“Julia Clifford.”
“Postscript.—I had closed this letter yesterday, thinking to send it to your office in the afternoon. I had hoped that there would be nothing more;—but last night, this madman—for such I must believe him to be—committed another outrage upon my person! He has a second time seized me in his arms and endeavored to grasp me in his embrace. O husband!—why, why do you thus expose me? Do you indeed love me? I sometimes tremble with a fear lest you do not. But I dare not think so. Yet, if you do, why am I thus exposed—thus deserted—thus left to a companionship which is equally loathsome to me and dishonoring to you? I implore you to open your eyes—to believe me, and discard this false friend from your dwelling and your confidence. But, oh, be merciful, dear husband! Strike no sudden blow! Send him forth with scorn but remember his feebleness, his family, and spare his life. I send this by Emma. Let no one see the letters of my mother but burn them instantly.
“Your own Julia.”
And this was the writing which had employed her time for days before the sad catastrophe! And it was for this reason that she asked, with so much earnestness, if I had been to my office on the day when I drove Edgerton out into the woods for the adjustment of our issue? No wonder that she was anxious at that moment. How much depended upon that simple and ordinary proceeding. Had I but gone that day to my office as usual!......
There were no longer doubts. There could be none. There was now no mystery. It was all clear. The most ambiguous portions of her conduct had been as easily and simply explained as the rest. But it availed nothing! The blow had fallen. I was an accursed man—truly accursed, and miserably desolate.
I still sat, stolid, seemingly, as the insensible chair which sustained me, when Kingsley came in. He took the papers from my unresisting hands. He read them in silence. I heard but one sentence from his lips, and it came from them unconsciously:—
“Poor, poor girl!”
I looked round and started to my feet. The tears were on on manly checks. I hatched none. My eyes were dry! The fountains of tears seemed shut up, arid and dusty.
“I must make atonement!” I exclaimed. “I must deliver myself up to justice!”
“This is madness,” said he, seizing my arm as I was about to leave the room.