“Ah, but there is something, Edward. Speak! what is it, dear husband? I see it in your eyes, your looks! Why do you turn from me? Look on me! tell me! You are very pale, and your eyes are so wild, so strange! You are sick, dear Edward; you are surely sick: tell me, what has happened?”
Wild and hurried as they were, never did tones of more touching sweetness fall from any lips. They unmanned—nay, I use the wrong word—they MANNED me for the time. They brought me back to my senses, to a conviction of her truth, to a momentary conviction of my own folly. My words fell from me without effort—few, hurried, husky—but it was a sudden heartgush, which was unrestrainable.
“Ask me not, Julia-ask me nothing; but love me, only love me, and all will be well—all is well.”
“Do I not—ah! do I not love you, Edward?”
“I believe you—God be praised, I DO believe you!”
“Oh, surely, Edward, you never doubted this.”
“No, no!—never!”
Such was the fervent ejaculation of my lips; such, in spite of its seeming inconsistency, was the real belief within my soul. What was it, then, that I did doubt? wherefore, then, the misery, the suspense, the suspicion, which grew and gathered, corroding in my heart, the parent of a thousand unnamed anxieties? It will be difficult to answer. The heart of man is one of those strange creations, so various in its moods, so infinite in its ramifications, so subtle and sudden in its transitions, as to defy investigation as certainly as it refuses remedy and relief. It is enough to say that, with one schooled as mine had been, injuriously, and with injustice, there is little certainty in any of its movements. It becomes habitually capricious, feeds upon passions intensely, without seeming detriment; and, after a season, prefers the unwholesome nutriment which it has made vital, to those purer natural sources of strength and succor, without which, though it may still enjoy life, it can never know happiness.