For woman's love is not a slowly extorted tribute to excellence, but a spontaneous bestowal. Unlike evil spirits, which, according to popular superstition, need urging over the threshold before they can enter and possess the hearthstone. Love leaps in unsolicited at any unguarded aperture, and becomes master of the household.
Only genius could command her homage, and to this I could make no pretension.
Love is oftener a response to appreciation, than a concession granted upon a rational estimate of him who seeks it. She did not yet know that I appreciated her. The time for her to learn it had not come.
The casket of a woman's heart is oftener forced than opened with a key.
Love had once entered my wife's soul, and, after accomplishing his mischief, left demons in possession. I could not exorcise—only charm them. For the present,—perhaps for years,—I must be content with this. In the distant future, which had a dim horizon of hope, I expected to make some final stroke by which to expel them. What it should be, I could scarcely anticipate. Necessarily, I foresaw, it must be like the highwayman's challenge, 'Money or life.' After becoming endurable to her, in fact, inveigling her into unforeseen familiarity, I must suddenly throw off the mask, and demand the love for which I had waited and plotted. Either she would surrender, or there would be a tragedy.
The denouement came in a way of which I had no prescience. You will learn it in the due course of my narrative.
But she charmed me, fearfully, when she appeared, after a morning's chase, resplendent in the fullness of her healthful beauty, beaming with excitement, her superb figure undulating gracefully to the restive movements of her horse. I could have prostrated myself before her, in a wild worship of her beauty. She had that quality which is so rare in woman, but so admirable where it exists,—entire fearlessness; for it is a most absurd mistake to suppose that masculine virtues can not co-exist in woman with the most lovable, feminine delicacy. Partly her unblenching courage was the product of a strong will in a splendid physical organization; partly, alas! it arose from a disregard of life, which she felt was worthless.
One morning, as we turned our faces homeward, our Indian escort and baggage having preceded us, we were riding quietly along, with no intention of hunting, but accidentally coming on a few buffaloes separated from their herd, the temptation to attack them was too strong to be resisted. We both urged our horses in pursuit, and, overtaking them, fired simultaneously at different animals. My wife's quarry—a stout bull—continued his flight, not being fatally wounded. Suddenly, some of our Indians who had heard the shot, and started to return, came into view over the brow of a hill, and the buffalo, thinking himself surrounded, turned and rushed at my wife. She avoided the onset by a quick whirl of her horse. The buffalo gathered himself and returned to the charge with a roar of rage. Not having reloaded my rifle, I spurred forward, and leaped my steed full upon his massy form. We all fell together, and when, after several seconds, I extricated myself, my wife was standing on the buffalo's neck to prevent him from rising. I plunged my knife into his chest, but in the mad struggle of death he partially rose, throwing her to the ground, while one of his horns entered her side. Never before, since I commenced my system, had I lost my studied calmness. But the sight of her blood, dyeing her garments and the grass, made me frantic. I tore away her vestments from the wound, pressed my lips in an agony to the gash, and then, hastily stanching the blood, bore her, nearly senseless as she was, in an embrace, the thrilling energy of which can not be told, to a rivulet in the vicinity. Happily the wound was but a lesion of the flesh, for which my surgery was sufficient, and by the aid of stimulants she revived, subsequently recovering without injury.
Since my fatal discovery in the conservatory, I had not before touched her person, except for such courtesies as any gentleman may render a lady of his acquaintance. Now, with my arms clasping her, my veins throbbed as in a delirium. The tender light of her eyes, as she revived, resulting partially from weakness and partially from a natural thankfulness, moved me to the very point of prematurely throwing myself at her feet and disclosing all. By a great throe I controlled myself. As she resumed her natural condition, I fell back into that most ordinary and common-place character,—a self-satisfied husband,—qualified somewhat by sympathy and attention, of course, but without the least infusion of sentiment.
Oh, if she had known of the volcano under this exterior! If she had known how, at that moment, I could have exclaimed, 'Give me your love, or here let us die!'