“No, you are not the same man,” I answered, “you are not Harry, you are Edgar Southcote. I never gave either hand or heart to you, I gave them to one who was not capable of fraud—who knew nothing of a lie—he is gone and dead, and I will never find him more either in heaven or earth. You have killed my Harry—you have killed my heart within me. I never molested you. I never appealed to you for pity. I had forgotten Cottiswoode; it was nothing to me. Why did you come with your false compassion to steal away my hopes, and my heart, and my youth?”
“Compassion, Hester? where is there any compassion in the matter?” he exclaimed; “you show none to me.”
“No—I only want justice,” said I; “oh! I know you have been generous—I know it was a kind meaning, a charitable impulse, to restore to me my father’s land. Do not let us speak of it, if I am to keep my reason now—I fancied such a thing could never happen to me. I did not think I could have been so humiliated. I trusted you—I trusted you with all my heart—will you let me stay here, and leave me to myself? I want to collect myself—to think of what is all over and past, and of what remains.”
“What remains? what will you do, Hester?” he cried, growing very pale.
But I could not tell—I looked round me with a dreary desolate search for something to support me. I had no one to flee to—not one in all the world. What a change since yesterday—since this morning, when I had everything in having him.
I remember that he came to me and kissed my hand—that he bent over it, and entreated me to forgive him; that I turned away and would not look at him, nor listen, with a hard and breathless obduracy, and that then he said, “Good-night—good-night!” and slowly went away.
When I was alone, my desolation, my wretchedness, my solitude burst upon me in an agony—he had gone away—he had granted my petition—I was alone! I stood for a long time quite silent, where he had left me, then I went back to my chair; I fancied the very foundations of the earth were breaking up. I had no longer any one to trust to; every one had deceived me, every creature I loved or cared for was in the conspiracy—even my father’s suspicions must have come to certainty before I left him. Yet nobody had warned me—oh! it was cruel! cruel! for thus it came about that I had no one to go to in my distress, no one to seek refuge with, that my impulse was to turn away from all my friends, to seek a dreary shelter in this loneliness, which struck to my heart to-night, with such a terrible pang. What was I to do?
I could not think of that; my mind went back and back again to what was past. I began to follow out the evidences, the certainties which made it clear to Alice, and to my father, and which ought to have made it clear to me. I had no wish to go back to them. I was indifferent to everything; I only felt that in a moment a bitter antagonism had sprung up between him and me; that, according to our love, would be our enmity and opposition, and that even in our variance and strife, and with this unforgiven wrong between us, we were bound to each other for ever.
All this night, when I thought to have been so happy, I sat alone in that chair. At last, when it grew late, and the fire burned low, and I felt the chill of the night, my fatigue overpowered me, and I fell asleep. My dreams were of vague distress and tribulation, misfortune and misery, which I could not comprehend; but when I awoke, I found myself laid on the bed, carefully wrapped up, though still dressed, and the gray of dawn coming in through the windows. I could not recollect myself for the moment, nor how I had come to be here; but when I lifted my head, I saw him seated where I had seated myself last night, bending over a bright fire, with his arm supporting his head. When he heard me stir, he looked up; he had not been sleeping to-night, although I had, and then I recollected all that had passed, and that it was he who must have lifted me here, and covered me so carefully. His face was pale now, and his eyes dark and heavy; he seemed almost as listless and indifferent as I was—for though he looked up, he made no advance to me.
I sprang from my rest, and threw off from me the shawls I had been wrapped in; then he rose and offered me his chair. I did not take it—we stood looking at each other—then he took my hand and held it, and looked at me wistfully. I said a cold “Good-morning,” and turned my head away. When I did that, he dropped my hand, and withdrew me a little—and then he seemed to make an effort to command himself, and spoke to me in a voice which I scarcely recognised—so clear it was, and calm. Ah! he could be something else than an ardent or a penitent lover; the voice of the man was new to me. I looked up at him instantly, with a respect which I could not help; but we had entered upon another day. These days of my life crowded on each other, and to this chill, real dawn, and not to the wild, passionate night which preceded it, belonged what he said.