In this state I lay. How long I know not—it must have been for several hours. I was brought to consciousness by a sense of cold. I was benumbed—a steady rain was falling, and from the condition of my clothes, which were completely saturated, must have been falling for some time previous. I rose with pain and difficulty to my feet. I was still as one stunned and stupified, by one of those extremes of suffering for which the overcharged heart can find no sufficient or sufficiently rapid method of relief. When I rose, the light was no longer in the parlor. The parties were withdrawn.
Horrible thought! That I should have failed at that trying moment. I knew everything—I knew nothing. It was still possible that Julia had repulsed him. I had seen HIS audacity only—was it followed by HER guilt? How shall that be known? I could answer this question as Kingsley would have answered it.
“If your wife be honest, she must now reveal the truth. She can no longer forbear. The proceeding of Edgerton has been too decided, and she shares his guilt if she longer keeps it secret. The wife who submits to this form of insult, without seeking protection where alone it may be found, clearly shows that the offence is grateful to her—that she deems it no insult.”
That, then, shall be the test! So I determined. Edgerton must be punished. There is no escape. But for her—if she does not seek the earliest occasion to reveal the truth, she is guilty beyond doubt—doomed beyond redemption.
I entered the house with difficulty. I was as feeble as if I had been under the hands of the physician for weeks. A light was burning on the staircase. I took it and went into the parlor, which I narrowly examined. There were no remaining proofs of the late disorder. The table was set against the wall. The chess-men were all gathered up, and neatly put away in the box, which stood upon the mantel.
“There is proof of coolness and deliberation here!” I muttered to myself, as I took my way up-stairs. When I entered my chamber, I felt a pang, the fore-runner of a spasm. I had been for several years afflicted with these spasms, in great or small degree. They marked every singular mental excitement under which I labored. It was no doubt one of these spasms which had seized and overpowered me while I sat within the tree. Never before had I suffered from one so severe; but the violence of this was naturally due to the extreme of agony—as sudden as it was terrible—which seized upon my soul. My physician had provided me with a remedy against these attacks to which I was accustomed to resort. This, though a potent remedy, was also a potent poison. It was a medicine called the hydrocyanic or prussic acid. Five minims was a dose, but two drops were death. I went to the medicine-case which stood beneath the head of the bed, with the view to getting out the vial; but my wife started up eagerly as I approached, and with trembling accents, demanded what was the matter. She saw me covered with mud and soaking with water. I told her that I had got wet coming homeward and had slipped down the hill.
“Why did you stay so late—why not come home sooner, dear husband?”
“Hypocrite!” I muttered while stooping down for the chest.
“You are sick—you have your spasms!” she now said, rising from the bed and offering to measure the medicine. This she had repeatedly done before; but I was not now willing to trust her. Doubts of her fidelity led to other doubts.
“If she is prepared to dishonor, she is prepared to destroy you!” said my familiar.