“If my husband did not tell me, it was because I would not hear him,” said I, “and I will not hear you. I do not care what you have got to say. Miss Saville, I hope, will not think I mean any unkindness to her—but I have not a word to say to you.”
And I hastened away into the house, up-stairs to my own room. How my heart throbbed! how wearied, and bewildered, and sick at heart I felt! What could he mean? What could it be? Out of the temporary quietude I had fallen into, I was raised again into an eager consuming excitement, and I think for the first time that day, in the preoccupation and strain of my own mind, I wished Flora Ennerdale at home; for her sweet natural life, so great a contrast to mine at all times, was almost unendurable now.
THE TENTH DAY.
THOSE lingering, uneventful days, though they looked so long and tedious as they passed, how they seemed to have flown when I look back upon their silent progress—for it was now April, the trees were rich with young spring leaves; the sky and the air were as bright as summer; the flowers were waking everywhere, peeping among the herbage on the road-side, looking out from the tufts of meadow grass, filling the breeze with a whisper of primroses and violets, and all the nameless favorites of spring. But spring had not come to Cottiswoode—we were as we had been since my first coming here; only that the estrangement between us daily became wider, more sullen and hopeless. We were as little as possible together; yet if his thoughts were as full of me as mine were of him, it mattered little that we sat in different rooms, and pursued alone our separate occupations. The consuming and silent excitement of this life of ours, when, though I never addressed him voluntarily, I watched for his coming and going, and anxiously expected, and sought a hidden meaning in every word he said, I cannot describe to any one—it was terrible. I could fancy that a demoniac in the old times must have felt something as I did—I was possessed—I had, in reality, no will of my own, but was overborne by a succession of frantic impulses, which must have looked like a deliberate system to a looker-on. I can neither understand nor explain the rules of my conduct—or rather, it had no rules. The wild suggestion of the moment, and no better principle, was the rule which guided me.
Flora had just left us after a second visit; she had been one day gone, and I felt her absence greatly. Even Alice did not make up to me now for this younger companion; for Alice was dull, and disturbed, and sad. I felt her every look a reproach to me, and I did not seek her to be with me as I had once done. I lay down on my sofa doing nothing; cogitating vain impressions of injury and wrong; going over imaginary conversations with my husband—turning my face away from the sweet daylight, and all the joyous life out of doors. As I rested thus, I heard my husband’s step approaching, and raised myself hurriedly; my heart began to beat, and the color came back to my cheek—why was he coming here now?
He came in—he advanced to my side—he stood before me! I turned over a book nervously—glanced once at him—tried to command my voice to speak, but could not. Then he sat down beside me on my sofa. I drew away from him as far as I could, and waited for what he had to say.
“Hester,” he said, “this has lasted long enough. If we are to preserve our senses—if one of us at least—some period must be put to this torture. Are you satisfied yet with the penance you have exacted? Or how much more do you wish me to suffer? For I declare to you, I have almost passed the bounds of endurance—you will make me mad!”
“I wish you to suffer nothing,” said I. “I will keep my room; I will keep out of your sight, if it makes you mad to see me. I will go away, or else confine myself to my own apartments; I exact nothing; I only desire you to leave me at peace.”
“You will keep out of my sight if I will leave you at peace? That is a sweet compact, is it not?” he said, with vehemence and bitterness, and I could see that, at last, his patience had quite given way. “What do you mean, Hester? Have you any recollection how it is that we are related to each other—do you know what is the bond between us?”
“Yes! we are in slavery,” I said; “we belong to each other—we are united for ever. It is no use deceiving ourselves; we never can be any better—that is all I know.”