In the second place, Foster was such a man as the narrowly scrupulous and orthodox world of Barham would naturally regard with suspicion. Graduate of a German university, he had brought back to America, not only a superb scientific education, but also what passed, in the region where he had settled, for a laxity of morals. Professor as he was in the austere college of Hampstead, and expected, therefore, to set a luminously correct example in both theoretical and practical ethics, he held theological opinions which were too modern to be considered sound, and he even neglected church to an extent which his position rendered scandalous. In spite of the strict prohibitory law of Massachusetts, he made use of lager-beer and other still stronger fluids; and, although he was never known to drink to excess, the mere fact of breaking the statute was a sufficient offence to rouse prejudice. It was also reported of him, to the honest horror of many serious minds, that he had been detected in geologizing on Sunday, and that he was fond of whist.
How apt we are to infer that a man who violates our code of morals will also violate his own code! Of course this Germanized American could not believe that murder was right; but then he played cards and drank beer, which we of Barham knew to be wrong; and if he would do one wrong thing, why not another?
Meantime how was it with Bessie? How is it always with women when those whom they love are charged with unworthiness? Do they exhibit the “judicial mind”? Do they cautiously weigh the evidence and decide according to it? The girl did not entertain the faintest supposition that her lover could be guilty; she was no more capable of blackening his character than she was capable of taking his life. She would not speak to people who showed by word or look that they doubted his innocence. She raged at a world which could be so stupid, so unjust, and so wicked as to slander the good fame and threaten the life of one whom her heart had crowned with more than human perfections.
But what availed all her confidence in his purity? There was the finger of public suspicion pointed at him, and there was the hangman lying in wait for his precious life. She was almost mad with shame, indignation, grief, and terror. She rose as pale as a ghost from sleepless nights, during which she had striven in vain to unravel this terrible mystery, and prayed in vain that Heaven would revoke this unbearable calamity. Day by day she visited her betrothed in his cell, and cheered him with the sympathy of her trusting and loving soul. The conversations which took place on these occasions were so naïve and childlike in their honest utterance of emotion that I almost dread to record them, lest the deliberate, unpalpitating sense of criticism should pronounce them sickening, and mark them for ridicule.
“Darling,” she once said to him, “we must be married. Whether you are to live or to die, I must be your wife.”
He knelt down and kissed the hem of her dress in adoration of such self-sacrifice.
“Ah, my love, I never before knew what you were,” he whispered, as she leaned forward, caught his head in her hands, dragged it into her lap, and covered it with kisses and tears. “Ah, my love, you are too good. I cannot accept such a sacrifice. When I am cleared publicly of this horrible charge, then I will ask you once more if you dare be my wife.”
“Dare! O, how can you say such things!” she sobbed. “Don’t you know that you are more to me than the whole universe? Don’t you know that I would marry you, even if I knew you were guilty?”
There is no reasoning with this sublime passion of love, when it is truly itself. There is no reasoning with it; and Heaven be thanked that it is so! It is well to have one impulse in the world which has no egoism, which rejoices in self-immolation for the sake of its object, which is among emotions what a martyr is among men.
Foster’s response was worthy of the girl’s declaration. “My love,” he whispered, “I have been bemoaning my ruined life, but I must bemoan it no more. It is success enough for any man to be loved by you, and as you love me.”