“Am I then to recover, as the doctor assures me I shall? Am I to sit down in the enjoyment of my ample means, and in no way minister to the comfort of those whom my follies made miserable? My wife and child dead—and she, who should have been my wife, lost to me—dead perhaps likewise! I have by various means sought to find Amelia. I even put into a New York and a Boston paper an advertisement, which if it met her eye, would have assured her of my repentance; but, alas! I might repent, I might seek now to marry her, with the same selfish views which I had at first. I might even for her sake now do what would be called justice by some, but what act of mine, however just, could compensate for the horrible outrage which I had committed, the gross insult, public, palpable, unpardonable, which I had offered to her? Yet I loved her, love her now, have ever loved her, and though I have sought refuge for my conscience in the clouds of infidelity, I have never ceased to love her image in my heart, and that has saved me from the follies and vices to which my state of mind and my profession exposed me.”
The spring with its chill winds had passed, and summer was warming the earth. It was then, as it is now, delightful to sit and watch the waving of the long grass on yonder meadows, as the breeze passed over it, or to see the shadow of the cloud flit over the waters that are rippled with the west wind. You who have lived in other states, have undoubtedly found much that you think far more beautiful than this scene, but for me who have spent childhood and age on the banks of this river and the shores of the bay, I know of nothing in nature more lovely. It was just such a morning as this when the invalids were brought from the house, to taste the fresh air from the bay and to look abroad upon land and water, and thank God that they had been spared.
The captain walked with a crutch—his fine manly form would have attracted attention any where.
Poor Amelia sat in her chair, wrapped about with customary garments for the sick, and her face, then sadly marked with the remains of the small-pox, was covered with a green veil.
“I hope you enjoy this scene, captain,” said Amelia.
“All of physical enjoyment which a healthful breeze can impart I certainly have, but I am incapable of mental ease.”
“Is that a fruit of repentance?”
“If repentance is the recognition of errors, surely that repentance, even which seems the pardon of heaven, must keep alive the grief for the offence, though it may rather seem joy for the pardon.
“I may say to you, Amelia, that I have hinted to your mother, that while I shall retain enough of my wealth to sustain myself and do justice to others, I desire to make you remuneration for the benefits you have conferred on me, and the terrible suffering you have endured for me, and for this I shall not wait my own death, but I desire to place you at once in possession.”
“I am compensated—but here comes my mother.”