“He offered his carriage, but Julia put off accepting for a long time, saying you would soon return. But at last he pressed her so, and seeing everybody else gone, she concluded to go, and Mr. Delaney helped her into the carriage, and Mr. Edgerton got in too, to see her home; and off they drove, and it was not an hour after, when Becky (the servant-girl) came to rout us up, saying that her mistress was dying. I hurried on my clothes, and Delaney—dear good man—he was just as quick; and off we came, and sure enough, we found her in a bad way, and nobody with her but the servants; and I sent off after you, and after the doctor; and he just came in time to help her; but she went on wofully; was very lightheaded; talked a great deal about you; and about Mr. Edgerton; I suppose because he had just been seeing her home; but didn't seem to know and doesn't know to this moment what has happened to her.”
I have shortened very considerably the long story which Mrs. Delaney made of it. Rambling as it was—full of nonsense—with constant references to her “dear good man,” and her party, the company, herself, her fashion, and frivolities—there was yet something to sting and trouble me at the core of her narration. Edgerton and my wife linger to the last—Edgerton rides home with her—he and she in the carriage, alone, at midnight;—and then this catastrophe, which the doctor thought was a natural consequence of some excitement or alarm.
These facts wrought like madness in my brain. Then, too, in her delirium she raves of HIM! Is not that significant? True, it comes from the lips of that malicious old woman! she, who had already hinted to me that my wife—her daughter—was likely to be as faithless to me as she had been to herself. Still, it is significant, even if it be only the invention of this old woman. It showed what she conjectured—what she thought to be a natural result of these practices which had prompted her suspicions as well as my own.
How hot was the iron-pressure upon my brain—how keen and scorching was that fiery arrow in my soul, when I took my place of watch beside the unconscious form of my wife, God alone can know. If I am criminal—if I have erred with wildest error—surely I have struggled with deepest misery. I have been misled by wo, not temptation! Sore has been my struggle, sore my suffering, even in the moment of my greatest fault and folly. Sore!—-how sore!
CHAPTER XXXIII. — STILL THE CLOUD.
For three days and nights did I watch beside the sick bed of my wife. In all this time her fate continued doubtful. I doubt if any anxiety or attention could have exceeded mine; as it was clear to myself that, in spite of jealousy and suspicion, my love for her remained without diminution. Yet this watch was not maintained without some trials far more severe and searching than those which it produced upon the body. Her mind, wandering and purposeless, yet spoke to mine, and renewed all its racking doubts, and exaggerated all its nameless fears. Her veins burned with fever. She was fitfully delirious. Words fell from her at spasmodic moments—strange, incoherent words, but all full of meaning in my ears. I sat beside the bed on one hand, while, on one occasion, her mother occupied a seat upon that opposite. The eyes of my wife opened upon both of us—turned from me, convulsively, with an expression, as I thought, of disgust, then closed—while her lips, taking up their language, poured forth a torrent of threats and reproaches.
I can not repeat her words. They rang in my ears, understood, indeed, but so wildly and thrillingly, that I should find it a vain task to endeavor to remember them. She spoke of persecution, annoyance, beyond propriety, beyond her powers of endurance. She threatened me—for I assumed myself to be the object of her denunciation—with the wrath of some one capable to punish—nay, to rescue her, if need be, by violence, from the clutches of her tyrant. Then followed another change in her course of speech. She no longer threatened or denounced. She derided. Words of bitter scorn and loathing contempt issued from those bright, red, burning, and always beautiful lips, which I had never supposed could have given forth such utterance, even if her spirit could have been supposed capable of conceiving it. Keen was the irony which she expressed—irony, which so well applied to my demerits in one great respect, that I could not help making the personal application.
“How manly and generous,” she proceeded, “was this sort of persecution of one so unprotected, so dependent, so placed, that she must even be silent, and endure without speech or complaint, in the dread of dangers which, however, would not light upon her head. Oh, brave as generous!” she exclaimed, with a burst of tremendous delirium, terminating in a shriek; “oh, brave as generous!—scarcely lion-like, however, for the noble beast rushes upon his victim. He does not prowl, and skulk, and sneak, watching, cat-like; crouching and base, in stealth and darkness. Very noble, but mousing spirit! Beware! Do I not know you now! Fear you not that I will show your baseness, and declare the truth, and guide other eyes to your stealthy practice? Beware! Do not drive me into madness!”