CHAPTER XLI. — TRIAL—THE WOMAN GROWS STRONG.
Thus, then, I was once more at sea, rudderless—not yet companionless—perhaps, soon to be so. My relapse was as sudden as my thought. It seemed as if every past misery of doubt and suspicion were at once revived within me. All my day-dreams vanished in an instant. William Edgerton would again behold—would again seek—my wife. They must meet; I owed that to the father; and, whatever the condition of the son might be, it was evident that his feelings toward her must be the same as ever; else, why should he seek her out?—why pursue our footsteps and haunt my peace? I must receive him and treat him kindly for the father's sake; but that one bitter thought, that he was pursuing us, the deadly enemy to my peace—and now, evidently, a wilful one—gave venom to the bitter feeling with which I had so long regarded his attentions.
It was evident, too, whatever may have been its occasion, that the knowledge of his coming awakened strange emotions in the bosom of my wife. That blush—that sudden paleness of the cheek—what was their language? I fain would have struggled against the conviction, that it denoted a guilty consciousness of the past—a guilty feeling of the future. But the mocking demon of the blind heart forced the assurance upon me. What was to be done? Ah! what? This was the question, and there was no variation in the reply which my jealous spirit made. There was but one refuge. I must pursue the same insidious policy as before. I must resort to the same subterfuge, meet them with the same smiles, disguise once more the true features of my soul; seem to shut my eyes, and afford them the same opportunities as before, in the torturing hope (fear?) that I should finally detect them in some guilty folly which would be sufficient to justify the final punishment. I must put on the aspect of indifference, the better to pursue the vocation of the spy.
Base necessity, but still, as I then fancied, a necessity not the less. Ah I was I not a thing to be pitied? Was ever any case more pitiable than mine? I ask not this question with any hope that an answer may be found to justify my conduct. It is not the less pitiable—nay, it is more—that no such answer can be found. My folly is not the less a thing of pity, because it is also a thing of scorn. That was the pity—and yet, I was most severely tried. Deep were my sufferings! Strong was that demon within me—I care not how engendered, whether by the fault and folly of others, or by my own—still it was strong. If I was guilty—base, blind—was I not also suffering? Never did I inflict on the bosom of Julia Clifford, so deep a pang as I daily—nay, hourly, inflicted upon my own. She was a victim, true—but was I less so! But she was innocently a victim, therefore, less a sufferer, whatever her sufferings, than me! Let none condemn or curse me, till they have asked what curse I have already undergone. I live!—they will say. Ah! me! They must ask what is the value of life, not to themselves, but to a crushed, a blasted heart, like mine! But I hurry forward with my pangs rather than my story.
Instantly, a barrier seemed to rise up between Julia Clifford ind myself. She had her consciousness, evidently, no less than I. What was THAT consciousness? Ah! could I have guessed THAT, there would have been no barrier—all might have been peace again. But a destiny was at work which forbade it all; and we strove ignorantly with one another and against ourselves. There was a barrier between us, which our mutual blindness of heart made daily thicker, and higher, and less liable to overthrow. A coldness overspread my manner. I made it a sort of shelter. The guise of indifference is one of the most convenient for hiding other and darker feelings. Already we ceased to ramble by river and through wood. Already the pencil was discarded. We could no longer enjoy the things which so lately made us happy, because we no longer entertained the same confidence in one another. Without this confidence there is no communion sweet. And all this had been the work of that letter. The name of William Edgarton had done it all—his name and threatened visit!
But—and I read, the letter again and again—it would be some time before he might be expected. The route, as laid down for him by his father, was a protracted one. “Through Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, then homeward, by way of Alabama.” “He can not be here in less than six weeks. He must travel slowly. He must make frequent rests.”
And there was a further thought—a hope—which, though it filled my mind, I did not venture to express in words. “He may perish on his route: if he be so feeble, it is by no means improbable!”
At all events, I had six weeks' respite—perhaps more. Such was my small consolation then. But even this was false. In less than a week from that time, William Edgerton stood at the door of our cottage!
Instead of going into Tennessee, he had shot straight forward, through Georgia, into Alabama.