Yes, he saw it. She whom he supposed was buried forever in the heaving sea was bending over him, holding his frenzied head on her breast, pushing back the wild black hair soothingly off his burning brow.
Was he sane or mad? Were all the events of the previous night only the horrible delusion of a dream—the vivid deception of a nightmare? Was the storm, the murder, all a mocking unreality?
He looked down and saw on his cloak a dark, clotted mark, the maddening evidence of the past, and knew that it was not a dream. His wife was living, still. Who, then, had fallen by his hand? In the storm and darkness, what horrible mistake had he made?
He ground his teeth and clenched his hands together to keep back the terrible emotions that made his very brain reel, feeling as though nothing, in that moment, could inflict greater tortures than he endured.
Dreaming not of what was passing in his mind, Laura still bent over, caressing him, and striving to soothe him back to calmness, bitterly accusing herself for her heartless conduct, that had driven him to such a depth of misery and despair.
"Oh, Edgar! my dearest husband! only say you forgive me for the past! I have done you wrong, but I never meant to torture you thus. Oh! indeed, I never—never meant it! I will do anything, be anything, go anywhere you wish for the future. Dearest Edgar, will you not say you pardon me?"
"Leave me—-leave me!" groaned the unhappy man, averting his head, and shading his eyes with his hands.
"But say you forgive me first, Edgar! Oh! if you knew what a miserable night I have passed, you would think I had atoned sufficiently for what I have done."
"You—you—where were you last night?" he cried, with sudden wildness, starting up.
"I was here, of course. For Heaven's sake, Edgar, do not excite yourself so," she said, startled and alarmed.