Now that Frank knows my whole heart, I hope he will cease from self-accusation for what passed at B——. I was sitting at my desk writing when he came in. I looked up with a smile; but he only made a faint attempt to return it. I instantly shut my desk, and went unbidden to sit upon his knee. He put his arm about me, but did not speak. To divert his thoughts, I asked him about his patients.
"Cora, my dear wife," said he interrupting me, "I would give all I possess," ('including me,' I whispered,) "if you could open your heart to me as you do to your mother in that journal."
"Why, Frank, I will tell you all you would like to know. I can't think of anything I wish to conceal from you."
"Isn't there," he asked in an agitated voice, and hiding his face behind me, "Isn't there, away down at the bottom of your heart a feeling, which if brought out to the light, would read, 'I think I have been cruelly insulted by my husband, and I can never love and respect him as I once did?'"
"Frank," I exclaimed, starting to my feet, "let me feel your pulse. I will order draughts for your feet. You surely have had a return of your giddiness, or you would not insult your wife by such suspicions. When you are sufficiently recovered to bear it, you shall take the said journal of which you are so jealous, and retiring to the privacy of the library, you shall then and there learn all that your wife thinks of you."
"Dearest," he replied, "you will do me the greatest favor by allowing me to peruse that part of it relating to ——." I put my hand to his mouth, which he held there. Then I went to my desk, and separating the sheets containing the account of our visit to B——, I put them into his hand. When he had left the room, I could not help smiling at the look with which he took the papers. It was something like that of a boy who anticipates a pretty severe whipping. I began to feel sorry, I had written so much about jealousy, and feared he would think that I attached more importance to it than I do; for indeed I love my husband, if possible, better than ever.
It was four or five hours before I saw him again, and I started to go to him, when I heard Cæsar knock repeatedly at the library door without receiving an answer. I therefore waited with great impatience. At length my husband came to my room, where Pauline was playing about the floor, and I knew by his looks, he had been much agitated. I sprang to meet him, when he clasped me in his arms, saying, "Dearest and best of wives, tell me again, that you forgive me. How very inhuman I have been!"
"Are you sorry you read it," I asked?
"No, no!" he replied eagerly, "I thank you more than I can express."
"Well, then, will you promise never to think of it more?"