He covered his face with his hands, and Rosamond could see the tears dropping slowly through his fingers. Terribly was he expiating the sin of his boyhood, and what wonder is it, if, in his agony, he cried, "My punishment is greater than I can bear!"
Rosamond alone was calm. She seemed to have wept her tears away, and the blow which had fallen so crushingly upon her, had benumbed her heart, so that she now did not feel as acutely as the weeping man before her. Very soothingly she spoke to him, but she offered no word of cheer—no hope that all would yet be well. "They would bear it with brave hearts," she said, "and he must be reconciled to his wife."
"Never—never," he exclaimed. "The same roof cannot shelter us both, and if she chooses to stay when she is better, she is welcome to Riverside, but I cannot share it with her."
Neither said to the other, "It may be she will die," for such a thought had never intruded itself upon their minds, and yet Marie Porter's life was numbered now by days. The heart disease, from which she had long been suffering, was greatly aggravated by the strong nervous excitement through which she had recently been passing. Stimulants of a most powerful kind had created a kind of artificial strength, which had enabled her to come to Riverside, but this was fast subsiding; and when she bent over the motionless form of Rosamond, and feared that she was dead, she felt, indeed, that death would ere long claim her as his own. The sight of her husband, too, had well nigh been more than she could bear. For nearly nine long years she had not looked upon his face, but she remembered it well—a handsome, boyish face. His hair, she remembered, too—his soft, dark, wavy hair, through which her fingers had sometimes strayed, in the far back days at Holly Wood, before she was his bride. He would not be greatly changed, she thought; and when, on that fatal night, she heard his coming footsteps, she pictured him in her mind much as he was that winter-day, when, standing in his sister's door, he bade her a long good-by. Nearer and nearer he had come—faster and louder had beaten her heart, while a cold, faint sickness crept over her.
"Open the window—I cannot breathe," she gasped; but ere her request was obeyed, Ralph Browning had fainted on the threshold, and she had asked that she might die.
She had seen him only for an instant, but that sufficed to tell her he was changed from the dark-haired, handsome boy, into the gray-haired suffering man. His eyes had met hers, but the fierce hatred she expected, was not there; and the look of utter hopeless despair which she saw in its place, touched her as reproach and resentment could not have done.
"Oh, I hope I shall die," she said, as she hid her face in the pillow.
"I hope I shall die."
This wish she uttered every hour; and when, at last, the physician said to her, "Madam, you will die," she answered, "It is well!"
She did not ask for Mr. Browning, for she knew he would not come, but she inquired anxiously each day for Rosamond; and when, at last, she heard they were together, she laid her hand upon her heart, and watching its rise and fall, smiled to think how fast her life was going out.
"Listen, Maria," she said, "Listen to what they say, and hear if they talk of me."