What I have set down I very well remember saying, but afterwards a sort of delirium fastened upon me, and I recollect but fragments of my dazed, broken-hearted speech. I remember lifting up my hands and calling upon God to slay me as I there stood. I remember cursing the moment that gave me back my memory since it was to yield me this. I remember exclaiming with passionate abhorrence against my husband’s infidelity to my memory, against my sister Mary’s—my twin sister Mary’s—cold, cruel, treacherous, disloyal appropriation of my place in my husband’s heart. I wandered about the room with the steps of madness, loud with lamentation, loud with abuse of my husband and sister, vengefully, with infuriate gestures, crying that I must have my children! They were mine! I must have my children. They were my own flesh and blood! They dared not keep them from me! pausing sometimes to say ‘they have driven me mad!’ and then raving afresh, but always with dry eyes, whilst poor Mrs. Lee stood apart, gazing at me with silent distress and dismay.
Then in one of my transports I stood and picked up the letter and read it again, breathing fast, as though I had been racing, and when I had come to the end of it for the second time the horrible tightness in my throat was relaxed, as though a cord which had been choking me had suddenly broken, and, once again flinging myself upon the bed, I wept—crying as never had I cried before, often as my griefs had vented themselves in passions of weeping!
Human sorrow may be compared to a river that, when it first springs, flows over a shallow bed with froth and noise, but presently the channel deepens, and then the river flows silently. As my grief flowed, it deepened; it grew hushed. I arose from Mrs. Lee’s bed, and sat upon the edge of it with my eyes fixed upon the floor. The dear little woman finished dressing in silence. She then took me by the hand, and we went downstairs into the parlour where breakfast awaited us.
‘Now, Agnes,’ she exclaimed, ‘before we decide upon what steps you are to take we must first make sure that General Ramsay’s information is correct.’
‘Oh, I feel within my heart it is correct,’ said I; ‘Mary is a beautiful girl; my husband always admired her. Oh, yes, they are married,’ and I wept silently.
‘I should wish to be quite satisfied as to that,’ said Mrs. Lee. ‘I wish General Ramsay had given us the date of their marriage. However, after breakfast I will write to the offices of the Bath newspapers—you will be able to give me their names—and offer a reasonable price for a copy of any paper which may contain an announcement of the marriage.’
‘I must have my children!’ I cried.
‘Yes, yes, all shall happen as you wish. But God has been good to you. Continue to have faith in His goodness. Do not act hastily, do not let your feelings govern you; for, unless we reflect, we are certain to act rashly. Something we might do which would make you feel broken-hearted for life for having done. Remember this: you are still your husband’s wife. It is your sister who must be the sufferer—not you. She is your twin sister. Be sure that your love for her is deep, though for the moment the startling, dreadful news which we have received renders you insensible of that love. And you must be just, Agnes. It is hard for one who feels as you now do to be just, and still the truth must be as a star that nothing is to cloud, that you may be able to direct your steps unerringly by it. It is three years since your sister and husband have heard of you. They believe you dead. Who would not believe you dead on such evidence as General Ramsay’s letter contains? The body of the boatman who was known to be your sole companion is found, is brought to land, and identified. The boat in which you set sail is discovered drifting about upside down. Surely your husband had all imaginable right to consider himself a widower. He has waited two years and seven or eight months. Do not imagine that I justify his second marriage. It is not a right marriage. Indeed, it is not lawful. A man may not marry his deceased wife’s sister. But these unions are repeatedly happening for all that, and I for one do not oppose them for the reasons which are advanced against them, but merely because I object to second marriages altogether. But remember that you have two little ones. They need a mother’s care. Your husband has a business that takes him away from his home, and, failing your sister, the little ones must be at the mercy of a nurse throughout the day and night. Your sister took your place. She loved your children, as you have told me, with a love which was scarcely less than your own, and if this world had been any other world than it is, your sister, I have no doubt, would have gone on filling your place as a mother, without a thought ever occurring to her or to your husband of her taking your place as a wife. Whilst you were at home it was perfectly reasonable and correct that she should live with you. But when you were gone—that is to say, when it was believed that you were dead—it would not be considered proper by a society that drives people into a behaviour it condemns, that your sister should continue living as a single woman under the same roof with your husband, whom all Bath regarded as a widower; and yet, if she did not live under his roof, she could not look after your children! Oh, have mercy, my dear. Be just to those who loved you, whom you still love, hard as it may seem to you to render justice at such a time. And, above all, remember you are still the wife!—it is your sister, your dear twin sister, who must prove the sufferer.’
She looked upwards with tears in her eyes; her own daughters were in her thoughts at that moment.
To this, and to much more—for we sat talking until the morning was far advanced—I listened with tearful attention; but my passions were so hot, my emotions so violent, that whilst my dear friend talked I was not sensible of being influenced by her views. Knowing that my husband was again married, I could not bring myself to feel that I was still his wife. I had been replaced; he had given his love to my sister; for all I knew I might be as dead to his remembrance and love as I was dead in his belief.