He stood near the window, with his face turned to the light, and she watched the struggle without daring to move or to speak. What silent clash of warring passion held him thus rigid she could only guess; what voices sweet and pitiful were pleading, and what voices stern and terrible replying, who can say? It did not need that angels of darkness should be there; the human heart was enough. In that swift review when the soul, anticipating a privilege of eternity, can compress a lifetime into a moment, what visions of all that life might give could have presented themselves!—dusky eves and sunlighted mornings, when the singing of birds, mingled with the prattle of children, and quiet and elegant leisure, and smiling friends, made earthly existence seem like an Elysian dream; ever-present affection, with its excuses for every fault, its recognition, prompt and inspiring, of every virtue, its cheering word for the hour of sadness, its loving check, its sympathy, its silent tenderness; the freedom of earth which wealth can give, every portal opening as if by magic, existence a perpetual feast. They crowded upon him mercilessly, and tossed to and fro his grief and remorse as the sea tosses its dead, that are now but faint white outlines, half lost in froth, now cold faces starting clearly out of the thin, green wave.
How many times that soul was lost and won in those few minutes none but the invisible witnesses of the scene could tell.
He moved at length, and Annette stepped nearer with sudden alarm, as she saw him put his hand into his bosom slowly, as if with dread to draw forth what was there. The hand closed on what it sought, and with bitter shrinking, as if it were his heart he was thus uprooting, brought it to light. It was no knife, nor pistol, nor vial of poison, as she had feared, but a folded paper. She had seen it in his hands before, and wondered what he kept with such care.
He opened it and read; and she, leaning nearer, read also, without stopping to consider her right.
This was the breviary Lawrence Gerald carried in his bosom, written largely and clearly, and signed with his name in full:
“I am a gambler, a housebreaker, a thief, a sacrilegious liar, a murderer, and a matricide.”
“O my love! stand firm! stand [pg 680] firm!” the wife tried to say; but the words died in a whisper on her lips, as her heart fainted with pain and delight.
He did stand firm without having heard her admonition. She saw the unsteady lips close again, the gazing eyes droop, the whole face and form compose itself. That brief reminder, written to be a visible witness when the voice of conscience should fail, was more potent than poison or blade or bullet.
“I wish to take a room by myself in another part of the city,” he said. “Are you willing?”
“Certainly!” she replied. “But I would like to know where it is. Not,” she added quickly, “that I would intrude or trouble you in any way. But you cannot expect me to lose all interest in you, and I shall feel better to know where you are, and to go once to see your room and the people you are with.”