Here I told him of the letter of Mrs. Delaney, in which that permanent beldame counsels her daughter, less against the passion itself, than against the imprudent exhibition of it. It was clear that the mother had seen what had escaped my eyes. It was clear that the mother was convinced of the attachment of the daughter for this man. Now, the attachment being shown, what followed from the concealment of the indignities to which Edgerton had subjected her, but that she was pleased with them, and did not feel them to be such. These indignities are persevered in—are frequently repeated. Our footsteps are followed from one country to another. The husband's hours of absence are noted. His departure is the invariable signal for them to meet. They meet. His hands paddle with hers; his arms grasp her waist. True, we are told by him, that she resists; but it is natural that he should make this declaration. Its truth is combated by the fact that, of these insults, SHE says nothing. That fact is everything. That one fact involves all the rest. The woman who conceals such a history, shares in the guilt.
Kingsley assented to these conclusions.
“Yet,” he said, “there is an air of truthfulness about these papers—this narrative—that I should be pleased to believe, even if I could not;—that I should believe for your sake, Clifford, if for no other reason. Honestly, after all you have said and shown—with all the unexplained and perhaps unexplainable particulars before me, making the appearances so much against her—I can not think your wife guilty. I should be sorry to think so.”
“I should now be sorry to think otherwise,” I said huskily. I thought of that poisonous draught. I thought with many misgivings, and trembled where I sat.
“You surprise me to hear you speak so. Surely, Clifford, you love your wife!”
“Love her!” I exclaimed; I could say no more. My sobs choked my utterance.
“Nay, do not give up,” he said tenderly. “Be a man. All will go well yet. The facts are anything but conclusive. These papers have a realness about them, which have their weight against any suspicions, however strong. Remember, these are the declarations of a dying man! Surely, all minor considerations of policy would give way at such a moment to the all-important necessity of speaking the truth. Besides, there is one consideration alone, to which we have made no reference, which yet seems to me full of weight and value. Edgerton could scarcely have been successful in his designs upon your wife. He was in fact dying of the disappointment of his passions. They could not have been gratified. Success takes an exulting aspect. He was always miserable and wo-begone—always desponding, sad, unhappy, from the first moment when this passion began, to the last.”
“Guilt, guilt, nothing but guilt!”
“No, Clifford, no!—The guilt that works so terribly upon conscience as to produce such effects upon the frame, inevitably leads to repentance. Now, we find that Edgerton pursued his object until he was detected.”
I shook my head.