Pale as marble, like a woman to whom worldly phenomena can bring neither thought nor care, because she is doomed to an ignominious and cruel death, Madeline returned home. Entering the house, she fled up to her own room, and there, heartbroken and alone, remained face to face with her despair.
She did not weep—or pray. The sense of an arid and heart-burning oppression kept her eyes dry, and turned her heart, that might have been the fountain of pure prayer, to stone. She hated herself, the world, all that she had seen and known. God Himself seemed against her, for she knew her own innocence. Ah, yes! How she had tried, and tried, to be good, to be at peace; and it was all in vain. At every turn of her young life the evil shadow rose, pushing her down to some desolate abyss of shame.
As she sat thinking it all over, she seemed covered from head to foot with some horrible pollution. Though her spirit was pure, impurity was upon her, choking and stifling her with its abomination. She shuddered and moaned, praying for one thing only—that death might quickly come.
What should she say or do, when she saw the kind eyes harden into indignation, the kind lace darken with this last shame? Sooner or later, her husband must know the truth, if he did not know it already, if the malignant voices in the air had not already whispered it to him. She shrank in horror, thinking of how she could meet his gaze.
One thing now seemed certain to her—that the roof which covered her was no longer hers, that to remain with James Forster as his lawful wife was to live on in open adultery, which was not marriage. He himself> she knew, would be the first to recognise the infamy of that union; and then, even if he pitied her, as was faintly possible, how should she bear the scrutiny of the world, the worldly scorn of his sister’s cruel eyes?
As she sat despairing there came a soft knock at the door, which she had locked on entering; and the voice of her little step-son cried—
‘Mamma! mamma!’
She could not answer, she seemed choking; and now for the first time her eyes were dim and blind. The cry was repeated—
‘Mamma! mamma! open the door!’
Without stirring she at last found strength to speak.