I persevered in it like one. I yielded all opportunities for the

meeting of the parties--all opportunities which, in yielding, did

not expose me to the suspicion of having any sinister object. If,

for example, I found, or could conjecture, that William Edgerton

was likely to be at my house this or that evening, I studiously

intimated, beforehand, some necessity for being myself absent. This

carried me frequently from home--lone, wandering, vexing myself with

the most hideous conjectures, the most self-torturing apprehensions.

I sped away, obviously, into the city-to alleged meetings with friends

or clients--or on some pretence or other which seemed ordinary and

natural But my course was to return, and, under cover of night, to

prowl, around my own premises, like some guilty ghost, doomed to

haunt the scene of former happiness, in its wantonness rendered

a scene of ever-during misery. Certainly, no guilty ghost ever

suffered in his penal tortures a torture worse than mine at these

humiliating moments. It was torture enough to me that I was sensible

of all the unhappy meanness of my conduct. On this head, though I

strove to excuse myself on the score of a supposed necessity, I

could not deceive myself--not--not for the smallest moment.

Weeks passed in this manner--weeks to me of misery--of annoyance

and secret suffering to my wife. In this time, my espionage resulted

in nothing but what has been already shown--in what was already

sufficiently obvious to me. William Edgerton continued his insane

attentions: he sought my dwelling with studious perseverance--sought

it particularly at those periods when he fancied I was absent--when he

knew it--though such were not his exclusive periods of visitation.

He came at times when I was at home. His passion for my wife

was sufficiently evident to me, though her deportment was such as

to persuade mo that she did not see it. All that I beheld of her

conduct was irreproachable. There was a singular and sweet dignity

in her air and manner, when they were together, that seemed one of

the most insuperable barriers to any rash or presumptuous approach.

While there was no constraint about her carriage, there was no

familiarity--nothing to encourage or invite familiarity. While she

answered freely, responding to all the needs of a suggested subject,

she herself never seemed to broach one; and, after hours of nightly

watch, which ran through a period of weeks, in which I strove at

the shameful occupation of the espial, I was compelled to admit

that all her part was as purely unexceptionable as the most jealous

husband could have wished it.

But not so with the conduct of William Edgerton. His attentions

were increasing. His passion was assuming some of the forms of that

delirium to which, under encouragement, it is usually driven in

the end. He now passionately watched my wife's countenance, and

no longer averted his glance when it suddenly encountered hers.

His eyes, naturally tender in expression, now assumed a look

of irrepressible ardency, from which, I now fancied--pleased to

fancy--that hers recoiled! He would linger long in silence, silently

watching her, and seemingly unconscious, the while, equally of his

scrutiny and his silence. At such times, I could perceive that Julia

would turn aside, or her own eyes would be marked by an expression

of the coldest vacancy, which, but for other circumstances, or in

any other condition of my mind, would have seemed to me conclusive

of her indignation or dislike. But, when such became my thought,

it was soon expelled by some suggestion from the busy devil of my

imagination:-"They may well put on this appearance now; but are such their looks

when they meet, sometimes for a whole morning, in the painting-room?"

Even here, the fiend was silenced by a fact which was revealed to

me in one of my nocturnal watches.




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