few things in my time, and the idea of a new sensation was agreeable to me. It may come with the infirmities of old age, but as yet fear has not entered into my composition. It appeared to me that my nerves were quite as good as his.
It was a scientific experiment to test certain air currents, and you no doubt recollect that the result was watched with considerable interest. But few people know the dreadful scene that was enacted in mid-air in an unusually dark night. Unmistakable signs of insanity showed themselves a few days afterwards, and he had to be taken to Hanwell. I went to see him the other day, and he told me in the greatest confidence that he was the Devil, and that he had sat to Martin for his famous painting of "Satan in Council" from him. It was a sad case; he was a man of infinite talent, and the doctors gave but little hope of his recovery.
Yes, his wife is to be pitied. She is not more than twenty-five, and there are no two opinions about her beauty, and I can testify that her mind is quite in keeping with her person. A more fascinating woman I never met, and it may be strange to say that I have only admired her as a sister. I have known her since she was two years of age, and she has never taken any important step in life without consulting me. She was early left an orphan, and there never was a brother nor a sister. Green first met her at Harrogate, and was soon over head and ears in love.
I never saw a man so deeply influenced with the tender passion. His position and wealth there could be no mistake about, and when Lizzie Norton asked me whether she should accept his offer of marriage, I thought it a good chance for the friendless girl. It was her frequent consultations with me about her husband's daily increasing eccentricities which created the scandal, and the state of his health may have to some extent influenced me to ascend with him into the clouds.
Light a cigar and I will endeavour to bring back to my memory what took place. The balloon was a new one, called the Sunbeam. We went up from the Crystal Palace.